Editing Multiple Storylines

I’m often asked, “How do you edit a documentary with multiple protagonists?”

Today’s excerpt from Editing the Character-Driven Documentary shows you how.

Your first decision: choose whether to checkerboard (weave together) your protagonists’ storylines, or “clump” them (tell one at a time, consecutively).

Usually, checkering your characters’ stories is preferable because it creates a more integrated film, as in the Oscar-winning documentary Twenty Feet From Stardom.

But sometimes the various storylines are so complicated that telling one entire tale after the other is the only way to provide clarity, as in the Sundance hit Iraq in Fragments.

Learn more about editing multiple narrative arcs from today’s excerpt of my popular seminar Editing the Character-Driven Documentary. It’s now available for free on You Tube, or download for free here.