How I make documentaries: Scriptwriting (+ free example)

0:00This is how I make documentaries. Script writing for broadcast documentaries and for YouTube documentaries like this one for Johnny Harris's company. So if you want to learn how to successfully write a documentary script and why it's your secret weapon to a successful production then keep watching. But if you're already convinced and just want to learn how to do the thing then skip to the timecode somewhere somewhere on the screen. The free template that we're going to make together now is also going to be available for you to download. Yes, documentaries use scripts too. I always sound very aggressive when I say

0:31that but I didn't know that either at first. So on the productions that I've worked on we have written scripts in the way that I'm going to show you as a way to get your thoughts down on paper and understand what it is that you need to prepare to make the shoot, make the thing that you want to make. But it's a really wise idea to spend quite a lot of time on your research before this stage and if your documentary is a narrative piece then this is where you're going to really hone in on that story arc. I have just been to the coffee shop

0:58and put together this beginnings of the shooting script. I'm going to use the behind the scene shots from a previous video just to give you an idea of what this really looks like in action. So I've basically reasoned out like little sound bites that I would like to include. My job now is to take this and move it into a storyboard slash shooting script format. So

1:19how are we going to write one of these things? The way that I do this each time changes ever so slightly but this is this is the basics in a nutshell. I am using a google doc to do this and the most important thing that we're going to start out with is that we want to use a table format. I'm gonna need a lot of rows but use this three column format. What you've got here is one column for time, one for let's call it visuals and then one for audio. I like using google docs because you've got lots of different colour options for the colour coding which we'll get

1:59onto at the end. I'm starting out by creating a rough structure it's gonna be it's gonna be an introduction. When you've set up your structure just to let you know this needs to be the main shape of the story that you're planning to tell. I think it's important to say here that there are so many ways that you could break down your story arc the way that you approach your storytelling and your narrative. Think about any story that you've ever been told. The story starts by establishing the initial situation or problem and the main characters. Next an inciting incident triggers a decision to be made or disrupts the

2:40status quo. This sets the story into motion and the protagonist will normally set out to achieve some type of goal. The stakes are raising they're getting higher until we reach a climax of the story. This is when the stakes feel like they're at their highest. Finally the story is concluded with some type of resolution which solves the conflict for better or for worse. So now you know roughly which scenes are going to fit into your story structure. You want to start filling out these columns with the ideal version of what it is that you'd like your story to include. I'm going to use to fill out this template an actual

3:15client project that I did a few months ago. So I knew that I wanted b-roll in this section that was going to be um sort of details of the protagonist's home. And then you want to add in samples of those visuals and these can be from your mood board, these could be from your previous project. I normally start up with the audio column. That's a description of what I really want to include and then over here um I've put in the ideal sound bytes. Don't try to get these word for word but you should know from your research calls more or less what your contributor is going to want to talk about. It's okay if

3:50this changes, it should change and you will have to adapt it before you go into your edit. Let me fill out a bit more of this so that you can see the start to take shape. If you're curious to know how I pick what to include in this document and when, I just went through a lot of the points that Anna picked up on. So she went through the transcripts and thought about the calls we'd heard and has thought about the most important beats and story points that we need. And now I'm turning that into a narrative and how long are we going to spend on

4:16story A compared to story B? Which part of the story do we need to be revealed at what point? You know we need to set the scene about this person who knows somebody who died and then we perhaps want to go into the fact they work for the NHS. So it's drip feeding the bits of the story at the right point. If you are doing something that's a little bit more scripted it's quite handy to have these boxes separated depending on when a cut is going to happen. I like to separate each box here, each row, depending on certain

4:44moments rather than a whole scene in itself. Keep in mind that this is actually a really useful tool not only to check in with yourself and see if the idea works, not only to check in with your team and make sure they know what you're working towards, but also to check in with your client or your commissioner. Also if you're wondering, these time codes are totally a educated guesstimate but it is important to know how long your piece is likely to be. What I normally do actually is I will go through and just make notes before I even add in the visuals. But when it comes into adding these

5:15visuals, like I said for this I'm using a mix of some stock photography and screen captures from a previous project. If I were you and you're actually filling this out, depending on who you're going to share it with, I think it's important to just make it fit the purpose that you have decided you want it to fit. So if that is that your shooting script is also going to communicate to your DOP what type of cinematography and what type of shots that you're aiming for, then I would spend a little bit more time on making this feel a bit more like a mood board. But most of

5:49the time I don't find that useful for me. I would rather have a separate treatment and maybe I can make a whole video about documentary treatments. Cool, so now I've got this breakdown of what the visuals and audio are likely to look like and around this point this is where I would start to make some of the magic happen with some colour coding. So I've added a key up here of some of the different types of materials that you would be likely to use in a documentary. I won't be using all of these and there's definitely more categories you could add in with your own colours but I'm going to be

6:19focusing on these three. Colour coding just makes this feel a little bit more intuitive as you're going through rather than just looking at some blocks of text. So I know that I want this to be talking head so I'm going to make it a pretty purple. Your script shouldn't be like shot by shot it's really just understanding what moments take us where and then maybe you look at this and you're like there's a whole lot of purple I need

6:42to make sure I get some extra b-roll for that bit. This is going to be a nice orange to fit in with the actuality. When I say actuality I'm meaning people showing us stuff like actually doing stuff it's showing not telling. Imagine now how easy it would be to scroll through this and to create a list of interview questions or a shot list or even a shooting schedule at this point. And now for the grand resolution of our tutorial let me recap for you. The script is how you will express the ideas for your commissioners. Use a table format for your script to clearly see how your audio and visual elements

7:29are going to sync. And finally colour coding is the magic ingredient to bring the script to life, make it more intuitive to look at and start that all-important shoot planning. As always please feel free to ask me any questions in the comments about this or any other aspect of documentary filmmaking. You can download the script template that we made together in the description so feel free to re-watch and follow along with me as you write your own. And I will catch you in

7:55the next video. First Monday of next month it's a date. Bye!