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Documentary

Stuff You Need to Know

When the Story Changes

How to Respond when Your Documentary Veers Off-course

The documentary storytelling process falls broadly into two very different ways of going about it.

What’s Your Story: Developing the Story in Documentary

Writer and filmmaker Sheila Curran’s explanation is bang on: Without a story you don’t have a doc. In fiction films and movies, the story is...
Miller’s Crossing (1990)

How to find your storytelling voice

“The sign of a great director is when a film’s voice comes not from the script or the protagonists, but from the filmmaker.” — Antonia Thompson, Huffington Post.
Scenes from Joe Carnahan’s gritty 2002 good-cop-bad-cop thriller “Narc"

Shooting With Discretion

The camera captures it all with a documentary rawness, but from a distance, on a long lens and according to the director’s commentary, from...

How to develop an idea into a finished documentary

Have you ever heard of Robert J. Flaherty?  He’s known as the “father” of documentary filmmaking (“Nanook of the North,” 1922). However, documentaries didn’t...
Two man film crew shooting.

How to not screw up your first documentary

Producer, director and screenwriter Spike Jonze reminds the aspiring documentarian: “Doing a documentary is about discovering, being open, learning, and following curiosity.”
The Godfather of DocCinema - BBC Two - Documenting John Grierson (2014)

A Profile of John Grierson, Godfather of DocCinema

The orbit of John Grierson’s legacy touches almost everything we know about documentary. The five-foot something Scotsman with an orator’s voice single-handedly birthed the...
“Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405” - 2018

The advantages of keeping your next doc short

The art of short subject filmmaking has come a long way from the days when ‘cutdowns’ were simply feature-length films chopped down to size so they could be shoehorned into TV time slots.
How Mockumentary Highlights Documentary Tropes - 1978 Beatles parody, “The Rutles - All You Need Is Cash.”

How mockumentary highlights documentary tropes

You could argue that the first films ever made were documentaries. As early as the late 1800’s, motion picture pioneers tinkered with continuously-running photographic...
If your next video project is about a challenging or bland subject matter, don’t be afraid to dip in and mix and match, you’ll know when you have the right combination of story elements that will keep the sandman at bay and your audience wanting more.

How to tell compelling stories about mundane subjects

In our information-crammed lives, how many of us have been made to sit through coma-inducing fact-films or interminably tedious educational documentaries? Whether in school, at...

Video Courses

Documentary Production: The Shoot

Capturing the best video and audio for your project is an important part of any documentary. It's where all your hard work pays off....

What's New

The current state of the documentary film industry since COVID-19

The current state of the documentary film industry since COVID-19

What impact did COVID-19 really have on the documentary film industry, and how is it fairing now? Let's discuss.

The Most Deadly Mistakes When Shooting Interviews (And How to Survive Them)

Are you making these deadly mistakes when shooting interviews? Don’t let them ruin your chance to impress your audience and clients! In this video, I’ll show you how to shoot interviews like a pro and avoid the most common pitfalls that can make your...
Werner Herzog

Interview with Werner Herzog: What we can learn from his life’s work

We had the chance to listen to legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog speak about his life's work and ask him a few questions.
How to spot a liar in an interivew

How to interview a liar

As an interviewer, it's up to you to spot when your interviewee is lying. Here's how you can catch a liar during a video interview.
The Pharmacist docuseries

Docuseries vs. documentary: What is a docuseries?

Docuseries differ from the typical documentary. While similar, there are some distinct differences. We’ll cover what those differences are.

How to market a documentary

How do you market a documentary? It seems like a simple question to answer. You might try to build a strong social media campaign and apply to as many film festivals as possible. However, this misguided strategy is not enough to get your film...

How to make a documentary: Everything you need to know

So you want to be a documentary filmmaker? Do you think you know how to make a documentary? My first tip would be to...

Here’s how to conduct research for a documentary

All good documentaries need to have a solid foundation created through proper research. In this article, we will help you research for your next documentary film.

What it’s like to make a feature-length documentary

On this episode of The Videomaker Podcast we react to the new Rode VideoMic NTG, have a conversation with documentary filmmaker Brandon Vedder, and we talk about some of the leaked camera features coming to Samsung phones.

Taking video to the 70 poorest countries on earth

On this episode of the Videomaker Podcast we react to the new 16-inch MacBook Pro; have a conversation with OMPT Development Manager Andy Shoemaker; and speculate about Canon’s plans for the mirrorless market.

Cocaine Cowboys Producer Alfred Spellman talks storytelling and trust in doc...

With an explosive doc catalog that includes titles like Cocaine Cowboys, Raw Deal and Screwball, Alfred Spellman is no stranger to high stakes filmmaking.

Russian Woodpecker director Chad Gracia talks Sundance, Chernobyl and Sex in...

"The Russian Woodpecker" (2015) would become a global cautionary tale of what happens when people lose trust in their government.

The iPhone is making news in Ireland: Philip Bromwell talks mobile...

“It's not about replacing existing ways of working. It's about complementing them using the gear that we already have,” says Philip Bromwell. Bromwell is...

Robert Flaherty: Defining the “Flaherty Way”

When Robert Flaherty (1884-1951) released his first and most famous film "Nanook of the North" in 1922, the term ‘documentary’ had not yet been minted.