Open City Docs Fest - Home. Sheffield Doc/Fest: HOME. 4docs. Planning a Documentary Film: Tips & Tricks on How to Plan for a Documentary Film. How to Make a Documentary - Part 1. Few other communication forms have the power to reveal a unique perspective, capture imagination and even motivate change. In this three-part series on how to make a documentary, you'll discover how you can move your story from dream to distribution.
Walk onto the working set of any television production studio and almost every person on the crew has a documentary they are just posting, getting ready to shoot, or trying to fund. Why? Because everyone from the Director of Photography to the Key Grip has a story to tell, they feel compelled to share their stories with a larger audience. True, the percentage of would be documentary filmmakers is potentially greater within the film/television community than among antique car salesmen, but there are many people from all walks of life who want to share their story or a significant piece of history through documentary filmmaking. Is Your Story Compelling? Tell Me a Story What's your story?
Putting it Together, Bit by Bit Dramatic Structure. .: Planning a documentary, part 1. This weekend I thought it would be best to discuss planning a documentary shoot. We shot part 2 of "Stronger" about a month ago now and I'm logging and transcribing nearly 400GB of footage. It's a daunting task, but I'll discuss the value of that in the next blog post. First, here's my personal checklist for just about any documentary shoot. A shot list. I discuss this with my B-camera operator and direct them to what I want, so I can maintain a consistent style that can be edited together. Even with cinema verite there has to be a vision. Documentary Making 101. Planning an Unscripted Documentary. By Tony Levelle How do you make a documentary when you have no script?
I was faced with this problem when I shot my first unscripted documentary for a class in documentary filmmaking. We had the assignment of making an 8-12 minute unscripted documentary. I started by visiting a friend's farm and shooting some footage. Unfortunately I had a day job, and no time to log, much less edit all of it. It was clear to me that I needed a better way to go about making an unscripted documentary. My videographer, Peter, and I chose to spend our first day of shooting in the schoolyard of an alternative school. Peter waded into a group of twenty nursery school students. I didn't need to tell Peter what to shoot. As Peter came closer, the camera microphone picked up the little boy's words, "John splashed paint in my ear.
" The teacher asked, "Did you tell him you didn't like it? " The camera microphone picked up his voice as he announced, with determination, "John! Getting started Begin with an overview.