Are documentaries scripted?

A

AmateurFilmmaker

Are documentaries scripted? When I say scripted I mean entirely, and not solely for parts where voice over will be included. I've been reading about how tv news stories/news packages are compiled, and they are usually guided by scripts that are written detailing where everything should go within them and how they should play out.

For a documentary, is a longer one created? Instead of a few minute long tv news story/news package --one can be made for a documentary that's much longer in length? The scripts for news involve including notes on where specific quotes/soundbites from interviews should be placed, voice over, images seen for b-roll, and other cues --are those things needed for documentaries if scripts are written for them?

Have you ever produced/filmed/made a documentary? If so, did you write a script for it/was a script written for it? What did it consist of, if so? How long was it? How was it used? Know anyone who has made/produced/filmed a documentary? If so, was a script written for theirs? What did it consist of, if so? How was it used? How long was it? If you or the other person didn't have one written/use one, why didn't you? Was it unnecessary? Why, if so?
 
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I've made a couple documentaries (each around 20-30 minutes) and I've never used a script. Then again, I rarely use scripts for any of my projects and when I do they tend to be loosely followed. If your documentary is interview-based or investigative it would be harder to use a script since you don't know what your subjects are going to do or say. Going script-free would offer a greater opportunity for the documentary to evolve in directions you might not anticipate. For a historical/Ken Burns type movie a script might be more appropriate since the you'd know the content and "message" of the film upfront.
 
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If there's a narrator or monologue of some sort, then yes those parts are scripted. Interviews aren't and the footage they obtain obviously isn't.

It is fair to say that it's "written" during the editing process, once they already have all the pieces to the puzzle.
 
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I disagree with most of the replies you've had so far. Documentaries in my experience are carefully scripted. Segments with interviews (with experts/witnesses) are loosely scripted, in that the filmmakers have (through research) a good idea of what is going to be said but not the exact wording. This allows subsequent questions to be scripted and the direction of the interview to be pre-planned, although there can often be some level improvisation if something unexpected comes up. ENG is quite similar, depending on the situation, although usually with more improvisation.

There is no absolute rule though, it depends on the circumstances and doco making can be more flexible in it's storytelling during editing, usually due to the subject matter being less predictable (EG. More current).

Many amateur filmmaker don't approach doco making this way though. They often prefer to just go out and start filming things and then figure out how to turn it into a story once they have "all the pieces to the puzzle", rather than fully researching the pieces to the puzzle (and how they can fit together!) before they start. Again though, there is no absolute rule here, even pro doco makers come across holes in research (new pieces of the puzzle) and often have to improvise somewhat.

G
 
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I agree with mussoman. I am writing the script of a documentary myself and it is more like a frame for the story, you might script the questions for the interviews but then answers remain unknown til you are behind the camcorder. Plus if you work on a no/micro budget I think the script is something flexible: because of various reasons you can end up with something that wasn't originally scripted or that it had been modified since the original script.

It is true though that according to the point of view you want to give to your documentary you can cut and paste (although i find it questionable..) the answers to remain within your original script
 
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Depends on the doc. I'm shooting two at the moment and one is 'let's see what happens' while the other is tighter with a structure and to a degree, a screenplay. It is not dissimilar to shooting narrative. Specifically, one is where we have a proposed loose structure but literally no idea what will happen to the protagonist: She could literally die in a fireball. The other is on a billion dollar 'Mr Big' criminal where the UK government spent $100 million USD on one trial (£65 million GBP) only to discover he was innocent. Court transcripts, police records, financials, facts etc... inherently lead this to a significantly more structured nature.

The nature of the documentaries dictate the shooting, what will happen and even how the documentary and commercialisation process can accidentally become intertwined.

By this I mean that one of our chief protagonists is using the doc as leverage to raise funds and we are all sitting in front of one of the world's largest brands who is looking to potentially sponsor us. They want their branding in the doc and if this is the case, we would talk about a big number as this would radically and irreversibly change the nature of the doc, the story and interaction. It probably won't work but we can try!

Once my hard drive has been recovered, will post the next teaser trailer on here for critique.
 
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AudioPostExpert said:
I disagree with most of the replies you've had so far. Documentaries in my experience are carefully scripted. Segments with interviews (with experts/witnesses) are loosely scripted, in that the filmmakers have (through research) a good idea of what is going to be said but not the exact wording. This allows subsequent questions to be scripted and the direction of the interview to be pre-planned, although there can often be some level improvisation if something unexpected comes up. ENG is quite similar, depending on the situation, although usually with more improvisation.

There is no absolute rule though, it depends on the circumstances and doco making can be more flexible in it's storytelling during editing, usually due to the subject matter being less predictable (EG. More current).

Many amateur filmmaker don't approach doco making this way though. They often prefer to just go out and start filming things and then figure out how to turn it into a story once they have "all the pieces to the puzzle", rather than fully researching the pieces to the puzzle (and how they can fit together!) before they start. Again though, there is no absolute rule here, even pro doco makers come across holes in research (new pieces of the puzzle) and often have to improvise somewhat.

G
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This.
There is no rule for it.

Most people think documentaries are not scripted, but a lot of them are thoroughly researched and written before a single frame has been shot. Sometimes there really is a screenplay describing shots, sounds and narrative (even from interviews), sometimes it's just framework and shotlists. Others just happen.
9/11 is one that happened while they had other plans.
Romance de Valencia was all researched and written, the director got funding, went to Spain and shot a whole different documentary as she found a better story (thanks to the research): she won quite some prices with it.
The footage doesn't look like "shaky docu style", but looks well composed and thought true.
It is about bull fighting, btw, and the first 5 or 10 minute are really tense like an action feature.

A lot of the magic happens in the edit room, but not all the magic.
Most of the really good documentaries had a plan and a vision before starting out.
Micheal Moore didn't accidentally find himself at Charlton Heston's door: he had a story arch in mind, although he didn't know where it would go.

I've made short documentaries: before doing interviews I always knew what I was going to ask and what answers I was looking for. At the same time I kept an open mind for the unexpected.
 
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I'm working on a feature documentary now. There definitely isn't any physical, written script. But I guess it is still scripted in a sense. The director has a great deal of knowledge on the subject matter, and is thus able to closely predict what will happen as we're filming. So they definitely have what they think the movie will be. However, often things don't pan out in which case you have to be completely flexible to let the film take on a life of its own, instead of forcing it to conform with what you intended. I guess it depends on the documentary though. A documentary like Grey Gardens is going to be completely different than something from Michael Moore.

The true writing for the documentary comes in the editing process, IMO.
 
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