For those of us who have seen our fair share of documentaries, biographies and news stories, we’ve come to pick up a few formulas for how they’re produced. For the most part, they share the same four aspects: voice over or narration, interview(s), footage that was either shot at the time or replicated, and for news stories, a standup, which helps to lend credibility to the journalist.
I did my undergrad in broadcast journalism so I’ve seen enough news stories to last me a lifetime. Biographies are intriguing to watch every once in a while, but documentaries have always been fascinating to me. Often time, producers don’t have a lot to work with but a talking head, so they need to be extremely creative with the footage they need to come up with. Interviews are also vital to the piece because how the subject comes across to the viewer can make or break the documentary. This is why it’s also important to get a sense of who you’re talking to, how they’ll do on camera, and then determine whether it’s a story worth pursuing.
I’m setting forth on creating a mini-documentary, which means that if all goes well, I will have a complete piece by the second week in May. Before I start recording and finding subjects for my piece, however, I must plan out as many details as I can to help the production and post-production process be as smooth as possible. The first step is understanding the logistics side of recording, such as lighting and taking action. For this I look to “The Bare Bones Camera Course for Film and Video” by Tom Schroeppel.
READING
Chapter seven is all about setting the scene through lighting. We all love how warm our homes feel when natural light shines through windows, but for video it sometimes comes as a disadvantage because the sun is constantly moving, which means you can’t rely on consistent light for long periods of time. This is why exterior lighting, while beautiful, is tough to work with.
Another negative attribute of using sunlight as a light source is that it has the power to cast harsh shadows on faces. If you have the subject face away from the sun, then you’re left with the subject being backlit. On the other hand, if you have the subject face the sun, you risk the subject squinting because the light is too harsh.
Either way is tough, but each scenario can also be remedied through reflectors or fill lights. A reflector is anything that reflects light, which could be anything from a silver board to a white canvas. You could then use either to bounce sunlight into the shadowed subject. Fill light is any supplementary light that is used to lighten shadows, but this requires a source of power.
There are three types of interior lighting: focusing quartz, broads, and soft lights. Focusing quartz is essentially a spotlight and is the most versatile of the three. Broads are non-focusing lights used to even light over a large area. A soft light is a portable bounce light that is extremely easy to control, but the downside is that it takes up more space.
After figuring out what type of light you’ll need, the next step is setting up your lights. To do this, you’ll need a key light, which is the basis and brightest light of the setup. On the opposite side of the key light should be the fill light, which should work to fill in the shadows the key light left. The back light should hit the subject’s head and shoulders from behind. Lastly is the background light, which differs from the back light as its purpose is to add a sense of depth.
In chapter nine, Schroeppel begins the planning and shooting of a sequence. The first step is to make a shooting plan. The shooting plan should include a shooting script, which is a list of what you’re going to shoot and how you’re going to do it. He notes that it’s ok to shoot out of sequence because sometimes it’s the only way, especially if exterior lighting is involved and you have a short window to get what you need. It also helps to communicate the timeline with everyone from the assistants to the talent so everyone is on the same page.
A final thing to remember before going out to shoot is that even when presented with uncontrolled situations, as long as you work to shoot nicely composed shots and sequences with good lighting, you can still get great footage to work with.
RESEARCH
As noted earlier, I am a huge fan of documentaries. I have probably seen every National Geographic documentary that’s on Disney+ as well as dozens of music/band documentaries. They all, of course, range in production value, but there are many that stand out to me as far as storytelling goes. When you find a piece that’s inspiring and well produced, it’s easy to get completely immersed in the story. The following are three documentaries where I felt something differently for each one, but within the realm of their purpose.
Taylor Swift’s eighth studio album Folklore is one of my favorite pieces of work of all time, which is why I made sure to watch the release of “Taylor Swift’s Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions” on Disney+ the day it was released. The entire documentary has a cozy feel and exudes the comfort of a cottage in the woods, which mirrors the essence of the album. Not only was it recorded in a small studio space, but it was also filmed in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, which meant a minimal crew. They still managed to capture beautiful shots, in both indoor and outdoor settings, which also included day and night shoots, that were each executed beautifully.
When I heard the stars of my favorite childhood book series were reuniting for another trip back to Hogwarts, I was all in. Regardless of how it was recorded, or who would appear, I knew the documentary was something I would be setting an evening aside for. What I did not expect, however, was a magical first-person journey through my childhood. The retrospective special “Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts” explored the making-of story through in-depth interviews and cast conversations. The beautifully composed shots could make any fan feel like they were at Hogwarts. The lighting reflected that of the movies and the props and sets were nostalgia in a (potion) bottle.
Free Solo is a documentary that made me feel things— and those things were anxiety, tension and uneasiness. This documentary had a lot of great three-shot sequences to really put the viewer on location at El Capitan’s 900-meter vertical rock face at Yosemite National Park. What made this documentary incredible was the fact that the videographers had to climb alongside professional rock climber Alex Honnold as he attempted to conquer El Capitan’s first free solo climb. This meant they were quite literally putting their life at risk for the perfect shot— talk about dedication. They created detailed plans to ensure they wouldn’t be in each other’s shots while all still working to look like they were inches from Honnold’s hands and feet. It was truly incredible what they captured as cinematographers while on that rock face, but what was even more incredible was the amazing shots and sequences they were able to produce.
An example of a piece I believed had several issues was the 2021 documentary “The Beatles: Get Back.” Director Peter Jackson did a nice job showing the world this never-before-seen footage of The Beatles as they wrote and rehearsed new songs for their first live show in more than two years. The series, though, was often hard to watch. Jackson only had limited footage and audio to work with, but it was too heavily edited in my opinion. It had frequent mismatching of lip-syncs and lack of footage, which is by no means the director’s fault. Jackson aimed to tell a story with limited resources, which is always hard to do, but it was noticeable in this documentary, especially because he couldn’t simply reschedule a day and time to reshoot it.
CREATE
In the coming week, I hope to create a mini-documentary. The following is my pre-production planning document that details my objective, the shots I hope to get, my interviewee, sound I hope to use, a basic idea of my script, and general notes to better-prepare myself for when I’ll start to film this week.