How to Make a Documentary

You might have lots of ideas in your head, but you’ll know which one is worth pursuing when that idea leaves your head and goes down to your heart. It will literally take years to make this film, so when you say yes to something, make sure it really speaks to you.

Accumulate thousands of sources: photographs, newspapers, footage, internet articles, paintings, etchings, sketches, letters, journals, diaries, etc. Keep researching and investigating until your film is finished, because at any point you could find something that entirely changes your perspective or inspires a new chapter in your documentary.

Poorly written documentaries are like lessons that taste bad. The laws of storytelling also apply to documentaries. Create an arc with a beginning, middle, and end that is filled with details, not summaries. Saying, “By 1866, the Confederate amy’s supplies were almost gone” means nothing, but including a description of sloosh—a mixture of fried cornmeal and bacon fat that starving soldiers ate off their ramrods—makes that fact memorable and affecting.

Your narrator is one of the most important forces in your film, and hopefully one of the most invisible. Their voice should tell a story without shouting or sounding like an advertisement—they must speak with all of the importance of history but none of the ego.

They’ll lead to the most detailed of answers. For example, in the documentary Jazz, the question “What is jazz?” led Wynton Marsalis to reenact the entire Count Basie Orchestra. This could never have happened as truthfully if you’d asked, “Can you reenact what the Count Basie Orchestra was like?”

This might seem antithetical to filmmaking, as music is traditionally added once a film is done. Your music is one of your directors, and the emotion it evokes can help determine which images to use and the pace and rhythm of those scenes.

A “blind assembly” is a rougher-than-rough cut with only scratch narration, rough edits of your talking heads, no music, and—most importantly—no visuals. With only dialogue to focus on, you’ll find the shape of your story. You can add imagery on the next pass.

Of the thousands of photos you’ve researched, maybe 1 in 40 will make it into your documentary. To give them impact, hold on the photos or move the camera to convey the story. For example, a photo of a Civil War soldier might start by focusing on two revolvers, then tilting up to see the soldier wielding them is an angelic, baby-faced kid.

Your supplemental sounds will add life to your narrative. It’s not enough to add soldiers marching or cannons firing. Think about what you most want to hear and how many individual components make up that sound. For example, if you’re showing a house, do you include a dog barking and a screen door slamming, or do you also include cars passing, light traffic, and birds?

Once you have a rough cut, hold a screening followed by an energetic and complex discussion during which the people involved in your documentary can provide feedback. Use this feedback as you complete your edits.