Hey everyone. I'm very new to all this, and although I ultimately want to go into directing, I feel I want/need to start filming my own work as practice and to get experience using a camera before I go trying to direct someone elses work. Right now, since I have no actors, and I have no experience, I want to focus on documentary type filmmaking. I have a few decent ideas, but, my question is, does anyone have any tips on making a documentary flow? It seems when I play ideas out in my head, all I see is 15-20 minutes of clips played back to back using transition effects in an editing program. I'm having trouble taking an idea, and making it interesting, or making it flow together. Any tips?
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Tips on flow
- Thread starter TWISTEDII
- Start date
The majority of my limited experience with film making is with documentaries. Along with the ideas from Knightly and Yash29, make sure you have plenty of B Roll footage if possible. Fancy transitions are not neccessary with documentaries, but you want to cut to some other footage that pertains to the topic being discussed. No one wants to watch an interview for 20 minutes straight, even Dateline and Barbara Walters breaks it up with commercials. I tend to accumulate about 3 times the length of the interview and then break it down into short segments of video footage to cut to. To break it up even more, film yourself as the inteviewer if you want, but film yourself at another time and act as if you are responding to the interviewee. Most reactions you see from the interviewers on TV (head nods, agreements, etc) are done after the interview. You can also film yourself asking the questions, and then in Post piece it all together. Also, don't think you have to shoot the interview in order (unless you're doing a live interview). The beauty of editing is that you can film the last part of the interview first and piece it all together in the end. For example, if your subject is nervous about an interview, start with something he or she knows best and is comfortable with, this usually warms them up and they eventually forget about the camera rolling. You don't have to start with the interview with "tell me how this all started...." . My boss is extremely nervous on camera, so when I had to make a documentary, I let the camera run and simply had a conversation with him starting with him discussing his latest "great idea", being he was passionate about it, he talked freely and confidently about it and never looked at the camera once when we started talking, then I eased him into the direction I wanted to get at, such as how our organization all started- which was before he got here. I then edited out my voice in post so it looks like it's a continuous invterview and he was describing the organization and what we do.
The thing I found out that made the documentary interesting the most to outside viewers was quality of film (lighting, background, and video resolution) and sound. If you don't have clean sound, it will look very amatuerish and will tune people out- I learned this the hard way. A good documentary isn't soo much about the topic because well, that's your job to sell the topic and make it interesting, but even the most boring and monotone person can have a great interview if edited nicely. But, all of this is pointless if you don't have a plan or outline first- where will the interview will be conducted, what questions or topics are being discussed, how many angles and cuts are going to be used, will it be "over the shoulder" interview, or simply the subject; how are you going to use the lighting, how will the subject be angled....etc. Does your subject do well sitting for long periods of time and do they mind stopping the interviews for different cuts (if you only can afford one camera like me)
All these simple but crucial items need to be mapped out in advanced and discussed with the subject, it saves on time during the production and makes a much smoother workflow, and people will think you actually know what you're doing, I don't really know what I'm doing, but my subjects can't tell.
The thing I found out that made the documentary interesting the most to outside viewers was quality of film (lighting, background, and video resolution) and sound. If you don't have clean sound, it will look very amatuerish and will tune people out- I learned this the hard way. A good documentary isn't soo much about the topic because well, that's your job to sell the topic and make it interesting, but even the most boring and monotone person can have a great interview if edited nicely. But, all of this is pointless if you don't have a plan or outline first- where will the interview will be conducted, what questions or topics are being discussed, how many angles and cuts are going to be used, will it be "over the shoulder" interview, or simply the subject; how are you going to use the lighting, how will the subject be angled....etc. Does your subject do well sitting for long periods of time and do they mind stopping the interviews for different cuts (if you only can afford one camera like me)
All these simple but crucial items need to be mapped out in advanced and discussed with the subject, it saves on time during the production and makes a much smoother workflow, and people will think you actually know what you're doing, I don't really know what I'm doing, but my subjects can't tell.
If you're having this much trouble starting out, you should probably enroll in some courses/even online tutorials. or perhaps it just isn't for you. Maybe you're more of a story teller, not a filmmaker (which in a sense is a contradiction, so I should say not a VISUAL story teller). If there is one thing i've learned, the creativity and vision of filmmaking cannot be taught, just the technicalities. When someone attempts to learn the creativity aspect, their films are typically boring, full of cliches, and greatly lack originality. I think, based on what you're saying, you should look at different parts of the industry. The great thing about this industry is that for the most part you'll be able to find something to suit your strengths.