In January i set out to make a documentary about mathieson music school, a trust run school that was set up by a cellist called anup kumar biswas who had grown up in poverty just outside of Kolkata, he was fortunate enough to get educated and taught music in a christian school. here he excelled at playing the cello in particular and was sent off to a music school in england. since then he has become a successful cellist and wanted to give something back to poor communities like the one he grew up in so he set up a school that taught english and western and indian classical music.
Before setting out on my trip i extensively planned what i was going to film, this story plan would not be fixed i thought of it like an itinerary that it would give me a rough direction in which i would go in.
i started out by writing a list of potential characters, interviews and story lines i could follow. i then identifyied documentaries that were similar both in content and style to the one i was going to make, then i analyzed its structure. This is just one way of structuring a documentary that is suitable for a character focused documentary.
- Setup. setting up the background and protagonist(s).
- Hook. This is the moment which draws the audience in which could be an enigma or a persons dilemma.
- Obstacles. the protagonist faces obstacles of increasing complexity.
- Conflict. Conflict between the protagonist and villain. This is a good way of creating a powerful story and keeping the audience engaged, but it does not work with all stories.
- Climax
Using these rough stages i roughly sketched out what these moments in my documentary would be. From this you can put together a rough outline but this is not essential.
I also identified that longer documentaries usually focused on several protagonists such as ‘mathieson’ could focus on the school in the present, how it was set up and its founder. To work out who i would focus on as a protagonist i did a bit of research about the school and wrote down what sort of traits i would be looking for in them, it is worth mentioning that this would not be fixed and when i started filming it would likely change.
Finally i put together a list of interviews/moments which were the backbone to the story and so were a priority to film.
Writing can feel a bit tedious but remember that it will help you tremendously later on and most importantly have fun doing it and when you get stuck ask yourself why you are making this documentary.
Before setting out on my trip i extensively planned what i was going to film, this story plan would not be fixed i thought of it like an itinerary that it would give me a rough direction in which i would go in.
i started out by writing a list of potential characters, interviews and story lines i could follow. i then identifyied documentaries that were similar both in content and style to the one i was going to make, then i analyzed its structure. This is just one way of structuring a documentary that is suitable for a character focused documentary.
- Setup. setting up the background and protagonist(s).
- Hook. This is the moment which draws the audience in which could be an enigma or a persons dilemma.
- Obstacles. the protagonist faces obstacles of increasing complexity.
- Conflict. Conflict between the protagonist and villain. This is a good way of creating a powerful story and keeping the audience engaged, but it does not work with all stories.
- Climax
Using these rough stages i roughly sketched out what these moments in my documentary would be. From this you can put together a rough outline but this is not essential.
I also identified that longer documentaries usually focused on several protagonists such as ‘mathieson’ could focus on the school in the present, how it was set up and its founder. To work out who i would focus on as a protagonist i did a bit of research about the school and wrote down what sort of traits i would be looking for in them, it is worth mentioning that this would not be fixed and when i started filming it would likely change.
Finally i put together a list of interviews/moments which were the backbone to the story and so were a priority to film.
Writing can feel a bit tedious but remember that it will help you tremendously later on and most importantly have fun doing it and when you get stuck ask yourself why you are making this documentary.