At a time when feature films reign supreme, there are still individuals who enjoy documentaries. YouTube has a diverse collection of documentaries that are either available for free or can be rented or purchased. From nature documentaries to thrillers, you have everything on a single platform. You can even convert youtube videos to mp3 and listen to these documentaries when you are offline.
If you are a budding documentary filmmaker yourself and want to know what makes a compelling documentary, we have listed the essentials for your reference.
1. Subject
This is among the most important elements of a good documentary. The subject refers to the people, places, or events that make up a documentary. In essence, it is what your documentary is about. The purpose of a documentary is to furnish information regarding something of consequence.
The subject of a documentary is what draws the audience in the narrative before anything else. Therefore, it is important to build your film around something that piques the interest of your audiences. Events at the social, political, economic, and individual levels serve as the ideal subjects for a documentary.
2. Research
Once you have zeroed in on your subject, the next step is to delve into thorough research. Superficial information will not add depth to your characters and screenplay. Research lies at the heart of documenting people, events, and places. Raw visuals make up most of the film, and they can be collected by conducting investigations, inquiries, and exploration. It depends on the type of your documentary as well.
The following are the different types of documentaries -
Poetic
Expository
Observational
Participatory
Reflexive
Performance
3. Interviews
Interviews serve as authentic sources of information. They provide testimony from people crucial to the subject matter of the documentary. The interviewees speak directly into the camera in response to the questions asked by the interviewer or the documentary filmmaker. Interviews are a common documentary technique and a very effective one at that.
As a documentary filmmaker, you must keep the following tips in mind when preparing for an interview -
Prepare a list of questions but try to be spontaneous.
Avoid asking questions that encourage monosyllabic responses. Ask open-ended questions.
Make the Interviewee comfortable before moving ahead with the interview.
Select a perfect camera angle and position your camera at an appropriate distance from the person being interviewed.
Seek final comments at the end of the interview to tap into the information you might have missed.
4. Nat Sound
Nat stands for natural. Nat sounds are used to enhance the audience's experience of the documentary. These can be accompanied by pauses and breaks at certain places. A nat sound is different from what you hear in the background. While background sound is not the main focus of the video, a nat sound makes the screenplay intense and is a critical element of a shot.
Sound editing helps in compelling storytelling and goes a long way in getting your audience hooked to your content. You can use video editing platforms like InVideo to get access to a wide collection of sound designs.
5. B-Roll
B-roll refers to the supplementary footage, as opposed to A-roll, which is the primary footage on the subject of the documentary. The purpose of the supplementary footage is to intensify the narrative. It can also be used to bring in a certain dimension or to illustrate a point well. B-rolls make the editing process flexible for the filmmaker. You have room to improvise and add dimension to your documentary with effective b-rolls.
In Conclusion
You must give due importance to each of the above elements in your documentary to make it compelling. In addition, look for inspiration from tons of other documentaries that have garnered much reception from the audiences.
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