Ep. 47 Using graphics in your documentary

As we enter this new year, take pride in how far you’ve come along and your persistence through the pre-production process. If everything falls into place in 2023, who knows, maybe this year is finally the year you see your film on the big screen. 

If you’ve been following our documentary series, you are well into your films pre-production and are ready to move forward to the next stage. 

Hopefully, as you were conceiving your film, developing your pitch and considering the final product, you would have been thinking carefully about graphics and its overall look. But not just within the documentary itself, but the film as a brand. 

It’s important to approach your graphics with an overall approach, as your graphic’s are in, out and around your film. Especially in documentary. You will need to consider not only your title card, but lower-third text for names and locations, trailer titles, logos and poster design. 

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Transcript

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Hello my fellow filmmakers. As we enter this new year, take pride in how far you've come along and your persistence through the pre-production process. If everything falls into place in 2023, who knows? Maybe this is the year you finally see your film on the big screen. Now, if you've been following our documentary series, you are well into your film's pre-production and you're ready to move forward to the next stage. Or perhaps you've just joined here because making a film is part of your goals for 2023. Whatever the reason, welcome, and this episode is all about graphics and what you need to know about graphics for making a documentary. Hopefully, as you were conceiving your film, developing your pitch and considering the final product, you would have been thinking about graphics and the overall look. But not just within the documentary as itself, but the film as a brand. Maybe you can already visualize the poster. It's important to approach your graphics with an overall approach as your graphics are in, out, and around your film, especially in documentary. So you'll need to consider not only your title card, your lower third text for names and locations, trailer titles, logos, poster design, but yes, social media places as well. Now, why am I telling you about all of this? If you're not familiar with me, I am Sue Collins and I am part of the team behind Moonshine Agency, an impact film production house producing films that have a positive social impact. Impact films are films that are designed to take an audience from passive viewing to being an active participant. It gets them doing something, in other words, getting them involved and being part of a solution. Now I recognize that learning how to craft films is a challenging process, and when I was starting out, it was really hard to find information and learn about filmmaking without formal study or without being under the wing of a mentor. So avoiding the pitfalls, being pigeonholed, running out of funding, or simply not understanding the business side of the industry has meant that over the years I have seen many people, people with a lot of talent, give up or simply move on to more stable work. But my hope is to see the industry thrive here in Australia and beyond, and I recognise that to do that, I have to be more open with skills sharing. So I've decided to share more of what I've learned through many years of filmmaking through this podcast, The Moonshine Moonshot, and also with online courses over at Moonshine Communications Academy. So make sure you check out the Academy, particularly the resources section, where you can access the free downloads like check sheets and ebooks. And if you haven't come across them already, there are some great online courses available through the Academy, such as Define Your Ideal Audience, which helps you figure out who your audience is for your project, and that is well before you even roll camera, and that is gold for any marketer. Alright, but today we are talking about graphics. So why is it important to be thinking about graphics early on right here in your pre-production? Having some graphics is far from your finished piece, but it does put a face to your documentary and it begins the process of moving from concept through to tangible film. And with this in mind, I would encourage you to start developing these graphics as early on in pre-production as you can. Look, it could seem slightly dramatic, but think about all your favorite movies. All of the best have their designs stuck in your mind. After all, how many of them can you immediately identify by the title card, the font, the poster design? I mean just think about Jurassic Park and Jurassic World. The second you see that font, you just know what the movie is going to be. So creating the graphics will not only help you begin developing your marketing strategy, it will also create an identity for your film that can be recognized by the public and potential investors. Now, an example I can think of offhand as well to do with graphics is that when we were pitching to fund conquering cancer, making history by eliminating cervical cancer everywhere at Moonshine Agency, investors were actually a little bit thrown by the temporary graphics that we'd been using. The font and the colours just didn't feel quite right for the story that we were pitching. So we stopped and we invested a bit of time up front to get those graphics more in line and it really did help to see the concept come to life and really gave the investors a much greater sense of the story that we were planning to tell. And another reason that getting your graphics started early is quite vital is simply because it allows you the time to adapt and change. Because you might be convinced that the style you choose initially is perfect, but as time goes on and your film begins to get a life of its own, you might realize that the documentary now requires a different style to reflect the film it's involved into, or perhaps it's the colours, or you know, you completely reimagine your poster art design and that informs the graphics from within the project as well. So, where do you start? Well, this is often tricky. Where to start with graphics? So before you go on a manhunt for a graphic designer, you kind of need to put a lot of thought into the intention of the graphics. Knowing who your target audience is will definitely help to inform this. Now, if it's a young demographic, then more youthful fonts and colours could possibly appeal, whereas for an older audience, more traditional or formal fonts could connect better. So bear in mind that the most creative, dramatic, or bold choice is not necessarily the best one. Have you ever been to a meeting where the presenter uses a PowerPoint with ridiculous transitions on every slide? It's a nightmare, right? So consider all the elements of your graphics. What sort of fonts best reflect your film? Should you use high contrast colours or impactful lettering? These could later be used beyond the things in your film. For example, you might use these same types of graphics in your social media places or your poster art. And after you have an idea of what you're looking for, then you need to find a graphic designer. So do a heap of research on what type of graphics that you like, what type of graphics you think will suit your audience. Compile a mood board of all the designs that you like, poster art that you like, colours and ways things have been put together because all of these will be really helpful for creating a really thorough brief for your graphic designer. Because there are plenty of sites where you can locate graphic designers, for example, upwork, but finding the right one for your project can have some trial and error, and you've really got to do your research for designers as well. Look at their past work, look at their folios, what have other people said about the experience of working with them? All of those things need to come into your consideration when you're hiring a graphic designer. And when you do pick your graphic designer, clear communication is essential. The designer is the one that will create a lot of different types of graphics. There'll be a lot of variety in what will likely need to complement each other. So not only will this help with brand recognition, but also further your story and your intended meaning. So what I'm meaning by that is that all the graphics for all the elements in your film, be it the lower thirds, the title cards, the opening title sequence, the fonts, the colors, the poster art, then you've got your social media places, all of these things need to complement each other and they should all stem from the same brand guide that your graphic designer will create. So, what about animation? Animation's an interesting one because although it's graphics, you usually don't get it created by a graphic designer. It's normally an animator would do the animation specifically. So, although it's similar to regular graphics, it's incredibly important to think about animation in conjunction with the rest of your documentary and how the style of the animation complements the film. Sometimes when you need to get through a section of your film that might be really information dense, an animation can really help with this and help simplify the ideas that you're trying to explain. And though animation is a fantastic way to create a variety in your film creative ways to communicate complex ideas, it can be incredibly time consuming to create those graphics and extremely costly. So it's important to note that when you're dealing with animation, it may involve you collaborating with a whole team rather than just one individual. And if this is a route that you're going to take, then scheduling this into your production plan is really important. And if you're a bit unsure on how to do that, just jump back a few episodes to our previous blog on scheduling to help you figure out how to schedule animation because it takes a lot longer. Animation just takes much, much longer than you would think. So that's why it's right up front here in pre-production. Now, if you're still needing help, I get it. The pre-production phase can be very overwhelming. There is a lot to think through. And after the closing of this silly season that we've just had, having some extra assistance can be a lifeline. So luckily, we have plenty of resources here at the Moonshine Communications Academy website. If you just scroll to the resource tab at the top, you can find a ton of tools to help you through the complexities of pre-production and beyond. And if you can't find what you're looking for, be sure to message on Instagram or Facebook and we can easily connect and answer your questions there, or just shoot me an email to support at Moonshine Communications Academy.com. Now, next week is exciting because, as with every week, you're edging closer and closer to getting into production. But there is one more episode in pre-production. And the more you plan, strategize, and schedule, the easier your production will be and the more it will open up the creativity that inspires and fulfills you. So if you're filling up to it, next week we'll be pushing on through the nuts and bolts of pre-production and discussing exactly who your production team are going to be. Who are you going to work with? Who's going to help you realize your dream? How you decide on the working environment you're going to put everyone into in your team. This is really important stuff. Building a team is huge. So that's what we're talking all about in next week's episode. So please hit subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to, and I will be back next week. So until then, happy filmmaking.