1

Introduction
These are exciting times for documentary films and filmmakers.
Changes in technology and the way media is produced and con-
sumed are creating new opportunities, and documentary stories
are finding new audiences both locally and globally. Not just
documentary films, documentary stories. Look at the films that
have been winning acclaim recently at Cannes, at the Academy
Awards, in Banff and Berlin and Bergen. Born into Brothels. Grizzly
Man. March of the Penguins. Super Size Me. These films succeed not
because they’re important or inspiring or because they motivate
action and activism. They succeed—and they often are important,
inspirational, and motivational—because they grab audiences and
take them on an unforgettable journey. They do this through story.
Documentary storytelling involves a range of creative choices
about a film’s structure, point of view, balance, style, casting,
and more. No matter what your specific role—producer, direc-
tor, writer, editor, cinematographer, researcher, commissioning
editor, or executive producer—decisions about storytelling will
confront you throughout your career. Storytelling lies at the heart
of most good documentaries: strong characters, compelling ten-
sion, a credible resolution. It’s a must for many, if not most,
programmers and financiers, especially those seeking to reach
national or international audiences. But even local and special-
ized productions, which may have built-in audiences (students,
museum-goers, employees), can be made stronger through bet-
ter storytelling, usually at no extra expense and sometimes at
lower cost.
Yet how do documentary filmmakers learn to tell strong and
competitive stories? Bookstore shelves are crowded with guides

1
2 Documentary Storytelling

to story and structure in dramatic filmmaking, many of which are

excellent. But documentarians work with fact, not fiction; we’re
not free to invent plot points or character arcs and instead must
find them in the raw material of real life. Our stories depend
not on creative invention but on creative arrangement, and our
storytelling must be done without sacrificing journalistic integrity.
It’s a tall order.
To that end, this book offers some basics of documentary
storytelling—what it is, how it’s done, and what mistakes to look
out for. It also offers a range of examples to demonstrate that good
storytelling is a strategy, not a blueprint. Grizzly Man is a very
different film, for example, than The Boys of Baraka, and yet both
tell strong, memorable stories. Understanding what story is and
how it works to your advantage is a step toward finding your own
creative voice as a filmmaker.

DEFINING DOCUMENTARY
Documentaries bring viewers into new worlds and experiences
through the presentation of factual information about real peo-
ple, places, and events, generally portrayed through the use of
actual images and artifacts. A presidential candidate in Colom-
bia is kidnapped (The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt); children in
Calcutta are given cameras and inspired to move beyond their
limited circumstances (Born into Brothels); executives and traders
at Enron play fast and loose with ethics and the law (Enron: The
Smartest Guys in the Room). But factuality alone does not define
documentary films; it’s what the filmmaker does with those factual
elements, weaving them into an overall narrative that strives to be
as compelling as it is truthful and is often greater than the sum
of its parts. “The documentarist has a passion for what he finds
in images and sounds—which always seem to him more mean-
ingful than anything he can invent,” wrote Erik Barnouw in his
1974 book, Documentary. “Unlike the fiction artist, he is dedicated
to not inventing. It is in selecting and arranging his findings that
he expresses himself.”
Story is the device that enables this arrangement. A story may
begin as an idea, hypothesis, or series of questions. It becomes
more focused throughout the filmmaking process, until the fin-
ished film has a compelling beginning, an unexpected middle, and
 Introduction 3

a satisfying end. Along the way, the better you understand your
story, even as it’s evolving, the more prepared you’ll be to tell it
creatively and well. The visuals you shoot will be stronger. You’re
likely to cast and scout locations more carefully and waste less
time filming scenes that aren’t necessary. And perhaps surpris-
ingly, you’ll be better prepared to follow the unexpected—to take
advantage of the twists and turns that are an inevitable part of
documentary production, and recognize those elements that will
make your film even stronger.

DOCUMENTARY AS A SUBSET OF
NONFICTION FILM AND VIDEO
Think of the range of nonfiction material available in a bookstore.
There are magazines aimed at special interests and ages. There
are manuals with instructions for building furniture or running
software. Some nonfiction books are created quickly to meet time-
sensitive market interest. Others take years to research and craft.
One book on a topic might be heavily illustrated and superficial;
another, on the same topic, might be a Pulitzer Prize–winner with
a gripping narrative that appeals to even the general reader.
This same kind of variety exists in the world of nonfiction
media. The crowded schedule of televised “reality” programs
includes how-to shows, game shows, and shows involving manu-
factured social experiments (such as contestants living in isolation
or temporarily swapping homes or even spouses). Camera crews
travel with bounty hunters, police officers, and animal rescue per-
sonnel. Stories of predators and prey, autopsies, haunted houses,
deadly weather, and celebrities may intrigue viewers, but often
offer little in the way of substance. And certainly, there are pro-
grams interspersed in these schedules that satisfy Barnouw’s defi-
nition of documentary, although they vary widely when it comes
to artistry, depth, or import.
At their best, documentaries should do more than help view-
ers pass the time; they should demand their active engagement,
challenging them to think about what they know, how they know
it, and what more they might want to learn. A good documentary
confounds our expectations, pushes boundaries, and takes us into
worlds—both literal worlds and worlds of ideas—that we did not
4 Documentary Storytelling

anticipate entering. To do this, they generally must grab us first by

playing on our very basic desire for a good story well told. When
the audience is caught up in a life-and-death struggle for a union
(Harlan County, U.S.A.), in Mick Jagger’s futile efforts to calm the
crowd at a free Rolling Stones concert (Gimme Shelter), or in the
story of a family’s rift over whether or not a deaf child should
be given a chance to hear (Sound and Fury), there is nothing as
powerful as a documentary. Some documentaries have surprising
impact. Jeanne Jordan and Steven Ascher learned that their film,
Troublesome Creek, about the efforts of Jordan’s parents to save
their Iowa farm from foreclosure, had influenced farming policy
in Australia; Jon Else’s Cadillac Desert, the story of water and the
transformation of nature in the American West, was screened to
inform policy makers on Capitol Hill.
Whether they entertain, inform, or both, documentaries mat-
ter. Nick Fraser, commissioning editor for the BBC’s Storyville,
compares the best of today’s documentaries to the New Journalism
that emerged in the United States in the 1960s. “As a journalistic
premise, the idea that someone did the reporting took root in these
years,” he wrote in an article published in Critical Quarterly (and
discusses further in Chapter 20 of this book). “By making it pos-
sible for individual voices to exist, the New Journalism countered
the growing power of corporate expression.”

SUBJECTIVITY
The power of documentary films comes from the fact that they are
grounded in fact, not fiction. This is not to say that they’re “objec-
tive.” Like any form of communication, whether spoken, written,
painted, or photographed, documentary filmmaking involves the
communicator in making choices. It’s therefore unavoidably sub-
jective, no matter how balanced or neutral the presentation seeks
to be. Which stories are being told, why, and by whom? What infor-
mation or material is included or excluded? What choices are made
concerning style, tone, point of view, and format? “To be sure,
some documentarists claim to be ‘objective,’ ” noted Barnouw,
“a term that seems to renounce an interpretive role. The claim may
be strategic but is surely meaningless.”
Within that subjectivity, however, there are some basic
ethical guidelines for documentary filmmaking. Audiences trust
 Introduction 5

documentaries—and that trust is key to the film’s power and rel-

evance. Betray that trust by implying that important events hap-
pened in a way that they did not, selecting only those facts that
support your argument, or bending the facts in service of a more
“dramatic” story, and you’ve undermined the form and your film.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t have and present a very strong
and overt point of view, or, for that matter, that you can’t cre-
ate work that is determinedly neutral. It does means that your
argument or neutrality needs to be grounded in accuracy.

WHO WANTS DOCUMENTARY STORIES?

In today’s documentary marketplace, nearly everyone is looking
for strong stories. A small sampling:

• From the website for the Sundance Documentary Fund:

“In supporting independent vision and creative, compelling
stories, the Sundance Documentary Fund hopes to give
voice to the diverse exchange of ideas crucial to developing
an open society” (www.Sundance.org)
• From the Discovery Channel website for producers, a
list of “Required Materials” includes: “One- to two-page
treatment that describes the proposed program, story
line, visual approach, acts, and production team” (http://
discovery.com/utilities/about/submissions/faq.html)
• From Channel 4’s “Documentary Briefing” (May 2006),
Commissioning Editor Meredith Chambers: “Cutting Edge
can take the form of a present-tense adventure story ! ! ! a
single-narrative story where people go abroad, in the
wider sense, to do something extraordinary, and where
we do not know the outcome at the start of film-
ing. This is where the risk is, and it should be clear
we have taken that. Something inherent in the situation
is going to unfold in a way that cannot help but be
interesting.” (www.channel4.com/corporate/4producers/
commissioning/documents/Docs2006.pdf)
• From the website for the National Endowment for the
Humanities, which funds American public media: “NEH
6 Documentary Storytelling

! ! ! seeks to fund those films that will best bring the issues,
approaches, and materials of the humanities to broad public
audiences. Producers should have a well-thought-out story
outline, define the target audience, and have a strong com-
mitment to the project” (www.neh.gov)

WHO TELLS DOCUMENTARY STORIES?

The range and breadth of documentary filmmaking worldwide is
actually quite astonishing. Some documentary filmmakers work
within production houses or stations. In the United States, many
work independently, with varying degrees of financial and tech-
nical support from national or local governments, commissioning
stations or broadcast venues, and/or foundations and corpora-
tions. Some filmmakers work to reach regional or local audiences,
including community groups; others strive for national theatri-
cal or broadcast release and acclaim at prestigious film festivals
worldwide.
A common element at all levels of production is story. In
1992, for example, musician Peter Gabriel cofounded a group
called Witness, which provides video equipment and training to
people worldwide who want to document injustice as part of a
struggle for human rights. The first chapter of the group’s Prac-
tical Guide for Activists, available on the web (www.witness.org),
is titled “How to Tell a Story.” Filmmaker and writer Onyekachi
Wambu, interviewed in Chapter 25, describes the important role of
media storytelling in raising awareness of African involvement in
that continent’s development. At the other end of the production
spectrum, some of the longest running and most influential docu-
mentary series on American public television today, including the
science series Nova (modeled after the BBC’s Horizon), are founded
on the notion that complex ideas can best be conveyed through
powerful storytelling.

STORYTELLING, NOT WRITING

Documentary storytelling does not refer specifically or exclusively
to writing. Instead, it describes the conceptual process that begins
 Introduction 7

at the moment an idea is raised and continues through production

and postproduction. A film’s author is the person (or people) with
primary responsibility for the film’s story and structure, which
often means that person is the producer and/or director, working as
or in tandem with a writer and editor. (It’s unfortunate that many
documentary festivals have adopted the practice, more common
to dramatic features, of attributing a film to its director. Unless
a film is produced, written, and directed by a single person, it is
misleading to credit the director as the author. Films are invariably
collaborative, and they begin with ideas and stories that often
originate with producers and/or writers.) In any case, whether the
film is formally written out in a progression from treatment to
final script or whether it’s merely outlined for the convenience of
the production team, the filmmakers routinely address story issues
that are familiar to other types of authors, from playwrights to
novelists. “Who are your characters? What do they want? What
are the stakes if they don’t get it? Where is the tension? Where is
the story going? Why does it matter?” And so on.
When a writer is credited on a documentary film, the job per-
formed may vary. At times, it refers to someone integrally involved
in the film’s development and production; at other times, it’s a
credit for scripted narration. But note that there is no documentary
counterpart to the lone screenwriter writing the Great American
Screenplay “on spec” (unpaid), hoping to sell it to Hollywood.
Documentary filmmakers may toil (unpaid) for months or years
on a project, but they’re pushing the entire project along, not just
a script, and often the script is the last element to take shape.
What people generally pitch and sell are documentary concepts,
usually presented at some stage of preproduction or production
as an outline, treatment, or rough cut.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The idea for this book emerged from my experiences as a docu-
mentary filmmaker, writer, and consultant on a range of projects,
large and small. I’ve worked with established as well as emerg-
ing filmmakers on productions intended not only for broadcast
and theatrical release but also for museum and classroom use.