Choosing a Documentary Title

I hope you had a Happy Valentine’s Day! Before I share some tips about how to choose a good title, a quick announcement.

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Now…are you trying to choose a great title for your documentary?  One that is intriguing and easy to remember?

Often filmmakers choose titles that are too generic to be easily recalled. Here are some tips for creating an enticing, memorable documentary title:

– Seek a word or words that are specific, unique, even metaphoric. Examples include “Tongues Untied”, “Last Train Home,” “Finding Joe”, “Bull In A China Shop”, “Born in Goma”.  Note the use of proper nouns and specific images. Both are memorable.

– One word and two-word titles are popular these days:  “Capitalism”, “Connected”, “Cool It”, “Outfoxed”, “Gas Hole”, “The Secret”, “Senna”, “Freakonomics”

– Sometimes a word or phrase that is used in everyday conversation will help make your title memorable.  For example, “Tying the Knot”, a documentary about gay marriage, uses a common phrase and a metaphor, both easily recalled.  Michael Moore’s indictment of American health care, “Sicko” is also easy to remember. Take care not to use a phrase that is too generic.  While I loved the film, David Weissman’s “We Were Here” does not strike me as a memorable title. It’s evocative, but I can never remember if it’s “We Were There,” or “Here We Were,” or something else.

– Refer to a location, song or some other specific phrase that is used in the film. For example, my own PBS documentary “I Shall Not Be Removed: The Life of Marlon Riggs” gets the first half of the title from an activist song that Marlon actually sings halfway through the film. Scour your soundbites for specific images or places or other details that could serve as a title.  Note that some uses of place make sense and are easily recalled, such as, “The Mayor of Castro Street”; others don’t make sense, such as “Bowling for Columbine”.

Good titles are challenging to come by. So take your time, organize a brainstorming session (show a clip from the film to inspire people) and then test the best choices by emailing your friends and asking them to vote.  If you can’t think of a title by the time a grant is due, then say you are taking the above steps and refer to your title as “tentative”.

Finally, for information on how to structure compelling documentaries, I can’t recommend highly enough “The Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary”. Check it out at:
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