writing documentaries power point

8/2/2019 Writing Documentaries Power Point

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"Words are sacred... If you get

the right ones in the right

order you can nudge theworld a little."

TOM STOPPARD


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The storyThe story

The charactersThe characters

The messageThe message

Main scenesMain scenes

Director TreatmentDirector Treatment

StructureStructure

ModeMode

Target AudienceTarget Audience-- producer motivationproducer motivationAccessAccess

Back ground ResearchBack ground Research

Proposal stageProposal stage


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Why you? What are your strengths?

Write the story not the information

Think opening shot, and what is the filmabout, not what is the plot.

Hook the reader with innovative writing thatfits the mood of the production and keepthem wanting more with each line , each

paragraph Write a one pager


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Why tell stories Why do we tell stories ?

Hollywood Genres appear to question therampant capitalism and offer pure romance,the moral spy, the gladiator who conquers theemperor, the spiritual leader over the dark

forces of power. In Hollywood romance Truelove is seen to transcend market dynamics inorder to embrace trust and a kind ofcommercial free activity that is actually notencouraged or mirrored in the real world!


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The power of story All stories help to evaluate ourselves in theworld, to seek a certain kind of self referenceto what we see on the screen. We compare

and contrast ourselves to what we see onscreen and sometimes we change. Mostoften instead of challenging the status quo webelieve in true love, we believe that the poorand those of moral virtue will inherit the earthif only they work hard enough or have a robotor a space ship or a fast motorcycle or specialpowers at hand. We believe in the americandream DO YOU ?


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Decide on the form to tell your story

Poetic?

Talking heads? Asking questions - getting

answers? Personal film ?

Presenter led film?

Artistic quality ? How to represent that

Information these day from GOOGLE - doesthis mean film has another purpose?


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The twist

What is your new TWIST: not always anew story!

How are you mixing artistic view,

intellectual challenge and entertainment African content is currently in short

supply

What is shrinking is leisure time andaudience attention time - in europeteenagers struggle to attend to onething for longer than 1.5 mins!


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ModeThe expository mode

GOD Speaking on behalf of someone

The observational mode

INVISIBLE Non intervention of the filmmaker, we look and overhearsocial actors

The Interactive mode YOU AND ME Monologue and dialogue dominate (interview)

The reflexive mode

ME & THE CAMERA The process of filmaking is in focus - the how offilmmaking is seen in the film, The Reflexive doc may use cinematic

conventions only to disrupt them

The poetic mode

ASSOCIATIONS

The performative mode

ME


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Structure Chronological

Conflict and solution - reaching a goal dealing

with obstacles. Revealing Character - Character going through change -

Episodic narrative structure - situations addup to a sum that is more than the parts

Discursive - facts , logic, interviews build thestory

Poetic narrative - poetic associations of wordand picture


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Find a way to tell a story your own way,

be innovative. Find YOURSELF, donttry to be like other people.

Practice telling the story until you get itto sound fascinating and exciting ANDintriguing

You might be the talent that everyone islooking for!

No one knows what they want until theyhave it.


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Documentary structure Simply stated, a story chronicles the efforts of

the main character to achieve his or herhearts desire in the face of opposition.Screenwriters understand that defining theheros quest is the foremost dramatic

requirement of a three-act structure. Act Onesets up the protagonists desire (boy meetsgirl), Act Two presents obstacles that thwartthe goal (boy loses girl), and in the final act,

the climax reveals whether or not theprotagonist achieves his hearts desire (boywins girl forever after).


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Act 1Launching the Story

The function of Act One is to establish theworld of the film, introduce us to thecharacters, and launch the protagonistsquest. In a two-hour dramatic film, Act One(also called the set-up) runs about thirtyminutes, or a quarter of the film. Whatever thelength of your documentary at the start of theact, the audience is introduced to the films

setting and characters. A protagonistemerges at the catalyst or inciting incident,when an external event upsets the maincharacters world.


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This mandatory structural device kicksoff the real story, as the protagonistbegins his quest to restore equilibriumto his life. For example, in the actionmovie Jaws (1975), a woman is killed

by a shark, and the town sheriff findsher decaying body. This horrificdiscovery is the inciting incident, orcatalyst, because it begins the sheriffs

quest to kill the shark and therebyrestore tranquility to the terrorized resorttown.


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Inciting incident continued..

The inciting incident plays such a criticalfunction in the overall story structure thatHollywood screenwriters follow a rule: theinciting incident must be visually depicted on

screen, preferably in present story time. Inother words, the story should not be launchedthrough exposition (boring) or backstory (tooremoved). This imperative presents a major

problem for documentary filmmakersconstructing a narrative arc.


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Frequently, by the time a documentary

filmmaker gets interested in a film, theinciting incident has already happened.

Equally problematic, this rousing scenewas probably not caught on film.

Sometimes filmmakers get lucky.


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Sometimes filmmakers set out to film one

story, and a more powerful story unfolds in

front of the camera.

In The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

(2003), Irish filmmakers Kim Bartley andDonnacha OBriain intended to profile

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

Suddenly they found themselves in the midst

of a coup. They caught the upheaval oncamera and it became a visually riveting

catalyst for a very different film.


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creating inciting incidents

Shaping archival or news footage into aninciting incident is another solution.

If a documentary filmmaker does not havefootage of the actual inciting incident, how

does she bring it to life on screen?

A common solution is to comb throughinterviews for a sound-bite that reconstructsthe inciting incident. Sometimes even a

periphery character can recall a particularmoment that will change the lives of all thecharacters forever.


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If an interviewee is going to relate the catalystevent, the filmmaker should choose an

exceptionally charismatic storyteller. Remember, this is the moment the story is

supposed to take off. If a lackluster soundbitecant fuel the launch, you may need booster

material: narration, location footage,reenactments, animation, etc.

Whereas a screenwriter can start the storywith a single inciting scene, the non-fiction

storyteller must often construct an incitingsequence. As long as the sequence gets thestory off the ground, its fine to employ a slowburn rather than pyrotechnics.


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Central dramatic question The inciting incident gives rise to the

protagonists quest-alternately called theheros journey or object of desire-as wellas formulating the films central question. Will

Romeo and Juliet stay together? Will thesheriff kill the shark? Will the Jordan familysave their farm? The central question isalways some variation of the question, Will

the protagonist reach his goal? After a longperiod of struggle in act two, this centralquestion is finally answered for better orworse in act three, at or just following thefilms climax.


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Like narrative films, documentaries are at

their best when the protagonists object of

desire and the movies central question areconcrete and specific.

In The Times of Harvey Milk (1984), the

protagonist wants equality for gay people, buthis quest is drawn into dramatic focus by his

bid to get elected to the San Francisco Board

of Supervisors. In Spellbound (2002), the

central question that causes the viewer tohold his breath every time a child spells out a

word is very specific: which child will win the

national spelling bee contest?


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In Act Two, the protagonist encounters

obstacles as she pursues her goal. The

biggest challenge in Act Two is sustainingmomentum. Since Act Two is the longest act

(a little more than half the film), it is

imperative to ratchet up the conflict.

A screenwriter can plot progressive

complications without being constrained by

journalistic ethics, but what can a

documentary filmmaker do if the actualchronology of conflict ebbs and flows rather

than steadily escalates? How can the

filmmaker ramp up the opposition to the

protagonist while staying true to the facts?


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One solution is to shuffle the order ofevents, recognizing that a chronicledoes not have to unfold chronologicallyto be true. For example, an editor canbegin act two chronologically and thenreveal a crisis that happened yearsearlier.

The backstory is placed where itprovides maximum impact, raising the

stakes for the protagonist andcontributing to an escalating sense ofcrisis.


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The reversal Another way to deal with the mandate of

escalating suspense is to allow the

protagonist a taste of success, or arespite from the fray, just before a

particularly stormy turn of events.


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The midpointIn a two-hour feature film, the second act willtypically last 60-70 minutes. This vast stretch

of progressive complications, also known asdevelopment, lacks the guiding mandates ofact one (set up, inciting incident, defining ofthe central question).

as a result, many screenwriters attempt togain their bearings with the help of aguidepost halfway through the long act calledthe midpoint.


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Midpoint cont..

The midpoint is a crisis, often of life and

death proportions, that provides the

second act with both momentum anddirection.

In character-driven films, the midpoint

may spell hazard to a characters oldway of being, or to the life of a

relationship.


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Act 3

Whatever form the denouement takes, itshould not drag on. Ambitious attempts tospell out the films meaning, or the influx ofnew conflicts that require a bumpy double

climax, can fatally flaw a film. Audiences want one ending, not two. And

they appreciate a denouement that will letthem exit the theater with enough energy to

ponder the storys meaning in their owncompany, not the directors.

.


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Audiences today bank on the promise

that non-fiction cinema will thrill themwith the heros call to adventure-bringing them into a real world theyhave never visited before-and then

safely guiding them through theobstacles, reversals and climaxes of ameaningful story. And whilescreenwriters no longer have a lock on

what a good narrative will be, they canstill offer invaluable structural guidanceto todays emerging documentarystorytellers


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verit While casting the right characters is critical in

a documentary, many seasoned filmmakers

wont undertake a film featuring even the

most colorful cast unless they foresee that at

least one characters quest will provide thefilm with a narrative spine.

In an historical documentary, this is relatively

doable with the advantage of hindsight. Butthe dramatic arc of a verite film, in which life

is recorded as it unfolds, is understandably

difficult to predict.


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Verit cont..

At a minimum, commissioning editors

and foundations require that a treatment

for a verite film describe the

protagonists quest, articulate the

central question, and then envisage the

conflicts the protagonist will face during

the course of the production schedule.


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Shooting script

Breakdown in scenesBreakdown in scenes CharactersCharacters

StoryStory

MessageMessage

StructureStructure

ModeMode

Target AudienceTarget Audience

AccessAccess

InterviewsInterviews

Voice oversVoice overs

Archive materialArchive material


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Each act in the classic three-act structure

concludes with a climax, an emotionallycharged plot point that takes the story in anew direction and makes necessary theensuing events.

Exceptions to the rules

Sometimes, the first act climax IS the inciting

incident.


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The weeping camel

For example, in the Oscar-nominated filmThe Story of the Weeping Camel, the firsttwenty minutes of the 88-minute film

introduce us to a family of herders in the GobiDesert. The real story begins a quarter wayinto the film (the textbook length for the firstact) when the herders help deliver a babycamel-only to discover the mother will have

nothing to do it. The films narrative arcanswers the question: can the mother camelbe persuaded to nurse her offspring and keepit alive?


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Funding pilots http://www.idfa.nl/industry/markets-

funding/vrijman-fund/other-funds-

resources.aspx http://blog.starwreck.com/2011/04/01/the-race-for-three-hunderd-thousand-euros-begins/

http://www.internationalmovietrailerfestival.com/trailers-2011/

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