How to Plan a Documentary

Documentary films cover a wide variety of real-life subjects that are often overlooked or misunderstood. While creating a documentary takes a lot of time and effort, planning ahead will make the filming and post-production processes much easier. To plan your documentary, you’ll first need to select your topic and make sure that it’s viable for filming. Then, you can start planning what the content will be, and preparing for filming and production so you’ll have less stress and surprises once you begin.

[Edit]Steps

[Edit]Selecting Your Topic

1. Decide on the type of documentary you want to make. To select your topic and plan your documentary, it’s helpful to first decide whether you want to make a poetic or performative, expository, observational, or participatory documentary.^[1] Each of these different types of documentaries has a different focus and aim. Therefore, the way in which you’ll go about planning your documentary will depend on the type you want to make.
   
   • Poetic and performative documentaries focus on sharing and eliciting feelings and emotional responses rather than expose a perceived truth.
   • Expository documentaries aim to both inform and persuade the audience to adopt a particular point of view on the subject at hand.
   • Observational documentaries simply observe one or more aspects of the world.
   • Participatory documentaries include the filmmaker as a major part of the film. In some cases, your documentary may be both poetic, performative, or expository and participatory.
2. Choose a subject that you’re passionate about. The most important and difficult decision you’ll make while planning your documentary is what you want it to be about. While there may be several subjects you’re interested in learning more about, it’s important that you choose a subject that you’re genuinely passionate about. Planning and creating a documentary takes a lot of time, energy, and, in many cases, money, so it’s crucial that you really care about your subject so you don’t get burnt out.^[2]
   
   • To help you choose a subject, consider what questions you have about the world that, as far as you know, remain unanswered or largely unaddressed.^[3]
   • If you’re passionate about helping animals and you’ve always wanted to know how dog food is made and whether all brands are actually in compliance with pet health standards, chances are other people have wondered this as well.
3. Conduct preliminary research to determine if your subject is viable. In addition to being passionate about your subject, it’s also important that you determine if creating a documentary about your chosen subject is even possible. While you may initially have grand ideas for your documentary, upon researching a bit, you may find that not enough interviewees are alive, the necessary filming locations are unavailable or off-limits, or that the topic has already been covered extensively.^[4]
   
   • In most cases, a simple Google search on your chosen subject will help you find the information you need to determine if your subject is viable.
   • Reading books and talking to professionals and experts in related fields can also help you decide if making your documentary is feasible.
   • Contacting potential interviewees to see if they’re willing and able to participate will also help you assess if your project is viable.^[5]
4. Talk to others to assess if your subject is interesting and entertaining. Before moving forward with your topic, you may want to take a bit of time to talk to your friends, family, co-workers, or other documentary filmmakers to help you determine if your subject will be emotionally stimulating, intellectually interesting, and visually entertaining.^[6] While you may be passionate about your chosen subject, it’s also important that other people are as well.
   
   • If too few people express an interest in your topic, it’s possible that your potential audience pool will be too small for your documentary to gain any attention or traction.

[Edit]Planning the Content

1. Finalize your list of interviewees. If you plan to feature any human beings in your documentary, it’s likely that the content will largely be determined by the people you interview. Therefore, before planning any of the content of your documentary, contact all your potential interviewees to determine who is officially on board with the project.^[7]
   
   • When contacting your interviewees, it could be helpful to conduct a brief pre-interview to help you get an idea about what they plan to say. This will help you when you’re writing your script and creating your storyboard.
   • You may also want to ask your interviewees about their availability during filming so you can try to accommodate their schedules as much as possible.
2. Obtain signed consent forms from all interviewees. Once you’ve confirmed who you are going to interview, get each of the interviewees to sign a consent form and return it to you via email, mail, or in person so you’ll know their participation is almost guaranteed.^[8] You can create your own consent forms for interviewees to sign, or choose one of the thousands available online to download and print.
   
   • A simple Google search on “documentary consent form” will produce thousands of templates you can choose from.
   • If you make your own release form, make sure that you clearly indicate that you plan to include the footage in a film documentary. This will help you avoid any potential legal issues involving interviewees.
3. Choose your images, music, and existing video clips. In addition to creating new content once you start filming, you may also choose to include existing images, music, audio, and video files. To do this, consider what messages, feelings, and emotions you want each scene to convey, and search for images, music, and video clips that will help you achieve this. Deciding on these elements ahead of time will help you write your script, create your storyboard, and plan your budget.^[9]
   
   • Relevant music, news clips, clips from existing interviews, and photos of your subject, location, or interviewees, for example, can go a long way in helping you convey the messages you want in your documentary.
   • In many cases, you’ll need to obtain the rights to use images, music, and video clips, which can be expensive. There are, however, millions available for free that are in the public domain, provided royalty-free, or Creative Commons-licensed.
4. Write the script to help you organize your plans. Unlike a film or commercial, the script for a documentary is generally more of an outline or prediction. While you won’t know what will happen on film until you’re in production, writing your script will help you figure out what you want to include, who you want to interview and what you want to ask them, and where you want to film.^[10]
   
   • When writing your script, it can be helpful to create 3 columns on each page: one for your narration, one for the visuals, and one for the sound you plan to use. While all these elements may change as you film, this will allow you to start getting an idea about what the narrator will be talking about while a certain image is on the screen and a certain song is playing in the background.^[11]
   • Writing an outline of your script will also help you assess what your budget needs are, and what type of crew members you’ll need to hire to capture what you put in your script.^[12]
   • As you go through the planning process, it’s helpful to revisit your script and update it as needed to reflect any changes you’ve made.
5. Make a storyboard to supplement your script. A storyboard is a pictorial representation of the most important scenes from your script. To create a storyboard, use a large piece of paper or cardboard and draw vertical and horizontal lines to create your desired number of boxes on the page. Then, inside each box, draw out one major shot or scene from your script as you want them to unfold. Underneath each image, write the description of the scene that you wrote in your script.^[13]
   
   • Creating a storyboard will help you get a better understanding of what physical elements you want to include in your documentary, and how you want them to look while your filming.
   • You don’t need to be an artist to create a helpful storyboard. In fact, in most cases, stick figures and outlines are fine.

[Edit]Preparing for Filming and Production

1. Set a budget so you’ll have an idea about your expenses. To help plan your documentary, it’s crucial that you create a budget for your project so you can limit the costs of all the production elements as needed. Documentaries vary drastically in costs depending on the subject, locations, content, equipment, and crew size. Rather than get strapped with a bill you can’t afford at the end, budgeting ahead of time will help you move into filming and production while staying within your means.^[14]
   
   • A few things to consider when you’re creating your budget are equipment and studio fees, location permits, liability insurance, paying your crew, catering, props, post-production editing, copyright fees, marketing expenses, and distribution fees.
   • If you have or are trying to get investors or obtain a grant, you’ll likely need to present a budget in order to be considered for financing.
2. Create a projected timeline to help you plan your schedule. To create a projected production timeline, write down a list of your projected dates and deadlines for filming and production, including your start date, the dates of each interview, the dates you are filming at each location, and all the projected dates for post-production editing, marketing, and distribution. While there are likely going to be timing hiccups at several points throughout the process, creating a production timeline is a helpful way to keep your documentary on track as much as possible.^[15]
   
   • Having a timeline will help you stay on track and asses when you need to book locations and arrange for travel, schedule interviews, and hire your film and production crew.
   • When creating your timeline, it could be helpful to rank the elements of your documentary according to their importance and arrange your timeline around the most important ones. For example, if your documentary relies on the testimony of a crucial interviewee, arranging your timeline around the dates that work best for them makes sense.
3. Hire your crew members if you plan to have a production crew. While it’s possible to plan and create a documentary on your own, in most cases, you’ll need to hire a production crew to help you throughout the filming, editing, marketing, and distribution process. In addition to choosing crew members that understand your vision and have experience, it’s important that you refer to your budget and production timeline to make sure that each person’s fees and scheduling align with your plan.^[16]
   
   • Potential production crew members include a lighting technician, cameraman, sound and audio expert, editor, and marketing and distribution agent, to name a few.
4. Buy or rent all the equipment you’ll need for filming. Depending on who you’ve hired for your production crew, you may or may not need to obtain some or all the equipment needed for filming. If you plan to do a lot of the work yourself, getting a camera, microphone, lighting equipment, and editing software ahead of time gives you time to learn and get comfortable with your equipment so you’re ready to go once you start filming.^[17]
   
   • If you hired a full production crew, each crew member may have their own equipment, in which case you won’t need to buy or rent any and you can skip this step.
5. Start promoting your documentary to pique people’s interest. While you likely won’t have any clips filmed or fully developed promotional materials during the planning stages, it can still be helpful to start getting the word out about your upcoming project. Even if it’s a bit vague at this point, promoting your upcoming documentary early on will help you start building your audience.^[18]
   
   • Posting about your project on social media is a great way to start promoting your documentary without having to increase your budget.
   • Creating a blog where you can provide updates on your project’s progress is also a great way to get people interested in your documentary.

[Edit]References

 

1. ↑ https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/a-complete-guide-to-documentary-filmmaking/
2. ↑ https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/a-complete-guide-to-documentary-filmmaking/
3. ↑ https://pulitzercenter.org/builder/lesson/placing-identity-planning-documentary-filmmaking-project-25356
4. ↑ https://guides.library.georgetown.edu/documentary
5. ↑ https://guides.library.georgetown.edu/documentary
6. ↑ https://pulitzercenter.org/builder/lesson/placing-identity-planning-documentary-filmmaking-project-25356
7. ↑ https://www.sheffieldav.com/education/guide-filming-powerful-documentary
8. ↑ https://www.sheffieldav.com/education/guide-filming-powerful-documentary
9. ↑ https://guides.library.georgetown.edu/c.php?g=75854&p=491495
10. ↑ https://guides.library.georgetown.edu/documentary
11. ↑ https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/how-to-write-a-documentary-script/
12. ↑ https://www.sheffieldav.com/education/guide-filming-powerful-documentary
13. ↑ https://guides.library.georgetown.edu/documentary
14. ↑ https://www.sheffieldav.com/education/guide-filming-powerful-documentary
15. ↑ https://www.sheffieldav.com/education/guide-filming-powerful-documentary
16. ↑ https://www.sheffieldav.com/education/guide-filming-powerful-documentary
17. ↑ https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/a-complete-guide-to-documentary-filmmaking/
18. ↑ https://www.filmmakingstuff.com/12-tips-how-to-make-a-documentary/

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