Reading: “Documentary storytelling for film and video makers” by Bernard Curran.

This reading opened my eyes to the world of documentary and how much planning actually goes into it. I always thought of documentary as having a much lower level of creativity and creative choice than feature films, however a point that stood out at me was that everything in documentary has a huge decision behind it. Things I simply ignored such as will the documentary be observational, or will the documentary contain interviews, will the documentary get the filmmaker involved, will the documentary use more than one interviewee? There are many ways to do the one documentary and what sort of documentary it becomes is based on the filmmaker.

Another point that excited me in particular, especially about creating our own documentaries this semester, was when the article stated that filmmakers talk about ‘“finding” the story, or the story revealing itself’. I am beginning my documentary with a rough idea about what my grandmother has been through in her life time, and her love story with my grandfather, although I don’t know what sort of road the documentary will take. I don’t really know what will be the main focus for her stories, will it be her troubled childhood or mainly her relationship with my grandfather? I think the story in this documentary will reveal itself in the editing room after we have asked her millions of questions and cut together the most fascinating bits. I am really excited to make this documentary.