Practical Training Session On Documentary & Screenplay

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Documentary

What is a Documentary ?
A documentary film is a nonfictional motion picture
intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for
the purpose of instruction, education and maintaining a
historical record
or
It’s a CREATIVE TREATMENT OF ACTUALITY.
What other scholars think Documentary is ?
ART….as per EMILE ZOLA
“A work of art is a
corner of nature seen
through a
temperament.”
ART….as per
BERTHOLD BRECHT
Art is not a mirror
held up to reality, but
a hammer to shape it.
ART….as per DZIGA VERTOV
Life as it is….
Documentary….as per
PARE LORENTZ
A factual film
which is
dramatic.
Documentary….as per
JOHN GRIERSON
A documentary is a
creative treatment of
actuality.
WHAT IS A DOCUMENTARY ?
• Real people
• Real places
• Real time
• Real concerns
• Subjective
• Shape a better society
• Dramatic
• creative
What is the purpose of Documentary Film ?
The purpose of documentary varies from film to film.
Many documentary filmmakers attempts to change or
improve society in some way with their documentaries.
The goal is to bring to light a certain cause or injustice
with the hope that their film Will help galvanize the
masses to demand change.
Types of Documentary ?• Poetic Documentary
The poetic mode of documentary film tends towards subjective interpretation of its
subject. Light on rhetoric, documentaries in the poetic mode forsake traditional
narrative content individual characters and events remain undeveloped, in favor of
creating a particular mode or tone.

• It is individualistic
• It is the matter of feelings
• It creates a rhythm
• People can have different perception after watching it
• It depicts what exactly what can be created and seen.
• It is expressed through emotions and sound
• It Will never have a conclusion
• Expository Documentary
Also called ‘voice-of-god’ mode, this type of documentary has a narrator addressing the
audience directly, explaining and interpreting events. This is also called newsreel kind
of documentary, speak directly to the viewer, often in the form of an authoritative
commentary employing voiceovers or titles, proposing a strong argument and point of
view.

• It is a common documentary
• It explains the visuals
• It exposes the real images
• It creates a debate
• It will also have a narrator
• It is a news reel type
• Tries to persuade reader
• It will have voice of god
• Observational Documentary
The filmmaker is like a ‘fly on the wall’ seeing reality as the fly might see it.
The idea is to record and replicate reality. In such documemtaries the subject is
allowed to stand by itself, as it were; there are long takes, indirect addresses, no
narration and no voiceovers.

• Filmmaker cannot put their opinión to it


• Main work is to observe things
• Filmmaker never provokes anything in it
• There is no narration
• It is a type of spy documentary
• Filmmaker goes in a situation, observes and tries to record it
• Participatory Documentary
A participatory documentary is an inclusive and collaborative process that
engages communities in designing and carrying out the collection and
dissemination of their own story. It is not simply about producing stories.

• Filmmaker participates in the event themselves


• He/She is a part of film
• Filmmaker themselves comes on screen
• It includes filmmaker with narrative
• Performative Documentary
A combination of styles used to stress the subject’s exprerience and share an
emotional response to the world. The filmmaker often shows a larger political or
historical reality through the window of their own expereince.

• Filmmaker Will share his experience, what he felt about


• It Will always contain filmmaker’s point of view
• Reflexive Documentary
The reflexive style of documentary is usually associated with experimental
documentaries where the viewer is just as interested about how the film is
constructed as they are actual content.

• It is an experimental type of film


• There is nothing fixed here
• Here people take interest in knowing how was the film made
First Documentary film made
in history
The first official documentary or non-fiction
narrative film was Robert Flaherty’s
Nanook of the North (1922), an
ethnographic look at the harsh life of
Canadian Inuit Eskimos living in the Arctic,
although some of the film's scenes of
obsolete customs were staged.
Format of Doccumentary Script
Scriptwriting
Screenwriting, also called scriptwriting, is the art and craft of
writing scripts for mass media such as feature films, television
production or video games. It is often a freelance profession.
Screenwriters are responsible for researching the story, developing the
narrative, writing the script, screenplay, dialogues and delivering it, in the
required format, to development executives. Screenwriters therefore have
great influence over the creative direction and emotional impact of the
screenplay and, arguably, of the finished film. Screenwriters either pitch
original ideas to producers, in the hope that they will be optioned or sold;
or are commissioned by a producer to create a screenplay from a concept,
true story, existing screen work or literary work, such as a novel, poem,
THE 5 ACT STRUCTURE
THE 3 ACT STRUCTURE
Elements of Scriptwriting
PLOT : Plot refers to the sequence of events inside a story. where each event affects the next through the
principle of cause-and-effect..
SUB-PLOT/ CHARACTER :
Subplot is a secondary strand of the plot that is a supporting side story for any story or the main
plot. Subplots may connect to main plots, in either time and place or in thematic significance. Subplots often
involve supporting characters, those besides the protagonist or antagonist. Subplots may also intertwine with
the main plot at some point in a story.
TIME : Time is the major element in fiction writing as it has to be decided that ‘what time Will be the story set
in ?’ Is the entire film is present or past ? All looks, sets, costumes, etc are designed according to the
time period of the film.
SPACE :
What will be the space in which a film will be shot ? What will be the location ? Will it be
real or unreal ? Or we have to create or design the set according to the need ?

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