The Art of Filming and Editing Documentaries

The art of making and editing documentaries

“We have reached the end of the movie. I hope you enjoyed the course as much as I did doing it. Now is the time for you to do your final project, a short documentary, between 3 and 4 minutes, where you deal with the different concepts that we have dealt with in the course. Think of some close and simple story that does not involve a great financial or time effort. Do something different from my documentary about Caribbean, work on something that interests you personally. Take the time to research and prepare before heading out to shoot. Before we say goodbye, we are going to review the key phases of the project. It would be great if you briefly explain what you have done in each one and accompany the explanation with one or more images. The idea Choose the idea for your documentary. Think about your protagonist and the locations where you are going to shoot. I have created my documentary around the figure of Doc Caribbean, the founder of the Caribbean skate shop in 1975 and a pioneer of this sport in Spain. We have recorded both in his store and in the streets of the center of Madrid, the Parque del Oeste and a skatepark in the Arganzuela neighborhood and its surroundings.

Preparation Prepare your shoot by doing a treatment, a script and a shooting plan. It is a very important step so that everything goes as smoothly as possible during filming. Apart from the script and the shooting plan, here I share only some images of the treatment as an example, but in Unit 2 you can find it complete in PDF as a downloadable resource. Shooting Record your documentary keeping your point of view in mind. Remember to be very aware of the protagonists and take into account the configuration of the team, the position of the light, etc. It is also very useful to bring your written questions to the interview. Assembly and final result Finally, do the montage and give the final meaning to your documentary. To share it, you can upload it to a free platform such as YouTube or Vimeo and share the link with us so that we can enjoy your work. For your inspiration, I've left mine to finish as a downloadable resource in Unit 4. Now share your final project with all of us by clicking on "Create your project". Share both the final result of your documentary and the steps that have led you to it. I am looking forward to seeing your project and giving you feedback. Although I ask you for your patience, I will try to access the forum as much as I can and what my professional projects allow me. Finally, I want to invite you to actively participate in the forum, not only sharing your progress, but also giving advice and trying to help the rest of the community. See you on the forum!”

Partial transcription of the video

“Final Project In this lesson, we’ll talk about the final project. I’ve developed a project, a mini documentary about Doc Caribbean, who’s a key figure in skating and longboarding. I encourage you to develop your own documentary with your own distinguishing marks and a topic that relates to you personally. Do more research about that topic, think it over, and develop a concrete idea. Then, you can make the documentary. If you can’t find an idea that’s groundbreaking or powerful enough, don’t lose hope. It’s a long process, and you’ll add value to your film in the subsequent phases, the scree...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: The Art of Filming and Editing Documentaries

• Level: Beginner
• 98% positive reviews (232)
• 9604 students
• 4 units
• 21 lessons (4h 45m)
• 6 downloads

• Category

  Photography & Video

• Software

  DaVinci Resolve

• Areas

  Film, Video & TV, Filmmaking, Video