The Four Ingredients of Documentary Film

hey indie filmmakers I'm Griffin Hammond I'm Nick bodemer this is our week off but we have a bonus episode for you yes one of the most common questions that I get Nick is it's it's a very broad question it's just like what advice do you have for documentary filmmaking I get that question a lot small question easy it's hard for me to answer vague questions like that but I understand where that kind of question comes from because it's I think people just want to know that they're not gonna make any mistakes they kind of want to know like what don't I know mm-hmm and so here's an example of one I got an email from Brandon who is about to shorter shoot shoot a short doc about his high school theatre group and he says he's been working on this he's been think about this idea for a long time he's finally able to do it so as a documentary filmmaker any tips before I start do you make it good making sure well one of the things I think about is just I think if people just understand the ingredients of documentary that can be really important like okay a SOT and b-roll and how these things all play together so I thought this week for a bonus episode I would just play a portion of the workshop that I taught at Illinois State University and just Greg will play the part about the ingredients of a documentary film so starting with just what goes into a documentary and I think this is important because any time someone asks me hey I'm going on the trip of a lifetime to Tokyo or something and I want to film some stuff what do I do I usually just tell them the things I learned at tv10 like shoot the elements that you would need for a news story or a documentary and you'll come home with the pieces you need to actually make something really exciting so I just want to take a look at a piece of video we'll watch one minute of a documentary I made called hand cut about ice in cocktails and I just want you to pay attention to what is happening what are you hearing what are you seeing what visual elements and audio elements are there so let's take a look at this [Music] Barton has changed we've stepped up our game we've gotten better with cures we make our own syrups why not better ice at the grain Blake Bora makes his ice blocks with a cooler in his bars freezer I do make it in-house it's a very small production and cuts them apart with an udon noodle knife so when I go out to shoot I actually I I enjoy shooting so much now and it's it almost feels like improv a little bit like I don't usually plan a shot list of what I want I like to just kind of go and see what makes me feel good behind the camera but if you had to write down like a shopping list for the things you need in a documentary what are some of the things you saw here like parts ingredients that you need to tell this kind of story anything you heard yeah like a lot of different shots yeah a lot of different angles in fact I mean you may notice from my style I like to pack a lot of visuals in so I'm not sure I even linger on a shot for longer than one second so there's a lot even in just that one minute what else do you see you're here yeah there was there was New York City noise for that time lapse there's music so that's another thing we're hearing what else yeah yet some semblance of like an interview yeah there was an interview in there we hear that person talking I'm just thinking about the variety shots you got external shots that are close wide medium and an interior sensitive close wagon he gave him a lot of visual brain did you throw yeah I think variety was a big thing I took away from your class like in any media that you create you should have a great variety to keep it interesting especially in a visual medium what else did you hear see yeah I think there were a few graphics like one of them I think said Blake Bora the bartender like a nametag there might have been a locator I can't remember you know I don't even do that so much anymore I feel like because I pack in a lot of visuals you can probably tell someone where the places without explicitly showing them the signage sometimes the sign outside a bar is pretty ugly and so I'd prefer not to yeah yes well and it's good that we're talking about variety of shots and different like close-ups and wide shots because I still remember from my TV 10 days is anytime you're on a tripod instead of making yourself move a lot just every time you set up get a wide shot medium shot close-up and you have three options in the Edit anything else you heard yeah yeah there's the sound of actual of the things you're seeing yeah anything else I feel like we've pretty much covered everything that's in it so our list that we've come up with and these this is basic I mean it's in every local news story it's in every documentary really any kind of piece that I mean even in a fiction film you you'll have elements like this the main one is an interview and I still call them a shot which is what I learned in TV 10 but also I've been working in television I've been working at Bloomberg TV covering the election and we still use the term SOT sound on tape it feels like an outdated term because we're not recording it on tape but I also just love how short it is I only have to type that in a file name like Blake SOT and I know what it means so we have that's audio and visuals there's my voiceover I guess we didn't even mention that I actually talked throughout the thing I don't always love to use my own voice but people seem to like my voice so I keep using it as a tool in my films it's also just free it's one less actor that I have to get there's b-roll I mean a lot of what we talked about is b-roll all the footage that covers the SOT and we'll talk a little bit about editing later in the presentation about the importance of b-roll but all those close-ups and everything and then NAT sound and NAT sound breaks anyone know what NAT sound is natural sound yeah sometimes I guess we call it wild sound sometimes there's a few ways I record natural sound it may just be the built-in microphone on the camera it may be that I walk around with an audio recorder and a microphone and put it up close to the ice while he's chipping it so always getting nat sound the real sound that's happening it becomes useful even if like that time lapse doesn't have any sound because it's photographs but surely I shot some other footage of the city and I can pull Street sounds from it so I'm always getting NAT sound and a NAT sound break in documentary is just when you let that NAT sound speak for itself for a moment you drop away the voice over the interview audio stops and it's letting the natural sound there's a few of those in this clip we're all we're hearing is the chipping of the ice that's an yeah the banging on the knife I mean that's all important sound I want to hear it regardless even if I'm talking over it or Blake is talking over it I still want to hear that in the background but when I let it just kind of be its own scene that's a NAT sound break anything you notice about this list is it heavier on visuals or audio yeah it's a very audio heavy list and this is what I think about when I'm making documentary is I know I need a ton of visuals and we'll talk about that but audio is how I build the story it's how I start the Edit really I need audio to to make a documentary and so my focus is really starting with audio okay Griffin we will be back Wednesday June 6 with a full episode yeah and in the meantime if you are curious about more documentary filmmaking tips you can always check out my class on creativeLIVE at Griffin Hammond comm slash class which has lessons like you just saw and many more so thanks so much more I'll see you next week thanks everybody bye-bye [Music] it sounds like my jobs pretty easy this week let's roll the tape [Music]

Channel: Griffin Hammond

Views: 56,788

Keywords: griffin hammond, indy news, indy mogul, film, filmmaker, indie, independent, filmmaking, behind-the-scenes, DIY, video, how to, techniques, Hey.film, hey film podcast, podcast, hey indie filmmakers, nick bodmer, documentary, bonus, ingredients, workshop, elements, parts, doc, sot, b-roll, nat sound break, voiceover, natural sound, wild sound, sound on tape, news

Id: yx99KdAF1LI

Length: 9min 2sec (542 seconds)

Published: Wed May 30 2018