Creating a documentary – helpful ideas

Creating a documentary film, or any film for that matter requires alot of planning and organization. The key to creating a good film usually lies in your ability to tell a well thought out story. Documentary film making is no different.
There are some key steps in the planning process that will make the entire creation of the film easier, smoother, and will help ensure that you’ll end up with a film that makes sense.
I love all the brainstorming, the question ideas are great, and I’m trying to think what the best way to approach it is.
The first step in creating a film is to think of a central theme, or thesis, just like a research paper. What is the main question you’re trying to ask? What is the idea you’re trying to convey in the entirety of the film? A good idea would be to write a pitch. Basically it would be a 1-2 page summary of you’re film’s main idea and intention. Since this is seems like it would be sort of an exploratory documentary, it might be a good idea to focus the pitch on a single question, and elaborate your ideas around that question.  For example – Say the main question you’re trying to ask is “What do you live the way you live?”. State why you’re asking this question, what you’re hoping to find out from the research you’ll subsequently be doing through interviews. State why you think this is relevant, and why you think people would care. State why you think its important to for people to understand what other people’s motivations are, and how it could help viewers watching the film to discover, or understand something more about themselves. So basically, you get the idea, it’s to elaborate on a main question and eventually boil it down to a clean, concise idea for the film.
Once you’ve got an idea, the real planning for the actual shooting of the film begins. I’ll post more on that later.

Advertisement