Documentary Unit: Specialist Skills in Documentary Making

Specialist Skills in Documentary Making

Before I started our project I wanted to  look at what other suggested were important factors in being a good documentary filmmaker.

• The ability to keep yourself and your opinions out of the project.

This is important because unless you are trying to show a specific side of a story you always want to remain unbiased. I have seen documentaries that are saying they are unbiased but are so blatantly tainted by an opinion, it makes what they say have no meaning.

• Curiosity about the project. 

When you produce something that you have no interest in, it normally means that the project won't be good as you may only put minimal in. Luckily we had full control in what our project was, so we are really interested in what we are making.

• Being a good story teller.

 Making sure the story makes sense is a massive part of this project. It means the pre-filming planning is vital so that you know exactly what you are going to film. Three minds will be pushed together to make this project have a good story, one in reality we're creating ourselves.

• You have to shoot A LOT of footage.

In reality you will always feel you do not have enough, you'll always probably find certain clips could be improved. So that's why we want to make sure we get more than enough footage so that when it comes to editing, we have much more choices.

• Frame the shot in an interesting way.

Just because you may be in a rush, does not mean that you cannot make the shot look interesting. We will pre-plan so we will know when to be in certain places, but we know some circumstances may be out of our control so we may be behind schedule. But none the less we want every shot to be framed well.

• Get great info through interviews.

Interviews can piece the documentary together, it could be the difference between a good and bad documentary. We have 3 interviews planned and maybe more will come, we should be able to get interesting information to back up the points we found online.

Overall I found these tips interesting online. I think it will make us all think about how we go about this documentary and how we decide to film on the days planned.