Documentary Story-Focusing Exercise, PART 1

Today I’m sharing a few powerful story-focusing exercises developed during my teaching years at UC Berkeley’s #1-ranked documentary program. Today’s exercises (Part 1) are geared toward character-driven documentaries.

Part 2 will focus on essay-style documentaries!

Download the entire Story Focusing Exercise Worksheet here.

Exercise 1: Key questions to focus the story.

Who is the protagonist and what do they want? (The more specific and difficult the goal, the better).

What is the inciting incident that kicks off the story? Is it captured in your footage, or will you recreate it? If so, how?

What is the film’s central question? It’s always some version of “Will the protagonist get _________ (their goal)?”

What obstacles stand in the protagonist’s way? (Name three.)

What are the possible climaxes (most emotional scene)?

What is the resolution or denouement? How is the protagonist’s life different? l Intensity

Exercise 2: Define the gist of the three acts in three sentences.

Act 1 _______________________ (protagonist) wants _______________________________ (goal) when _____________ (inciting incident that gives rise to the goal).

Act 2 In pursuit of _________ (goal), the protagonist encounters _________________, __________________ and __________________ (specific obstacles, complications, challenges— place in order of escalating difficulty).

Act 3 The protagonist finally reaches/doesn’t reach their goal after ________________________________ (climactic scene) happens.

I hope this helps! For more on this topic, check out:

How Soon Should The Inciting Incident Come?

How Many Characters Can Viewers Follow?

Keys to A Thrilling Third Act Climax

In a future newsletter I’ll share focusing exercises for essay-style (idea-driven) documentaries.