Documentary

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Documentary Assignment Checklist (download as a Word doc here)

  1. Propose an original documentary of any length on any topic.  Choose a topic that you are genuinely interested in, one that has a special meaning to you based on your personal experience.  Give it a catchy title.
  2. Base your proposal on solid research.  It should include a bibliography of at least 3 research sources, although you should feel free to use as many sources as you need to cover all the interesting facets of your topic.  The bibliography can be in any standard format.  Include a list of earlier documentaries done on your topic, and explain why yours is different.  
  3. Begin with a one-liner, a full sentence that tells the gist of what your documentary is about.  You might think of this as the “TV Guide” blurb that would entice a viewer to tune to your documentary, but its main function is to keep you focused as you develop your proposal.  Like any other component of this assignment, the one-liner will probably change as your proposal develops.
  4. The proposal should include a list of segments.  Researchers in human information processing tell us that information should be broken up into “the magic number 7, plus or minus 2” parts for optimum comprehension, so the ideal number of segments should be 5 to 9.
  5. The segments should each have an interesting title that represents the focus of that segment clearly.
  6. The segments should include interesting information that should be new or surprising to your target audience.
  7. The segments, taken together, should completely cover your topic, without being boring or redundant.
  8. The segments should be arranged so they tell an intriguing story with a beginning, middle, and end.  
  9. Script out one segment of your documentary in split-page format.  For the purposes of your script, assume that you have whatever video you need. Your script excerpt should demonstrate the style of your documentary:  VO Narrator, On-Screen Narrator, Cinema Verite (no narrator), and so on (See reading on documentary storytelling techniques).
  10. Attach your assignment in MS Word format in an email to grodman@brooklyn.cuny.edu with the file name firstname lastname doc 1 or 2 .   So, if your name is Jane Doe (which I would find highly suspicious), your file name and the subject line in your email to me would be Jane Doe Doc 1.  The title of your posting on BB, however, would be the working title of your documentary. 
  11. Respond on BB with reactions to at least three of your classmates’ assignments.

Other Key files (downloadable Word docs)

Documentary Blackboard Assignments

  1. As soon as you know what your topic is going to be, post it in the “Documentary Assignment” forum with a quick explanation of how you’re going to research it, what your approach will be and what your segments might be.
  2. Respond to as many of your classmates’ ideas as you have time for.
  3. As soon as you have a first draft, post it in the same forum.  You can post as many drafts as you like.
  4. Respond to as many of your classmates’ drafts as you have time for.
  5. As soon as you have a final draft, post it in the same forum.
  6. Respond to as many of your classmates’ final drafts as you have time for, but make it quick because I will close the grading a day or two after the deadline for final drafts.
  7. Remember to submit your final draft for a grade to your professor by email.  That’s the one that will be graded for your final assignment grade.

Three responses are required for this assignment.  More responses will improve your online participation score, although quality is more important than quantity.  Make your responses substantive, insightful, and helpful.  

Here are the videos, articles, and guidelines you’ll need for your documentary assignment. 

The prompt for this assignment is on your course syllabus, which is posted on our Blackboard page.

Documentary film techniques

Story Basics:

We will be looking at how theme, motivation, exposition, rising action, turning point, falling action, and denouement of a dramatic arc work together in order to produce riveting storylines.

Researching the Documentary:

It is important to first compose revealing questions, then find a variety of sources to answer those questions such as written sources, visual sources, and interpersonal sources.

Preliminary Guidelines:

Documentaries are stories about real life. Your subjects will have their own thoughts so your documentary script needs to be flexible, especially at the beginning of your project. However, in order to focus the content of your filming you will need a shooting script at the beginning and an editing script by the end of your project.   This assignment will focus on your shooting script.

The First Script or Shooting Script

Have your documentary topic completely researched. Before you start shooting, you need to have an idea about what your story will be. As with dramatic films, there needs to be interesting characters, conflicts and plots. Unlike dramatic films, these should occur naturally, without directing the people in your documentary.

Write down an outline of what you think your documentary will be about. This outline needs to include the characters, their conflict and how you imagine their conflict will be resolved. Your documentary will change as you begin shooting, so right now all you need is a vague outline.

Create a list of questions that you want to ask your characters. These questions will help to develop the characters and investigate their conflict. As you shoot, your characters’ answers will provide you the meat of your documentary.

Make sure you cover all of the questions you had, but be ready to take your documentary in a different direction if a new, better conflict arises. As your conflict changes, keep editing your shooting script.

Documentary trailers to watch:

Additional information for those who are interested