Documentary Help Please!

[untamed_aggression]

I find documentaries are extremly hard to do... establishing the pace through editing, getting the point across, etc.

My advice is to decide on your focus beforehand, and that way if you're not getting any useful footage, you can tell when your still shooting, instead of long after the fact, when you can't do anything about it.

A lot of commas in that post...

Good luck with it.

[Generic Skinhead]

Paige is back again. She must need something.

Ok I'm editing a documentary at the mo. Heres my advice.

1. Have as much worked out beforehand as possible. Decide on your tone now. You'll be bogged down in editing for ages otherwise.

2. Do some research on changing music trends. What did kids in the early nineties like? Mid nineties? Now?

3. Dont rely on just vox pops. Think about what images you're going to use. Can you try and get a few soundbites from people in the music industry to balance out all the teenage waffle?

Ok im done. Hope this helps or something.

[SmokescreenProdsGirl]

Hi! I'm making a Documentary on teen music habits. Basically I'm going to the streets to interview teens on what they like. I have a few questions:

1. What kind of research (if any) should I do (besides knowing names of groups, etc.)
2. How should I focus my documentary...decide on a focus beforehand, or see where the interviews take me?

Do you have any advice for me at all? Thanks a bunch!

~Paige

[bully_the_kid]

your advice is a bit generic, Generic.

I'm working on a doco at the moment and i suggest you to set the theme at the beginning.

I mean on what aspects of teen musics habits you have to concentrate on.

If you have a specific vision oo the thematic it will be easy doin' the research, the interviews and the editing...

[belovedmonster]

unles you are doing a beginers take of things as your angle the most obvious tip i can think of is research research research... by doing so a theme should become apparent for you to focus on.

i wouldnt just go out there with some basic research and hope to do anything worth while.

[Generic Skinhead]

Yes and the rest of the advice given was so very specific. [img]graemlins/sure.gif[/img]

If you'd like less Generic advice perhaps you should wait for my book: Genny Skin's 10 easy steps to making great teen music documentaries for people called Paige.