Ep. 54 The 5 key types of shoots you'll do during documentary film production

As you would expect, production is a huggggge topic and I wouldn’t dare anyone to try and cover it in one single video! So today, we’ll be looking at the five key ingredients that every production needs. 

Well. Six, kinda. 

These ingredients are interviews, b-roll, observational footage, archival footage, specialist shots, and animation. But how exactly do they play into your documentary?

Production is a massive part of the filmmaking journey. Luckily, we plan to be here with you the whole way. 


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Transcript

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It's official, we are through pre-production, and today is the first episode on Yes, you guessed it, production. Documentary production. So scene one, take one, action. Here we go, filmmakers. We are jumping straight into it, and I will be walking you through the five basic ingredients to your production filming. And what I mean by that is what are you going to film and what types of shots will you capture? And there are five different types that I will break down today. Now, as you would expect, production is a huge topic. And I wouldn't dare anyone to try and cover it in just one single podcast episode. So today I'm only looking at the five basic ingredients that every production needs. And the following episodes after this one will go deeper into many other topics, including what gear I use, how I crew my shoots, call sheets, participant release forms, or otherwise known as consenting your participants, and everything else related to the actual production phase of your film. Now, if you've gotten this far and you've suddenly realized I still have some pre-production to get sorted, it is all good. Head back over to the previous episodes and you can find the lessons you need. I'll wait for you right here. But today I am breaking down for you the five types of shoots that you might undertake. And they include interviews, b-roll, sometimes called overlay, observational or actuality, specialty shoots, archival, and as a bonus, I'm going to touch on animation as well. Now, if you're new to the Moonshine Moonshot podcast, name for its aspirational reference to the original Moonshot, because let's face it, making a film is somewhat of a moonshot. And I am telling you all this because I'm Sue Collins and I'm your host, and I'm part of the team behind Moonshine Agency, an impact film production house producing multi-award-winning films that have positive social impact. Impact films are films that are designed to take an audience from passive viewing to being an active participant, and it gets them doing something, getting involved and being part of a solution. Now I recognize that learning how to craft film is a challenging process. And when I was just starting out, it was very hard to find information or learn about documentary filmmaking without, well, it wasn't even really possible through formal study a lot of the time, and without a mentor as the other option. So avoiding pitfalls, being pigeonholed, running out of funding, or simply not understanding the business side of the industry has meant that I have seen over the years many people with a lot of talent give up or simply move on to more stable work. And my hope is to see the industry thrive here in Australia and beyond. And I recognize that to do that, I've got to be more open with sharing my skills to help you learn. So I've decided to share more of what I know through my many years of filmmaking in this podcast, The Moonshine Moonshot, and with online courses at the Moonshine Communications Academy. So make sure you check out the Academy, particularly the resource section, because you'll be able to access free downloads like check sheets and ebooks. And if you haven't come across them already, there are some really great online courses available through the Academy, such as Define Your Ideal Audience, which helps you figure out who your project is best suited to well before you even roll camera, and that is gold for any marketing you might need to do downstream. So let's dive into the five types of shoots that you will undertake in production. First one, interviews. For many documentaries, interviews are the foundation of the film. They're what drives the story. So making sure you have enough in the interviews you capture, the better for your film overall, as you'll have a lot to work with in the edit. As the old saying goes, it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. So having a really quality interview is just a key with your key participant. But I also have a bit of a caution with this because you don't want to take up a lot of time interviewing talent that will simply never make the cut, or that you might only be needing a few comments from them. So make sure you've done that research and screen your talent in the pre-production process. Now, if you missed that episode on how to do that, it was number 41 on how to use pre-interviews to make your film better. So just jump back to episode 41 in the podcast and you'll find that one. The reason I'm sort of labouring that point is because, you know, it's also about setting up expectations with your interviewees. If you spend an hour and a half interviewing someone and then you only use 10 seconds worth of comments in your film, they're probably going to feel a bit let down by that. So it's about if you know, if you're interviewing someone and you know that their voice is incredibly important, but you probably only need about two minutes worth of screen time, you probably don't need a really long and exhaustive interview with them. You need just very specific questions answered, and you can probably do that in a quick 15-minute piece to camera. So you just need to take those things into consideration when you're planning out your interviews. When it comes down to breaking down actual interviewing techniques, then that's a whole thing in and of itself, which I think I'll have to do in another day because it's just too involved to get into here. But you know, normally when I'm conducting interviews, it can take up to two hours, and that includes setup, pack down, say the interview goes for around 45 minutes. If it goes longer than that, that can be really exhausting for you as the interviewer and also for the interviewee. But the duration will depend on the topic you're discussing and how important that interviewee is to your overall film. As I said, as long as you've done your pre-production talent research and you've prepared your set and you have a great handle on your equipment, you will be cruising for a smooth flowing interview on the day. Allowing around 90 minutes to two hours for setup, doing the interview and pack up is probably a realistic time frame. Now, when it comes down to you know making your talent comfortable, that is another key element to interviewing because if they're camera shy or highly media trained, it can take time to you know tear down their walls and make way for a genuine and insightful conversation. So just try and keep everything as relaxed and comfortable for your interviewee as possible. So being organized, being prepared, and importantly, just stay calm. It will be great. You will do great. Interviewing is a lot of fun. You also learn so much that you would never anticipate. So interviews are fantastic, and I really hope you enjoy doing them too. Now, the next thing that you're gonna need, so number two is B-roll, which is also sometimes called overlay. Now, if you're interviewing and you know who you're interviewing in advance and you know what the story is, chances are you'll already have a pretty good idea of what type of B-roll you're gonna need to capture on the day, or perhaps you'll need to come back on another day to get that. But your B-roll is basically that cutaway footage that shows your talent in action. Generally, they'll be doing something that's in relation to what they discussed in their interview or related to who they are and what they do. So whether your B-roll is of your talent, you know, at work, maybe it's just getting coffee, maybe it's walking around their office space, it really helps as a way to keep the viewer's attention when you're cutting it all together. Because let's be honest, someone just talking at you for extended periods of time on screen, often called the talking head, isn't the most interesting way to make a film. So the more that you can get all of that, you know, footage that complements the interview, the more interesting your final film's gonna be. Now, number three is observational footage, and this is not to be confused with B-roll, although it is similar, it is not the same. Observational footage stands apart from B-roll. It's sometimes referred to as actuality, and it's a type of filming that isn't fabricated and requires you to be very adaptable and to immerse yourself in what is happening right in front of you. Now, on the YouTube version of this episode, Mike, my um partner in all things, used an um analogy. So if you want to see that, just head over to episode 54 on YouTube. It's a companion episode to this podcast, and it's on the Moonshine Communications Academy channel. And so the example that he gave was say filming in a classroom setting. If you're trying to observe teaching happening, you probably would need multiple cameras set up and microphones, and you would need the students and the teacher to go about their day without acknowledging the cameras, not letting anyone on to the fact that they knew the cameras were there. And you'd need to film them for quite a while. It's almost like being a fly on the wall. So, other ways to do this, you know, you might only have one camera and you might be just following someone around for the day. The point of it all is that you're observing what's going on. You're not staging a scene. So it's actuality, it's life unfolding, it's observing. It literally is observational footage, is observing what's going on. So I hope that kind of helped to clarify why that's different to B-roll. Where, you know, B-roll, you could be asking someone, hey, can you walk into the room, sit down and pick up your coffee? Now that's not actuality or observational, that's B-roll. So that's the difference. One is you're just following someone as they do their thing, do what they do. And the other is you're capturing shots that are indicative of what they would normally be doing. Now, let's move on from that. I hope that wasn't too complicated, but hopefully that's clarified that distinction because both of those, B-roll and observational, are so useful in documentary filmmaking. So they're two things you really want to master and really want to have in your production schedule. Number four, specialty footage. Again, specialty footage is fantastic if you can do it and if your budget allows. And, you know, if you've ever seen a Tom Cruise film, 90% of the shots in them could be classified as specialty shots because there's just so much going on and they're just, you know, okay, I'll stop talking about Tom Cruise because you might not be a fan. So I'll give you a bit more detail. A specialty shot could be using a small camera, you know, an action camera, say something like a GoPro and hooking it up to a vehicle so that the footage feels like you're the one watching out of the car window. Or, you know, if you're filming a bike riding down the street, you might put a GoPro on the front of the bike and it feels like, you know, you're actually sitting on the bike as the audience. You might also do things like drone shots. I mean, drones are so fantastic, and I'm sure you are familiar with drones. It has made the world of difference to when we capture um shots, particularly to establish locations. It just makes it such a breeze, and they look so good. They are such quality shots. And you know, gone are the days of having to employ a helicopter to get that kind of stuff. Drones are brilliant. You also might need things, you know, it depends on the topic of your film, but you know, maybe you need an underwater camera. Absolutely, that's a specialist type of arrangement. And they take time, and that kind of specialist gear requires a specialist filmer, like you know, obviously a water filmer in that example. Or, you know, even with drones, you do need to have a drone flight license so that you're doing it safe. And you know, it's totally worth it because gee, do they make your production value increase dramatically? So I highly recommend specialty shoots whenever you can because it's visually just so interesting. For documentary, anywhere you can make it more visually interesting, the better it's going to look on screen. Now, the fifth one, and this is really important too: archival. Archival footage and stills. The types of archival footage that you might use really do depend on the story that you're trying to tell. For example, if we're talking at an event that happened in your talent's childhood, chances are you'll want images or footage from that time in their life. So the best way to get it is to actually ask your interviewee if they can supply any photos or footage. And a note on this, you'll need them to get a footage release form signed so that you've got permission to use their personal photos and footage in your film, something that your broadcaster or distributor will likely ask for. So getting that kind of archival material directly from your participant, usually the best way to do it, and you just have to make sure that they are indeed personal photos and that you know it wasn't taken by a professional photographer for them, that you'll then need to credit that photographer. Often organizations that they've worked for might have footage that you need to capture. So that's just about being introduced into the right people to get that kind of archival material. And then later down the line, you might find yourself looking into actual stock footage from stock footage libraries, from broadcasters, archive libraries, from radio stations if you need audio files of interviews. But that's more of a post-production task. That being said, the timeline and the cost for that type of material can be really expensive and varies a lot in price, um, depending on where you source it from. You know, I've I've sourced footage from stock footage libraries, and it's been really affordable, you know, shutter stock and those kinds of things. You can get really affordable stock footage if you need that kind of thing for your documentary. But when you go to things like broadcaster libraries, they tend to charge a minimum of 30 seconds. And you know, you have to play a librarian to find the footage for you, and you need to do in-and-out codes, and there's all kinds of extra paperwork and things you need to do for that. So I highly recommend that you're really organized if you're going to need that kind of archival footage and do that well in advance because it is pretty time consuming, particularly once you get into the edit and choosing exactly what types of shots you want to use. Now, all of these factors do work into your budget, so you do need to take them into consideration. And if you're thinking of going down this route, I would suggest going back and having a look, as I mentioned, at your budget because it does get costly. And I went much more into detail on episode 45 in licensing materials for your documentary. So do not hesitate to jump back to that episode once you finish here if you need more ins and outs on using licensed materials. But while you're here in production, the main goal is to collect these archival materials from your talent to build up your story and get access to that stuff as quickly and easily as possible. Because, you know, six months after you've done the interview, it's a lot harder to chase someone up to get that stuff. So do it right there and then. Now, the last one I just want to touch on, and this is a bit of a bonus one, it's animation. So number six is animation. It might be last, but it's definitely not least. Of course, it's not going to apply to all films, but it's a great tool, and animation requires a considerable amount of time if you want to create it. So that's why I'm raising it during the production phase here. If you leave it till post-production and you're in a rush to hit a deadline, you might find yourself without time to get what you want created. So, did you get all of that? We had interviews, we had B-roll, we had observational, we had specialty shoots, we had archival, and we have animation. So I hope that that's given you a much clearer understanding of the types of shots that you're going to be capturing during your production phase because that will help you to plan them out a bit better. Now you'll be forgiven if you didn't get all of that. So don't hesitate to listen again if you missed something, or you can jump over to the blog on the Moonshine Communications Academy to get all those key points out of the blog as well if you like to see things written down. And you know, we're here with you. I'm here with you every step of the way. And in the next lesson I'm going to be working through in production is the big question: how are you going to tell your story? So if you're looking for more help, do not hesitate to reach out, shoot me a message on Facebook or Instagram at Moonshine Communications Academy. But right now, I want you to hit subscribe on whatever platform you are listening on because that really helps me to know that you're finding this information useful and that you want more. So hit subscribe now, and I will be back next Tuesday to tell you all about what you're going to do to tell your story. Okay, speak to you then.