Getting Lucky With Your Documentary Film’s Inciting Incident

Hollywood screenwriters follow a rule about the inciting incident:  this pivotal scene must be visually depicted on screen, preferably in present story time. In other words, the inciting incident plays such a critical function in the overall story structure that the story the writer cannot revert to launching the film through exposition (boring) or backstory (too removed). 

Of course, this imperative presents a major problem for documentary filmmakers constructing a narrative arc.  Frequently, by the time a documentary filmmaker gets interested in a film, the inciting incident has already happened.  And it’s unlikel that the scene was caught on film.  

But sometimes filmmakers get lucky.  For example, they may set out to document one story, and a more powerful story unfolds in front of the camera.  In The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003), Irish filmmakers Kim Bartley and Donnacha O’Briain intended to profile Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.  Suddenly they found themselves in the midst of a coup.  They caught the upheaval on camera and it became a visually riveting catalyst for a very different film.

Another way documentary filmmakers get lucky is by finding some archival or news footage to shape into an inciting incident.  In Metallica:  Some Kind of Monster (2004), the inciting incident occurs a slim four minutes into the lengthy 140-minute movie, when an MTV news clip announces that the bass player has left the band.  This incident launches the narrative arc of the movie, as the remaining three members seek to improve their interpersonal act and, by extension, their next album.

In Chicago Ten, the film starts with a short newsreel clips from former President Lyndon Johnson.  The President announces an escalation of American troops in Vietnam.  The news clip serves as the catalyst event, motivating activists like Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seale to stage a massive protest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

For more strategies about how to shape an inciting incident, check out my 6-part e-course, “Editing the Character-Driven Documentary.” 

Go to https://newdocediting.com/land/editingdocumentaryecourse/.