Need Advice on a Documentary I shot about...me!

rastargate

rastargate

Active member
Hello All,

So 5 years and 80lbs ago, I shot a documenatry about my battle with Ulcerative coitis and my complex surgery to end it. I have come really powerful footage of pre and post surgery. It is the only know Doc of this sort of particualar surgery - Ileo anal anastatomosis or J-pouch. That being said there has already been interest in buying the rights to it when it is done. Plus everyone loves the before and after type docs.

That being said I have hours upon hours of pre, post, during with myself, friends, family and dr's.

I am trying to edit this all myself and make a powerful story out of it.. Is there a boilerplate structure that people use when editing a medical documenatry?

Any and all insight would be greatly appreciated!

Here is a quick trailer I made for it -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNK8tItDaxg

Thanks!

Ray
 
This seems to me to be more of a personal story / journey documentary than a "medical" documentary. Your trailer states that it's about regaining your life.

I would look to other personal stories for your boilerplate. In the book "Documentary Filmmakers Speak", edited by Liz Stubbs, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost, etc.) describe their approach to the structure of their documentaries as one of trying to convey to the audience the emotional journey that they themselve's experienced in the discovery of their subject. Sometimes this meant that events in the film weren't entirely chronological, but presented in the order in which the filmmakers discovered or experienced them.

I think this could be an approach for you - structure your film along the trajectory of your own emotional journey. If you concentrate on that primarily, then I think you'll discover where you need to include the medical experts and exposition concerning the condition. I think your film could certainly be sound in terms of medical knowledge and facts, but you'll reach and affect a much broader audience if your own personal story is the means through which it is told.

I think it's a great project, best of luck with it.
 
....Something else to think about. If you don't have a clear vision about where you want this to go....AND if you have a little time to mess around.... Just start playing around with it..... maybe pick a particular moment during your ordeal and try to tell THAT story... doesn't necessarily have to have to have a beginning/middle ...etc.... just play with trying to tell that story....see what comes from it. Sometimes "paths" make themselves known when one is just walking.....

Good luck!!
 
some thoughts

some thoughts

Hi Ray!

As far as I can see, you have two major options to play with: linear storytelling and (what is it called in English?) let's call it "back and forth" storytelling.

In the first case (linear) you start from the beginning of your story and you go step by step until the end. It is my favourite method when I am editing documentaries with a lot of material available and limited amount of time to deliver. The disadvantage of this method is that, sometimes you simply do not have the good plans that you need for a particular part of the story. Then you have to narrate while showing some crappy or rather irrelevant plans. Or "jump" to your next available plans and create a "gap" in your story.


In the second case (back and forth), you basically work a lot the story in terms of expectations and final outcome. You need to have more time available to go through all the material you have available and watch it again and again, experiment like Barth said before and... digest it. When this happens, you will start to see the connections between scenes of "before an event" and scenes "during or after this event". An example. Lets say you are going to the doctor for the first time and you are filming your preparations to go there. You may have a small pain, you may be a little anxious but you are also trying to be optimistic. You have no idea what you have. Cut. You exit the doctor's office. You look sad and worried. Cut. Your are preparing to go to the doctor. Your spouse is telling you it's nothing. Cut you are inside doctor's office. Doctor is telling you it's something. Cut. You wait outside doctor's office for your first visit. You are making a joke with your spouse. Cut. Black screen. Voice-over: "Philosophers say that if you put a cat in a box and you close the lid, the cat is both alive and dead. You need to open the box again, to find out the truth. I opened my box. I was alive and I was dying." Cut. Music and opening titles.

Why do that? Because maybe your plans of preparation to go to the doctor are not good. Maybe they are boring. Maybe waiting in his waiting room is boring. Maybe the session with the doctor is not well filmed (since you had no mind at that time to shoot properly). So, maybe if you put all these, one after the other, your story will start... boringly. But small scenes with interesting cuts and back and forth emotional play can really transform the material.

I do not know what you have available but I can easily imagine that you have some nice linear sequences. I can also easily imagine that you have some "gaps". What I would suggest is to start from the linear sequences and edit those first. Then, identify the major "gaps" of your "journey". Work around those gaps in a "back and forth" way. See how it turns out. Use rapid cuts when you do not have nice plans. Use a nice piece of music as well. Good music with synchronised cuts can really boost the effectiveness of mediocre plans.


There is one danger with the "back and forth" method: you may give away too much. It is nice to built up tension and release it occasionally. You may loose this, if you go "back and forth" too much. Use it wisely and connect those scenes smoothly with your linear sequences. Music helps a lot here.

Also: I once heard an interview of Tarantino. He was explaining how the first thing he does when he has an idea about a film, is to go to his music library and spend all the time needed to find a piece of music that "fits" with his idea. When he finds it, the rythm and concept of the idea is revealed to him. I found this very interesting as a creative concept and I tried it. Guess what? For me it works 100%! Give it a shot...


Oh! And one final idea: If I were you, I would not try to make things look too tragic. Difficult moments are difficult moments and should be shown as such. But let the audience breath now and then. After a difficult scene, you may want to use some humour. The emotional rhythm of storytelling is (in my view) equally important to the montaz rhythm: You cannot have 30 minutes of rapid montaz. It is tiring. Similarly, you cannot have 30 minutes of depression. It is tiring as well...

I hope this helps,

Good luck,

Thanasis

P.S. And please remember that all this is just theory and that no matter what anyone tells you, deep inside you, you know what you should do. It is just a matter of spending a lot of hours on it. I do not remember who was it, but there was once this famous writer who was approached by another man who told him: "I have so many nice ideas but I cannot write a book! Why?" And the famous writer replied: "My friend, this is very normal! Ideas do not write books..."
 
Hello All,

Wow, some fantastic insight on this. I have done a fair amount of editing for shorts, tv ect but never a documentary. I know what the story is and how it happened but I think I just get overwelmed with all of the footage. I am not sure if it needs to be 30 min, an hour or longer.

The real purpose of this is not just to tell a story but use at a glimmer of hope to the people suffering with this.

I am going to take some of this advice and start piecing this togther. I will share more in the next week or so.

Really appreciate the time to give me your inight!

Ray
 
rastar...most television programs run 45-47 minutes of footage to make room for the commercials.

It sounds like you have a great topic and good footage, just make sure you keep to a useable time frame. It'll make the sale of it easier.
 
How much footage do you have ? Was it all shot on DV ?

I wouldn't set your sights too high at first. Maybe talk to a medical company that makes alot of the supplies that were used in your surgery et al to FINANCE a professional editor putting together your story. The medical stuff should just be a backdrop to your human story. If you have ALOT of footage, I think its best to have a professional look at it and put it together for you into a story about your emotional arc, not so much whatever (boring) disease.

Start small, get something put together professionally, then show it around, maybe a producer may want to invest in a larger project. Your footage is great, but you have to get people to care about you getting well, not graphic blood and guts stuff. . ..
 
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