Getting The Story Flowing...

andythefilmer

andythefilmer

Veteran
I am stuck. I have been shooting a documentary for several months now, and as I have been attempting to edit, I am seeing myself get stuck. I am trying to get the story going, but I'm not getting anywhere.

The documentary is about LGBT teens. I have shot many interviews asking in-depth questions, however, I cannot seem to find a good way to begin the story. Any suggestions?
 
Watch all of your footage and transcribe it. Make notes about the parts you think are most powerful and see if you can figure out what "story" will connect the dots and tie the content that you have together. You want to show the conflicts or challenges that your characters face and how these get in the way of their ultimate dreams or goals. You may want to read "Documentary Storytelling" by Sheila Curran Bernard.

After you have dissected your footage and you know what you have and what you don't have I would make an outline or a paper edit. Put each scene with a short description on a note card and arrange them visually in a way that makes sense to you. This is generally a good way to help organize your edit before you start.
 
Yeah I would figure out what the "story" is way before trying to edit anything. I'm shooting a doc about kidnapped children in China, so I'll use that as an example to illustrate what I'm doing.

First, try to break down what you have into something like the typical 3 act dramatic structure (or not, but this is useful). For me, it works out something like this. FIRST ACT: Introduce subjects and setting. Specifically, a family who has lost a child, and an adult who was kidnapped as a child, both in China. SECOND ACT: Rising action. Subjects struggle to find their lost child/original family using a variety of search techniques THIRD ACT: Subjects find their child and/or give up (this part I don't know yet because obviously their story is still ongoing!

Then, break it down into a bit of a more complex structure. How can you best tell that story? For example, ONE possible approach I've been working on for mine:
COLD OPEN - grandparents of kidnapped child crying about lost grandson (~2min) TITLES - self explanatory (~2min) MEET FAMILY - scenes of the location fade into scenes of Liu family in their home, eating, playing with their daughter, etc. with voiceover that introduces the family (~5min).......etc. Obviously it goes on but you get the point.

THEN, once you've laid it out that way, and once all your shooting is done, I'd do what silentnoise said. Make a paper edit based on what you actually shot, I would consider literally making notecards with a sketch on the front and some notes or quotes about the content on the back, then moving them around, playing with them until you've got a sequence you think makes sense. It's just easier to do this way than it is on a computer I think. Once youve got your story sequence and shot sequence down on paper, then it's time to turn on the computer


EDIT: Forgot to add, to start the story, you might want to try my approach. Conventional, sure, but conventional for a reason. Start with some of your most striking/shocking/attention getting footage. Maybe a story about a LGBT kid being abused or teased or whatever. Don't give any context, just dive into it, get in a quick soundbyte or two to get peoples attention, then do your titles. Now that you have people's attention, you can slow down a bit and do the more formal "beginning stuff -- introducing the people you talked to, the setting and context for your film. etc.
 
Great advice. Thank you so much!

I'm kind of trying to take a more non-traditional approach, as this isn't a docu-drama. Think Michael Moore.

To be honest I have never storyboarded anything before, but I think this is going to be my first... However, I'm not going to even worry about the opening yet. Once I get the main content (all 90 min of it......) flowing, I guess the opening scene(s) will just come to me making it much easier than starting from scratch.

@custerc your film sounds interesting. Any idea as to when it may be completed?
 
@ andy: thanks. It probably won't be done for quite a long time. I think we have at least another 9 months or so of shooting (we only shoot on weekends, and not every weekend, because we also have "real" jobs) before we can conceivably say we're done shooting everything. Then comes the writing, translating, paper cut/storyboard, and then finally editing. I don't know how long that will take, but I would be pretty shocked it we have it finished before March 2012, and I expect really we won't finish till much later than that.
 
I've always liked Walter Murch's approach to editing. Using static images to "arrange" the film before you actually edit anything. (google him if you want to check out his methods)

Transcribing the interviews to text, and creating a screenplay out of that (inserting storylines, insert shots, ect...just like if you were writing narrative) would also be a good place to start.

Even if its a documentary, you still need to create an overall story arc that plays out in the film.

Basically, get out of the editing program and sit down and write. I've always found that to really help get concrete concepts settled
 
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