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Finding the Protagonist’s Goal For Your Documentary
June 15, 2010
Yesterday I worked with a client who has been hired to direct a biography of a woman (now deceased) who rose to fame in the dance world. She’s facing a challenge that many filmmakers run into. After pre-interviewing nearly thirty relatives and friends of the deceased, my client was still unable to answer the most important question you can ask about a character-driven documentary, “What does my protagonist want?” It seems that her protagonist’s rise to fame was never a goal per se, it just sort of “happened”. Honing in on a protagonist’s quest, also known as the “object of…
Read More...Finding the Elusive Inciting Incident
June 14, 2010
One of the filmmakers in my new program, “The Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary”, is having trouble finding her main character’s inciting incident. As I think our work will help other filmmakers, I’m sharing it here. First, a definition: the inciting incident is the event that throws your protagonist’s life out of balance and gives rise to their quest. For instance, when Harry Potter receives a letter inviting him to wizardary school, his guardians forbid him, but he becomes determined to go. The problem that my filmmaker faced in finding the catalyst event was compounded by the fact that…
Read More...Thinking Like a Screenwriter For Your Documentary
June 9, 2010
I recently helped a documentary filmmaker from Japan who hired me as a story consultant for his “documentary”. The film was grounded in the true story of a materialistic young man who decides to become a Peace Corps volunteer in order to find a more meaningful life. When I started viewing the beautifully shot footage, I quickly realized that this film was shot not in the vérité tradition of capturing real-life scenes but more like a narrative feature. The scenes were set up in advance, shot in several takes, and most of the film’s dialogue would later be dubbed in.…
Read More...New Documentary Coaching Circle
June 8, 2010
I am considering starting a Documentary Coaching Circle, and I’d like to hear from you about whether you would be interested in such a supportive, educational program. Since my recent program “The Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary” sold out last week, I’ve been hearing from a few filmmakers who are wanting more peer and coaching support in the sometimes lonely pursuit of making a film. Are you one of these filmmakers, someone working in solitude and craving community? Would you find it helpful to belong to a small circle of committed filmmakers involved in an inspirational coaching program? What…
Read More...Spoof on Template for Film Trailers
June 3, 2010
I like to remind filmmakers who are feeling lost that most commercially successful documentaries draw from only a few contemporary meta-structures. Learn them and use them. And if you’re wincing at the idea of a “template”, then think of the three-act structure, which is a template for character-driven documentaries, as a living breathing form that can be modified to suit as many desires as arise in the human heart. And having now giving my stump speech on templates, I want to share this very funny spoof on Hollywood trailers, which shows just how template-driven we’ve become: http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2010/03/11/academy-award-winning-movie-trailer/ Enjoy three minutes…
Read More...Using the Film Camera Like a Fire Hose
June 2, 2010
My colleague Jon Else, who heads the nation’s top documentary program at UC Berkeley, uses the expression “like a firehose” to describe how some filmmakers wield the camera. In other words, they shoot everything. I’ve been guilty of this myself. In my personal documentary ““, I shot 238 hours of footage over a two-year period. Back then, before I really knew how to structure a character-driven film, I was driven to capture everything on camera to ensure I would have those magic vérité moments that make a compelling film. The problem is that I then had to spend a year…
Read More...Structuring Your Documentary’s “Call To Action”
June 1, 2010
If you’re making a social issue documentary, you probably want viewers to feel motivated by film’s end to take action on a problem. How do you do that? You need to craft a call to action. Perhaps best known in the marketing world, a “call to action” is a pitch to do something. You don’t want your viewers to feel like they’ve just watched another depressing documentary, do you? And you don’t want them to stew in “paralysis by analysis”. In essay-style documentaries, which are structured around ideas rather than a character on a quest, the call to action can…
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The Most Predictable Crisis in Documentary Filmmaking
May 27, 2010
Hi There, Documentary filmmaking is fraught with drama and risk, and that’s why I tell filmmakers with whom I story consult that they are very brave. You might never get funding you need, your subjects might refuse to sign a release form, or the story you are following may never pan out with a climax scene. While many of these scenarios are unpredictable, there’s one crisis you can count on. And one of my favorite story consulting clients, a filmmaker with two successful films under her belt, ran smack into it last week. Two-thirds of the way through post-production, she…
Read More...Why I’m So Happy
May 25, 2010
I am feeling especially grateful because my efforts to help filmmakers through my new program, “The Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary“, are bearing fruit. We recently had 15-20 people on our first group coaching call. The terrific questions that filmmakers asked, and my opportunity to answer from my 20 years of experience and collected wisdom, made me so happy that after the call I was glowing. And this morning, as I write this, I feel my cup running over with gratitude. I am learning in my forties what it feels like to be a mentor. The thrill of serving…
Read More...Collaborating In Sync with Your Documentary’s Composer
May 20, 2010
I want to make sure you know about the upcoming “Documentary Music Virtual Symposium” this Sunday afternoon, May 23rd. If you want to create an intelligent sound design for your film, here’s an opportunity to learn from the very best in the business. DocuMentors, the host of this virtual symposium, will record the workshop in case you can’t make the 2-5pm PST slot. And since it’s virtual, you can live anywhere in the world and benefit. The cost is only $37. Featuring composers Miriam Cutler (“Lost in La Mancha”, “The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib”) and James Stemple (“Shakespeare Behind Bars”, “Bukowski:…
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