What Makes a Great Documentary?

        When scrolling through the television channels, most people’s first instinct is to quickly pass over documentaries.  The purpose of a documentary is to educate the audience on a particular subject, not to have them fall asleep.  What, then, turns a documentary from flat to exceptional? 

               

        To start, here are some things to avoid when making a great documentary founded by award winning director, Col Spector.  First, do not avoid having an overall theme or subject.    Making sure the documentary has a specific purpose that makes it worth watching.  Second, when choosing this topic, do not fail to make it something worth the audience’s time.  In other words, pick a topic that will be great for a documentary, which is not necessarily the same as a great topic for a TV series or movie.  Next, do not create a documentary with poor film techniques- no one wants to watch a show that looks thrown together. With using proper film techniques, this also includes the music that will accompany the film.  Avoid bad music because this could make or break the film.  Finally, do not go into making the film with a blind eye.  Having a vision for the documentary will help to create a path that producers will want to take when creating the film, which will then hopefully bring about the same vision to the audience. (Spector)

               

        Some additional techniques to making a great documentary include the setup.  “Finding the story, assembling the team, filming and editing are all part of the process that makes a documentary successful” (documentary tube).  This includes the interviewing process of a documentary as well.  It is important to survey/interview people with meaningful questions that will benefit the documentary as a whole.

Works Cited:

Spector, Col. "5 Simple Mistakes Documentary Filmmakers Make." Raindance Film Festival. Web. 26       Sept. 2014. 

"What Makes a Good Documentary Film?" DocumentaryTubecom Watch Documentaries Online for             Free RSS. Web. 26 Sept. 2014.