A behind-the-scenes look at making a documentary – and how to approach crafting your own.
Documentarian and cinematographer Mark Bone has a series of videos about making documentaries. Based on his own experience working on docs of his own and for others, Mark offers insights into approaches to planning and storytelling in a documentary:
Pre-Production
- Find and simplify your theme
- Determine structure – premise > inciting incident > rising action > climax > resolution
- Establish your character
Planning and clear vision is everything, as you can see in the pitch package for Rescate Ambar, one of Mark’s documentaries:
Post-Production
Contrary to what one might expect, Mark doesn’t go into a shoot hoping to miraculously discover the look and feel of his story – instead, he plans backwards from the edit:
Production
- Location Scout
- Pre-Interview
- Get Feedback
Mark also invites you behind-the-scenes of documentary film-making…
… and imparts some tips:
- Shooting interviews – cover the Who, What, When, and Where
- Plan your scenes
- don’t just get the cool shots; “create an environment… where they can live some life”
- plan 70% of your day / leave 30% for spontaneity
- Pre-production
- do your own visual research
- share reference images with your collaborators: “take away the guessing [for] your team“
- Choosing your crew
- experience not just with film-making, but with the people, or the subject matter
- consulting them on, or even deferring to, their expertise
- Audio
- Know where the sun will be
Mark even applies his human-story-telling focus to his commercial work – and his approach is full of tips relevant to narrative work, particularly with minimal gear and personnel (including the fantastic idea of scheduling time for “freestyle” shooting)…
… as well as the effectiveness of having a minimal, but solid plan (and bonus, this one includes the final product at the end):
For more from Mark Bone, dive into his full playlist, Documentary / Directing Tips:
Further Viewing
In Depth Cine takes a break from his usual cinematography breakdowns to cover the process of a documentary in which he was involved:
Film-maker Danny Gevirtz highlights the overlap in his approach to his documentary work, with his music video and solo narrative work:
More on visual research in pre-production: