How to Find A Good Story Consultant
Here’s part 3 of my column in SF360’s “The Edit Room” about hiring a story consultant. (http://www.sf360.org/indie-toolkit/itk-how-a-story-consultant-saved-me )
When is the best time to hire a story consultant? I get this question a lot. Ideally you’ll hire a story consultant for a day during pre-production, when you are determining the story potential or essay components of your film. They will be able to assess the story strength of the film you have in mind, and offer suggestions for the kinds of scenes and sound bites you need to capture during filming. Television acquisition executives and audiences want compelling stories. And story consultants understand what it takes to craft a story. They may even tell you that you don’t have a film–yet. Heed their advice and keep digging.
If you like their work, hire them again before cutting your first assembly, when you can show a bit of footage and communicate on paper what you actually ended up capturing on film. A good story editor (consultant) can see plot points on paper, thus saving you the expense of hiring them to watch several hours of footage. You may decide to show them four hours of your best footage. If you have a film with multiple protagonists, I suggest cutting separate “character cuts”, or 20-30 minute sequences of the best material for each character. Viewed separately, these clips will help your consultant evaluate the story arc of each protagonist.
For best results and continuity, I recommend hiring the same consultant periodically throughout post-production at assembly cut, rough cut, fine cut and locked picture stages. If you are stuck on a particular problem, for example, how to cut your film’s opening scene, ask for a quickie consultation. Remember that story editors are much more adept at troubleshooting structural pitfalls and generating storytelling solutions that will keep your viewers glued to the screen than are members of your advisory team, or participants at a rough cut screening.
Rates vary widely, from $40/hour to $250/hour, and you usually get what you pay for. Many story editors have a day rate, which is cheaper than hiring them by the hour. If you don’t have a few thousand dollars to hire a good story consultant, check out this link: https://newdocediting.com/documentary_story_doctor/. The good news is that you are not hiring these professionals for weeks at a time. Budget for ten days of story consulting and you’ll be in great shape. You may not even need that much.
I recommend three methods for find a good story consultant:
- Inquire on an online forum such as D-word or Doculink;
- Ask veteran documentary filmmakers and editors for referrals;
- Find out who is teaching classes on documentary editing and structure at non-profit organizations such as the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) or the Independent Documentary Association (IDA).
Keep in mind that since story editors don’t need to work with high-resolution footage, you don’t need to hire locally. In other words, you can upload or email low-resolution cuts anywhere on the planet. Many story editors use video streaming software that allows you to watch the cuts together, though you may be thousands of miles apart.
One of the great things about the independent documentary community is that colleagues are frequently willing to help one another. They’ll view a rough cut and offer advice at no cost. This community spirit is admirable. But realize that a colleague volunteering time will not give you the detailed story guidance that you need to edit your documentary over time. In my case, hiring a story consultant was the smartest move I made producing my film Women in Love.
FYI, for those of you structuring character-driven documentaries, I’ve included my best story consulting secrets in my new online course.
Go to https://newdocediting.com/land/editingdocumentaryecourse/ and try out the first module of this 6-part e-course which is getting great reviews.