How to Make a Documentary
Find a captivating, accessible subject., Do as much outside research as you can., Decide on an "angle" for your documentary., Get a camera, several microphones, and a few lights., Write out a shooting script for your documentary., Draft a budget and...
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Find a captivating
Documentaries are films about real-life subjects, bringing together interviews, documents, footage, and narration to tell the story of a person, place, or event.
Is there a story you believe needs to be told? Is there an interesting person in your area with a captivating tale? Since documentaries are grounded in fact, you need to choose a subject that you can get information and interviews on easily.
Thus, a filmmaker with limited means will have a hard time filming a documentary about the Revolution in Syria, even though is is a captivating subject.
Keep your subject small
-- the best documentaries delve deeply into one topic instead of trying to cover many topics briefly.
What sorts of documentaries do you enjoy watching? What sorts of subjects are captivating to you.
There is very little that can't be examined closely, including people, cultures, and events:
The Fog of War, one of the decade's biggest documentaries, is almost completely filled up by an interview with one man, ex-Secretary of State Robert McNamara.
Happy People by famed documentary Werner Herzog explores the daily life of Siberian fur hunters throughout the course of one, "normal" year.
Inequality for All is an accessible but comprehensive look at the 2007 financial crisis as narrated by UC Berkeley Professor Robert Reich.
Supersize Me was shot with one man and one camera, asking what would happen if you ate McDonalds for every meal for a month. -
Step 2: accessible subject.
Before you pick up a camera, you need to be as much of an expert as humanly possible.
Conduct some early interviews for practice and send informal emails asking for advice to relevant professors, spokespeople, or friends of your subject.
Go to the library and read as much as you can about your subject.
This will help you ask good, informed questions and find the most interesting bits of the story to explore.
Keep a notebook with all your notes in it and make sure you list your sources so that they can be accurately cited in the credits.
Look at both sides of divisive issues, not just the one you agree with the most.
You need to understand everyone's opinions to interview well.
Research everything you can when you start out
-- your subjects, people you want to interview, the historical background of your site.
There are a lot of facts that, when brought together, can tell a story no one has ever heard.
Watch a lot of documentaries, especially those related to your subject.
What do they do well? What can you do better? Who do they talk to? , The angle is the way you want to take the story.
Who do you want to interview? What do you want to focus on? It is impossible to say everything about a subject in a few hours of film.
You need to think about where you focus is going to be as you start filming.
This will help you develop questions, write out a script, and choose how to spend your money when you start filming.
This angle may change as you start interviewing people.
The documentary Queen of Versailles, for example, was originally about one woman's daily life.
But when financial ruin suddenly hit the main "character," filmmaker Lauren Greenfield shifted her angle to focus on the effects of the financial crisis on the billionaire class., The needs of every documentary are different.
Though a huge nature chronicle, like Planet Earth, requires helicopters, HD cameras, and thousands of crew members, smaller shoots like Marwencol can get by with one decent camera and several lapel microphones.
When in doubt, spend your money on a microphone
-- audiences will notice bad sound much faster than bad video.Lapel mics are small microphones that attach to a shirt or collar and are needed for interviews.
Clamp lights, which are $5-$10 at most hardware stores, are versatile and cheap alternatives professional lights used on many low-budget projects.
If you can afford a 3 or 5 piece lighting kit, however, get one.
Be inventive getting your equipment.
The doc My Date with Drew was shot for almost nothing on a camera from Circuit City that the director returned after 30 days to get his money back., This may change, but it is still essential to help you plan out your shoot and spend your budget wisely.
Even if you don't want to use a narrator, write out the story as if you are talking through it.
While there are a lot of ways to structure a story, you should always remember that a documentary is a film.
It is not a lecture, a lesson, or a commercial.
Thus, it needs to be entertaining.
Think of your documentary in three parts, then find the interviews, clips, or facts that are needed to make each part successful:
Act 1
-- The Problem.
Why is this documentary important? What is compelling, interesting, or unique about your subject? What history, facts, or backstory is essential to your documentary? Act 2
-- The Obstacles:
What is getting in the way of success/happiness/resolution.
What conflicts or issues have evolved because of The Problem? Is your subject changing, and how does that affect the world around them? Why does this problem exist, and is anyone trying to fix it? Act 3
-- The Resolution:
Does the problem resolve? Is it possible to resolve? What can the audience, narrator, hero, or subject do in the future? How have the subject(s) changed since the beginning of the documentary?, Once you know where you need to go, who you need to interview, and how long you have to shoot, it is time to make a plan of action.
Contact the people you want to interview and schedule a time that works well for them.
Once you know your interviews, budget out the cost of each interview accordingly (any crew members, rental of lights/camera, etc.) and figure out how much money you need and how long you have to shoot.
Set aside money to buy music and film rights.Shooting recreations, where you get actors to act out historical events, gets expensive quickly.
You should expect to drop $5,000 or more for a weekend of shooting, especially if you're paying actors and/or need to rent equipment.
Remember, you need to provide some food, work lights, pay actors/crew, and more.
Apply to local grants, ask relatives or friends if they want to help finance the movie, or find ways to shoot your movie on a smaller budget.
Documentaries rarely win back the money cost to shoot them.
You need to shoot this because you want to, not because you think it will get you rich., You can film the entire documentary yourself, but it will be slow, difficult, and often amateurish.
Enlist your friends to help run cameras and lights as you interview people so that you can focus on asking good questions.
Head to Craiglist and ask local filmmakers if they want to help work.
However, you should always be upfront and honest in your posting
-- if you can't afford to pay someone, say so.
There are still a of students who just want film experience.
Some positions to consider hiring include:
Cameramen Lighting Specialists Researchers Film Editors Actors (for scripted sequences/recreations) -
Step 3: Do as much outside research as you can.
-
Step 4: Decide on an "angle" for your documentary.
-
Step 5: Get a camera
-
Step 6: several microphones
-
Step 7: and a few lights.
-
Step 8: Write out a shooting script for your documentary.
-
Step 9: Draft a budget and shooting schedule.
-
Step 10: Put together your crew.
Detailed Guide
Documentaries are films about real-life subjects, bringing together interviews, documents, footage, and narration to tell the story of a person, place, or event.
Is there a story you believe needs to be told? Is there an interesting person in your area with a captivating tale? Since documentaries are grounded in fact, you need to choose a subject that you can get information and interviews on easily.
Thus, a filmmaker with limited means will have a hard time filming a documentary about the Revolution in Syria, even though is is a captivating subject.
Keep your subject small
-- the best documentaries delve deeply into one topic instead of trying to cover many topics briefly.
What sorts of documentaries do you enjoy watching? What sorts of subjects are captivating to you.
There is very little that can't be examined closely, including people, cultures, and events:
The Fog of War, one of the decade's biggest documentaries, is almost completely filled up by an interview with one man, ex-Secretary of State Robert McNamara.
Happy People by famed documentary Werner Herzog explores the daily life of Siberian fur hunters throughout the course of one, "normal" year.
Inequality for All is an accessible but comprehensive look at the 2007 financial crisis as narrated by UC Berkeley Professor Robert Reich.
Supersize Me was shot with one man and one camera, asking what would happen if you ate McDonalds for every meal for a month.
Before you pick up a camera, you need to be as much of an expert as humanly possible.
Conduct some early interviews for practice and send informal emails asking for advice to relevant professors, spokespeople, or friends of your subject.
Go to the library and read as much as you can about your subject.
This will help you ask good, informed questions and find the most interesting bits of the story to explore.
Keep a notebook with all your notes in it and make sure you list your sources so that they can be accurately cited in the credits.
Look at both sides of divisive issues, not just the one you agree with the most.
You need to understand everyone's opinions to interview well.
Research everything you can when you start out
-- your subjects, people you want to interview, the historical background of your site.
There are a lot of facts that, when brought together, can tell a story no one has ever heard.
Watch a lot of documentaries, especially those related to your subject.
What do they do well? What can you do better? Who do they talk to? , The angle is the way you want to take the story.
Who do you want to interview? What do you want to focus on? It is impossible to say everything about a subject in a few hours of film.
You need to think about where you focus is going to be as you start filming.
This will help you develop questions, write out a script, and choose how to spend your money when you start filming.
This angle may change as you start interviewing people.
The documentary Queen of Versailles, for example, was originally about one woman's daily life.
But when financial ruin suddenly hit the main "character," filmmaker Lauren Greenfield shifted her angle to focus on the effects of the financial crisis on the billionaire class., The needs of every documentary are different.
Though a huge nature chronicle, like Planet Earth, requires helicopters, HD cameras, and thousands of crew members, smaller shoots like Marwencol can get by with one decent camera and several lapel microphones.
When in doubt, spend your money on a microphone
-- audiences will notice bad sound much faster than bad video.Lapel mics are small microphones that attach to a shirt or collar and are needed for interviews.
Clamp lights, which are $5-$10 at most hardware stores, are versatile and cheap alternatives professional lights used on many low-budget projects.
If you can afford a 3 or 5 piece lighting kit, however, get one.
Be inventive getting your equipment.
The doc My Date with Drew was shot for almost nothing on a camera from Circuit City that the director returned after 30 days to get his money back., This may change, but it is still essential to help you plan out your shoot and spend your budget wisely.
Even if you don't want to use a narrator, write out the story as if you are talking through it.
While there are a lot of ways to structure a story, you should always remember that a documentary is a film.
It is not a lecture, a lesson, or a commercial.
Thus, it needs to be entertaining.
Think of your documentary in three parts, then find the interviews, clips, or facts that are needed to make each part successful:
Act 1
-- The Problem.
Why is this documentary important? What is compelling, interesting, or unique about your subject? What history, facts, or backstory is essential to your documentary? Act 2
-- The Obstacles:
What is getting in the way of success/happiness/resolution.
What conflicts or issues have evolved because of The Problem? Is your subject changing, and how does that affect the world around them? Why does this problem exist, and is anyone trying to fix it? Act 3
-- The Resolution:
Does the problem resolve? Is it possible to resolve? What can the audience, narrator, hero, or subject do in the future? How have the subject(s) changed since the beginning of the documentary?, Once you know where you need to go, who you need to interview, and how long you have to shoot, it is time to make a plan of action.
Contact the people you want to interview and schedule a time that works well for them.
Once you know your interviews, budget out the cost of each interview accordingly (any crew members, rental of lights/camera, etc.) and figure out how much money you need and how long you have to shoot.
Set aside money to buy music and film rights.Shooting recreations, where you get actors to act out historical events, gets expensive quickly.
You should expect to drop $5,000 or more for a weekend of shooting, especially if you're paying actors and/or need to rent equipment.
Remember, you need to provide some food, work lights, pay actors/crew, and more.
Apply to local grants, ask relatives or friends if they want to help finance the movie, or find ways to shoot your movie on a smaller budget.
Documentaries rarely win back the money cost to shoot them.
You need to shoot this because you want to, not because you think it will get you rich., You can film the entire documentary yourself, but it will be slow, difficult, and often amateurish.
Enlist your friends to help run cameras and lights as you interview people so that you can focus on asking good questions.
Head to Craiglist and ask local filmmakers if they want to help work.
However, you should always be upfront and honest in your posting
-- if you can't afford to pay someone, say so.
There are still a of students who just want film experience.
Some positions to consider hiring include:
Cameramen Lighting Specialists Researchers Film Editors Actors (for scripted sequences/recreations)
About the Author
Lori James
A passionate writer with expertise in lifestyle topics. Loves sharing practical knowledge.
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