Making Documentary Films and Videos: A Practical Guide to Planning, Filming, and Editing Documentaries

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The classic guide to making documentaries, now revised and expanded for today's filmmaker

The second edition of Making Documentary Films and Videos fully updates the popular guidebook that has given readers around the world the knowledge and confidence to produce their first documentary film. It traces two main approaches—recording behavior and re-creating past events—and shows you how to be successful at each. Covering all the steps from concept to completion, with chapters on visual evidence; documentary ethics; writing for documentaries; budgeting; assembling a crew; film and sound recording; casting and directing actors and nonactors; and editing for the audience, this book can help you successfully bring to life the documentary you want to make.
The second edition includes
• a discussion of truth, "reality," and honesty in the current filmmaking environment
• new advice on how to get started in documentary filmmaking
• an expanded section on researching and writing the proposal,
treatment, and script
• an exhaustive list of resources

"Practical planning advice, the importance of documentary ethics, budgeting and putting together a crew." - The Guardian

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780805081817

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Holt - Henry & Company - Inc.

Publication Date: 12-10-2007

Pages: 464

Product Dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.13(h) x 1.22(d)

About the Author

Barry Hampe has made more than two hundred documentary films and information videos as director or scriptwriter or both.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents


Preface to the Second Edition xv
Preface to the First Edition xvii
Acknowledgments xxi
What is a Documentary? 1
It Looks So Easy 3
What Is a Documentary? 10
What Is Not a Documentary? 19
A Little History (or How Things Got This Way) 28
Planning Your Documentary 37
Steps in Producing a Documentary 39
The Documentary Idea 47
Documenting Behavior 57
Documenting an Event with the Outcome Unknown 75
Remembering People and Events 81
What will you Show? 89
Visual Evidence 91
B-roll as Illustration, Metaphor, and Visual Wallpaper 106
A Short Sermon About Interviews 113
Well, What About Reality? 123
The Growing Problem of Credibility 132
Documentary Ethics 144
Writing a Documentary 161
Documentary Writing 163
Research 167
Structure 173
Proposal and Treatment 187
The Script 200
Filming a Documentary 217
PreproductionPlanning 219
Filming 236
Recording Sound 252
Directing 256
Directing People Who Are Not Actors 267
Selecting and Directing Actors 278
Conducting an Interview 293
Verisimilitude in Documentary 301
Working on Location 309
Postproduction 315
Preparation for Post 317
Editing a Documentary 324
Finishing the Production 341
Final Thoughts 347
Getting There 349
Feedback 357
Useful Organizations and Websites 358
The Documentary Crew 362
Equipment 373
Budgeting 380
Treatment for Travels of a T-Shirt 390
Treatment for A Young Child Is... 399
U.S.S. Perry Script Treatment 404
U.S.S. Perry Script for Act One 408
Bibliography 419
Filmography 421
Index 427

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