Collection Documentary Advice

[underground235]

I am starting to make a collection documentary (by that i mean collecting footage for a long time) about my classmates who's families escaped from war-torn countries, i want to make a collection of interviews regarding their past, their present and future lives and stories. I am interested in advice in organisation; as this is quite a large project there are certainly specific methods of organisation required so that I will be able to handle the whole thing, second are the interviews, apart from the sensitivity of the subject are there any tips on what to do when interviewing people, atmosphere, background etc. Any advice you can think of would be helpful,

thanks in advance,

 

[Visual Typist]

The process of creating a documentary is quite involved at some points, especially when you're dealing with emotional issues like the ones you mentioned.

I've never worked on a Documentary myself (narrative shorts are my focus at the moment) but I'm taking a Documentary class at school and have found the book Documentary Storytelling to be filled with a lot of useful information for the beginning documentarian. You can pick it up for about $20.

 

[Archie]

Get the interview subjects to tell you the story a couple of times--once looking at camera, once looking at momentos/old photos, etc. and again while doing something else (walking, gardening, playing with the dog). Collect as many family photos etc. as you can. Shoot the interview subject as b-roll, ie doing something unrelated to the story of their escape.

Then hire a footage researcher to get you news footage of the war, the country, etc. Then watch the news footage, and write your script.

Pictures tell the story, and when you don't have the interviewee telling something, that's when you can use VO.

 

[underground235]

thanks a lot