Tips for making a Short Documentary

Humanity Explored Film Festival: http://www.cultureunplugged.com/festival/submit.php


Before shooting:

1. Pick a theme

2. Plan a goal/big-picture for the film

3. Research your theme

4. See the professionals have to say

5. Study articles, so when you begin to shoot you are knowledgeable

6. Think of some possible questions that can be answered in a short, straighforward way



"Documentary displays a tension arising from the attempt to make statements about life that are quite general, while necessarily using sounds and images that bear the inescapable trace of their particular historical origin. These sounds and images come to function as signs; they bear meaning, though the meaning is not really inherent in them but rather conferred upon them by their function within the text as a whole. We may think we hear history or reality speaking to us through a film, but what we really hear is the voice of the text, even when the voice tries to efface itself" (Nichols in Rosenthal, Voice of the Documentary, 1998, p. 52).



http://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_13/section_5/artc1A.html