If you’ve ever thought about creating your own documentary about something, there are a few things that you’re going to want to keep in mind as you prepare for the film in order to create something that you can be proud of and that will get across the message that you’re wanting. Especially if there’s a cause that you’re wanting to highlight with your documentary footage, like support for police officers or fighting for hungry families, you’ll have a much better response to your cause if your documentary looks great and tells the story well.
To help you in doing this, here are three tips for creating your own documentary for the first time.
Thoughtfully Structure The Story
The first thing you’ll need to figure out before you start filming anything for your documentary is how you want to structure the story.
With most documentaries, you’ll know what story you want to tell and then will be able to find people and shots that will help you in telling that story. But in other instances, you might just want to go where the story takes you. Either way, it’s wise to have some sort of plan out the gates. This should include how you plan to go about production, who you want to work with, what stories and people you want to highlight, what places you need to go, and more.
Make Use Of Voiceover
Unlike with other types of films, documentaries often need a voiceover element to help people understand just what’s going on. So when you’re planning out how to structure your story, make sure you include a voiceover as well.
With a voiceover, you can create a script that ties all of the disparate elements of your video footage together. You can further explain things that may not have been easy to pick up on just from the visuals and give background information that you may not have been able to get any first-hand video footage of. Using voiceover can help to enhance your documentary in all kinds of ways.
Get B-Roll Footage And A Wild Track
While you’re out getting the footage that you need to tell the story of your documentary, you’ll also want to get b-roll footage that you can use for things like transitions or to help set the scene.
Along with this backing visual footage, you’ll also want to record a wild track of the audio for every place that you’re filming. This way, when you go about editing your footage, you can have actual audio of the background noise from the place where you were shooting. This can help a lot in making the editing process more cohesive.
If you’re going to be making your first documentary soon, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you get everything ready.
Originally posted on January 31, 2024 @ 4:05 am