The Importance of Shooting Real Scenes

A production house with finishing funds recently turned down an interesting documentary project that we’ve been editing.  The owners liked the story of a young man in search of his ancestory, but cited the lack of actual events, real scenes, and the overabundance of talking heads as the main reasons for passing on the project.

Ninety percent of the film has been shot, but there are still two remaining key interviews that need to be filmed.  On Friday, I will be on a conference call with the editor, consultant and director to talk about how to shoot these remaining interviews.  I would like to find a way to turn these additional talking heads shoots into genuine scenes.

What constitutes a scene?  My definition includes three criteria.  First, a scene is captured at a particular place, at a particular time.  It has temporal and geographical boundaries.

Second, something happens.  An event unfolds in front of the camera. This is critical.  Rather than having people blather on, let’s see some action.  “Something happens” can range from a job interview (a conversation) to a road race (objects move across the screen).

Third, and this part manifests in the editing room, a scene moves from one emotional polarity to its opposite.  Simply put, if a scene starts out with a positive feeling, it should end with a negative feeling.  For example, the promising job interview turns sour.  The casual encounter reveals startling information. The runner who stumbles at the starting line ends up winning the race. This emotional transformation keeps the viewer engaged.

In our situation, the protagonist is going to revisit a pivotal event in his childhood by interviewing a good friend.  How can we turn this conversation into a scene?  First, we will take the two buddies back to the scene of the crime, in this case, a mining town in Colorado.  We will be sure to film “ins and outs”, that is, greetings and goodbyes.  It’s important to capture visuals like a welcoming embrace, doors opening or closing, cars pulling away, etc. to provide the editor with the necessary elements that give the scene forward motion.

Second, we need to set the two friends up for “something to happen” beyond just a recounting of what occurred years ago.  This is the challenging part.  Move on that in a moment.

And third, in the editing room, we’ll want to craft the scene to start at one emotional polarity and ending with another.

With regards to setting up the scene for something to happen, the filmmaker/protagonist can go into the scene with some catalysts in his pocket.  These catalysts ideally relate to issues that are current in his life. Here are a few ideas:

• Does the protagonist have any anger towards his best friend for betraying him years ago? If so, he can express that anger on camera (in a healthy way) and invite a response.
• Does the best friend have any residual feelings about the fact that he was a bully?  Does he have regrets?  The filmmaker/protagonist can ask this question.
• The filmmaker/protagonist is currently experiencing tension with his great grandmother.  He could ask his best friend for advice, ideally, about a specific concrete situation, such as the fact that his great grandmother has not signed a release form yet.

My final suggestion is for the two buddies to plan to do something, so that the scene will have some physical animation.  Maybe they are helping grandpa in the mine, or waxing their snowboards, or shooting pool at the local tavern.  While the emotional juice will not come from these rather mundane actions, the physical action will lend some kinetic energy to the film.  The conversation may happen in the context of such an activity, or not.  Ideally it does, but sometimes people have a hard time processing ideas and feelings when they are involved in an activity.

For more information on how to craft real scenes for a character-driven documentary, check out my online course at https://newdocediting.com/land/editingdocumentaryecourse/.