Introduction: Challenges of Documentary Research
Before diving into the excitement of shooting a documentary, you must confront the challenge of researching the story. Drawing from personal experiences and lessons learned, here are a few of the critical steps and pitfalls of documentary research.
The Messy Process of Research: Factual vs. Creative Researching
There are two sides to a documentary – the factual story and the creative presentation. Factual research entails gathering key information about people and events.
Creative research seeks inspiration to express thematic elements. Is this a story about love or forgiveness or revenge or redemption or any one of a number of things. Once this is understood, creative research can find artistic ways to express these themes.
Together, these two aspects form the foundation of a compelling narrative and film.
Finding the Human Element
Your film can have all the profound lofty themes you like but if it doesn't have a person at its heart, then it'll have no heart – you might as well go and write an academic paper because it's not a film.
When researching don't rely solely on Google. Obviously you'll go to Google first and that's fine to get a sense of what's going on, because you do need to build up this core understanding of your story, but what you're ultimately looking for are not facts and figures and data – you want human experience. You're looking for a person who's living the drama you want to capture. That's the most important thing.
Old School Journalism 101: Reaching Out to People
Effective documentary research often involves traditional journalistic methods, such as reaching out to individuals for firsthand accounts. Find blogs, social media posts, articles, podcasts – whatever media is exploring the story you're interested in – and reach out to the authors and creators.
The key here is that inquiries lead to information and connections, which lead to characters and stories. It's not that the person you contact is going to be your character – that might happen – but more likely you'll find character through a chain of connections and, best of all, you'll discover someone who isn't already in the media, who hasn't already got a million people wanting them.
This is why it's so important to get off Google. Hopefully you'll find someone unique and grounded in the story you're exploring. This only comes from reaching out to people.
Creative Research Will Enhance Your Storytelling
Your creative research is powerful because you don't just want to find any old person for your film. You want to find a person who can best embody the themes of the story. That's why doing the creative research will help you understand how and who will best represent those themes.