How I make a Documentary by myself | DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING

[Music] so for the past year I've been making short documentaries all by myself I do the research to filming the editing and this is something that first I thought it would be just impossible for me to do without any help but as I got more experienced I start to understand what works for me and what makes the entire process easier [Music] so because I'm just stuck at home and I can't do any documentaries right now I thought this would be a great opportunity to share with you all the process from finding a subject until the final edit so this is how I make a documentary by myself [Music] let's then start with the first step research my goal in this channel is to share a new story every month or every six weeks so that means I'm constantly looking for new stories to approach and I do that in a variety of ways most of the times from traveling somewhere I ask my friends there if they know someone with an interesting story or I just search on the local newspaper or Instagram usually every major city has an Instagram account inspired on humans of New York so I just get there and start reading a variety of stories until something catches my eye other times I'm just curious on a specific topic so I google that topic with the name of the city I mean and I might find something this might sound obvious but here it's really important that I'm looking for something that I'm generally interested in I would be lying if I said I don't think about the audience at all but if I'm not interested in story there is really no point in doing it and I can't really stress this part enough if you're thinking about making a documentary it's extremely important that you're curious about it if you're in truly invested in it you'll be always looking for more answers asking more questions and as a result you will have a better story in the end and the subject feels that - if they see you're invested in them and you want to hear their story it will be much easier for them to open themselves to you overall this is a very time consuming part of the process sometimes I spend days or weeks looking for something and either I don't find any story or I just can't find a way of getting contact it's also at this point where I start asking myself what's the story what's the message I want to share and what's the goal with the film and this is very important to have in mind since the beginning because this will shape the direction of the rest of the process the idea might shift as the documentary evolves but it's always good to know what he want first and have a good foundation because it will make the rest of the process much easier for you and the subject so for example with Marcia story I wanted to deconstruct some stereotypes about parkour and I wanted to share what's really behind the sport all the hard work the community and the constant mental challenge the athletes go through and it's completely shaped the way I approach the documentary from the beginning and it made the planning and filming much easier for me after this if the person is interested in being part of it we schedule a pre-interview if possible I like to meet them in person but I feeling far away from each other I just a phone call and then we try to schedule a day afterwards where we meet here the most important thing for me is to connect to the subject it's usually quite tough to be vulnerable and just share your story with a complete stranger so I take some time and tell them a bit about me the project and what I hope to accomplish by sharing their story if the person doesn't trust you it will be really hard to move forward so I think it's a good opportunity to start build that relationship from the beginning here is also where we get into more details about their story and their daily lives and where I started taking some notes of things that I might want to approach in the future and where we discuss the possible direction of the documentary and after the pre-interview is my I start planning in this step I check the person's availability at plan journeys and I started thinking about the bureau I want to film when it comes to the b-roll I used to just get there and capture whatever happened in the moment but I've learned that it's much better to have an idea of things or scenes I might want to film beforehand so I make a small checklist this allows me to be more prepared instead of just being lost and confused in a moment now this doesn't mean I don't capture what happens in a moment it just means that I know clearly what I want in my mind and so my mind is more available for other things that might pop up now to prepare the interview I used to just write a list full of questions that I want to ask to the subject but for me that didn't really work I felt like I was just ticking boxes when I was there and I wasn't truly invested in the conversation with them and what I want for an interview is to be as natural as possible so what I do now is to make a small list of major questions or topics I want to ask them and then I'm completely flexible for any other interesting things that subject might have to tell I also do some location scouting where I ask the subjects about places that means something to them or I just look online for some interesting places to film and after everything is properly scheduled and planned we get to the most exciting part filming usually I spend three or four days filming with the subject when I started I used to film everything one day but I soon realize it wasn't enough to cover everything that I needed and to be honest I would actually prefer to have a full week with the subject but it's really hard to manage availability so three or four days it's the sweet spot for me to film everything without asking too much from the subject regarding the filming itself I always like to start through the interview this because it's the interview that delivers the story on my documentaries and it also gives me some extra ideas for the b-roll I always try to film the interview in a place that means something to the subject where they can feel comfortable without any distractions and the place that actually connects somehow with their personality and for the rest of the days I just feel the so called b-roll and I think here it's where I still have a lot to learn I might make a video about this topic in another time but for me biron on the documentary is much more than just good looking footage whenever I make a documentary my goal is to make a story visually engaging where every piece of footage actually gets people immersed in the story and makes them connect with subject but this is really hard at least for me it's something I'm still trying to understand and discover sometimes it's really easy to get into the slow motion cool looking footage but that's not the point here instead the main goal is to actually capture the story the emotions of the subject and their personality and I constantly need to remind myself of that when I'm filming I also usually like to film their daily life at home as I feel that it helps give me some context and add an extra layer to their personality and finally after the filming is done I start editing this step I always start by working on the interview first so I listen back the entire interview and start selecting the parts that I think are most important for the story usually the interviews are around one or two hours long and I try to condense all that info into less than 10 minutes for the final video so it's a very long process and it just requires a lot of patience here your challenge is to make sure that story will make sense for the viewer and I say this because I spend days with the subject and I listen to the interviewed countless of times but the audience doesn't and so as I'm editing I just need to make sure that the story is clear and the main is therefore the viewer that is watching the video for the first time and then after having cut the interview I start playing with the placement of the b-roll and narrative in order to make it an engaging story so I'm just gonna show you very quickly the project of my latest documentary so if we come here to the project so we can see here in yellow the interview already cut and placed in the timeline and once that is done I start looking for music and experimenting in order to bring vibe I want for the documentary and then on top I put two b-roll for the story to be as visually engaging as possible and then for the rest of it I have layer of color correction another of captions and underneath you can see just lots of sound effects and for me it's in the Edit where they actually documentary comes to life and I'm gonna be honest sometimes I have no idea how things will turn out until I finish this type imma have some great footage and ticked all the boxes of what I wanted to shoot but it's in the Edit for me that the story really unravels and it's a very subjective process I have like love-hate relationship with it first I really happy with it then I start to hating it and I really like it again somehow and then I hit it again and this keeps going until I'm finally happy with the end result it's a constant trial and error I think and I see this process as a problem-solving time where I'm constantly faced with challenges and play with things around until I get was satisfying and resolved and that's my process I just like the point that is it my way of doing things and still learning so if you make documentaries or any other types of films just let me know your process in the comments and I'll love to learn more about it I'll as you could see I didn't really talk about gear at all this because first of all I'm not an expert and second because that I believe that even though gear matters there are much more important things that will make a documentary - yes I did upgrade my gear since I first started but gear can only make me go so far the things that made me improve my composition and storytelling wasn't getting a better camera instead all the research planning and the connection ability the subject will have a much bigger impact on the final documentary and that's it thanks for watching I hope you enjoyed it and see you next video

Channel: EPOCH

Views: 125,847

Keywords: epoch documentaries, how i make a documentary by myself, how i make a documentary, how i make documentaries, how to make documentaries, how to make a documentary, documentary filmmaking, documentary filming, documentary tips, tips on how to make a documentary film, documentary, documentaries, filmmaking, how to create a documentary, how to documentary filmmaking, how to craft a documentary, making a documentary, how to make a documentary film, how to, how to film a documentary

Id: OZtum6FgoE8

Length: 11min 25sec (685 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 23 2020