How To Write An Effective Documentary Script

one of the most controversial things that I talk about on this channel and especially on Tick Tock is scripting your documentary I find it hilarious because everybody always says the same exact thing if you're scripting your documentary then it's not a documentary it's reality TV but what you're not understanding is that almost every single documentary that you see has a script or at least a treatment now that's not every single documentary but the majority of them do that doesn't mean that you're feeding lines to your subjects or telling them exactly what to say however think of your documentary script like a guy it's supposed to be there to help you shape your story it's not a rule that you have to strictly abide by or to put words into your character's mouths having a documentary script believe it or not will help you save time money and allow you to overall be more efficient than if you were to just grab your camera run out your house and go film something and the only reason why I know this is because I've done that I went out and I followed people for weeks at a time and I got back to the editing room and I'm like yeah maybe 20 of this works the rest is all garbage the rest is useless So today we're going to talk about how to write an effective documentary script that actually helps you tell better stories and finish your films before we get into talking about writing a script there's a few very important things that you should do first number one is Define your story in one or two sentences the truth is if you can't do this then your story is too complicated let's take my docu-series along the goat for example this is a story about a gym that has become breeding ground for young and up-and-coming Fighters This series will follow them on their journey to become the greatest of all time simple two sentences that tells you exactly what this series is about if you can do that if you can sum up your story in just one or two sentences then that's a good indication that you have something that's digestible and easy to pitch the second thing that I always suggest is doing pre-interviews with your subjects this will allow you to get to know them and ask them questions questions about their life and their journey and what they're trying to accomplish my advice is to do this with as many characters in your documentary as possible that way you get to know them and their role in the overall Story Once you have all of this done now you're ready to start your script there's literally no way you're going to be able to predict the outcome of this documentary but the goal is to give your best guess as to where you think this story could go so coming back to my document series of all the goat I would start my script by introducing some of the characters and how their lives are intertwined with each other for your documentary maybe it's where the main character started their Journey or talking about their childhood or the Catalyst that got them to embark on this journey in the first place law the goat is a dreamer's story this is about Fighters putting it all on the line and sacrificing everything to obtain their dream it's important to think about the theme of your story what is the main human emotion that you're trying to Showcase and think about how you're going to write that into the First Act of your film once I have the main characters established and we've set the stage for the world that our audience is going to be in we then need to introduce the conflict [Music] and this could be where your character faces their biggest adversity for law the goat this could be an injury or maybe even one of the fighters losing and then you start to have your first problem in your story you might have a very obvious problem that you introduce or you might have to create this illusion for this adversity or exaggerate my suggestion is to figure out what your character's problem is or what you think it could be and how you think they would respond to this how would this problem affect them and remember we're writing a script based on what we think and how we perceive the situation is going to be and pan out but the truth is is that all of this has to be subject to change because they might not react the way you think they might encounter an entirely different problem than what you're writing and that's okay you just have to remember that these are the basic ideas that are going to take you through the different steps of this journey so try to remember that you have to be flexible [Music] now that we've introduced the conflict it's time for our character to start taking action how are they fighting back you need to highlight the showdown between your main character and their enemy or the emotion or whatever problem this whole thing has been leading up to they need to be able to go Toe to Toe and have this battle that's what you need to Showcase in this third Act is it a competition that's been something that we've been building up for or are they on the precipice of catching the criminal in your true crime documentary whatever it is that your character is up against they eventually have to go toe-to-toe and that needs to be written in your script and again it might change it might be something that you think is gonna happen and it might be something completely different but at least you know the story beats and how it's going to get there final thing that you script is the outcome of this battle and just as I said before you take your best guess of what you think is gonna happen and you play it out in your head now let's just say for example one of the fighters that I'm documenting I have in the ending that he wins but he actually loses well you have two options number one you flip the script and you still interview all the same people and instead of it being a happy ending it's more of an ending that's real and maybe left on a sad note or that could be the big adversity that you've been waiting for that you could actually follow up with and that's something that I've actually gone through and a great example of how you can be flexible in your storytelling and in your script writing and remember that everything that you're scripting everything that you're writing down could still be used you just have to frame it differently you have to be moldable and shapeable and flexible to tell this story what I like to do with the ending is come full circle with the theme of the story what is that Universal human emotion that you nod to in the end for me and law the goat a fighter winning or losing doesn't affect the fact that this is a dreamer story and sometimes dreams don't come true and if it does then it's a beautiful story but if it doesn't it's still a great story worth telling so try to ask yourself what is the emotion that you're trying to Showcase last week I put out a poll trying to figure out the kind of content that you guys are struggling with and by far the most requested content was storytelling and honestly I was pleasantly surprised because I really didn't think that this was something that you guys are interested in and I'm glad because this is by far the most important aspect of filmmaking is figuring out how to tell good Universal stories and I'm totally aware that this video might not get a ton of views and I'm fully aware that script writing and writing in general could be boring for your average filmmaker but it is a very important aspect of filmmaking and one that needs to be paid attention to I also asked you guys last week and I'm going to continue to ask you guys through the weeks ahead on my documentary videos what would you guys like to learn in a documentary course more than anything I want to know from you guys what are the things that you need to be able to tell better stories and finish your doc Americans and you know a lot of you guys on that pull put storytelling and I'm I'm very glad about that but if you guys can drop in the comments down below specific things that you would like in this documentary course I really want to know and I really want to add that and Implement that into this course and give you guys something of value that actually works specifically for you so I'd like to thank you guys for watching this video don't forget to like And subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and I'll catch you guys in the next one deuces foreign [Music]

Channel: Alex Zarfati

Views: 36,421

Keywords: documentary filmmaking, documentary filmmaking for beginners, how to tell a story, filmmaking tips, documentary filmmaking tips, documentary filmmaking camera, documentary filmmaking course, how to shoot a documentary

Id: qaxmM-3AC8s

Length: 7min 42sec (462 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023