There are no templates for writing documentary treatments, no pre-given formulas. It can involve a script (not unlike a fictional narrative script), a story outline, a treatment, a creative brief or an audio-visual breakdown.

In many instances, the approach will be dictated by broadcasters or funding agents who require a written document outlining the structure, subjects and visual approach to the film. Given the written form does not have the luxury of sound and image to enhance the story, the documentary treatment needs to work extra hard to engage and compel the reader.

When writing the treatment for our first feature length documentary, Words From the City – a documentary about a number of Hip Hop MCs in Australia co-directed with Rhys Graham, I felt quite unnerved writing about characters and events prior to actually filming with them.

Given the written form does not have the luxury of sound and image to enhance the story, the documentary treatment needs to work extra hard to engage and compel the reader.

The development process made this somewhat easier as it enabled us to film some preliminary observational footage and interviews with the subjects. This, along with research into the subjects and the topic, enabled us to create a written document that gave the stakeholders of the film some sense of how the documentary would take shape. As an observational documentary filmmaker, this felt anathema to the idea of documenting real life events as they unfold before the camera.

Looking back on the process, I think we invested a disproportionate amount of time and resources trying to create a great document on the page than to create a guiding document for the actual shooting and editing of the film.  This was disadvantageous on two levels: one, it put enormous pressure on us as filmmakers to construct a riveting story for the page; and secondly, it set up a high expectation in the stakeholders for the documentary to live up to the written treatment.

Writing to guide the process

With my most recent documentary, Anatomy – Muscle, about an itinerant performance troupe, Acrobat, I wrote a treatment that would not only engage the stakeholders but would also provide a realistic guide for the shooting and editing process.

From the early development phase, I knew that the film would need to explore the idea of strength and fragility in the human body. For this troupe, these ideas inform not only their show but also their way of life.

Once the individual characters arcs were established, I needed to find the story and structure.

Despite looking the picture of health, the three members of the group have all been confronted by the fallibility of their bodies. Prior to their last national tour, Simon snapped his achilles in a routine training session resulting in a complete nervous breakdown. His partner Jo was, at the time, struggling with exhaustion and depression following the birth of her youngest child and Mozes, the third member of the troupe, had been living with HIV and the very real threat that his body could one day fail him.

Once the individual characters arcs were established, I needed to find the story and structure. Given the transient nature of the troupe, I thought that a physical journey charting the tour would compliment the more existential journey the film was exploring.

The edit was no easy feat as we still needed to shape the character arcs as well as the overall story.

Whilst this significantly fed into the treatment to provide a sound basis from which to commence the shoot, I still undertook an observational approach to filming to allow for unpredictable moments to unfold before the camera.

Despite putting all of this planning in place, the edit was no easy feat as we still needed to shape the character arcs as well as the overall story.

Looking back on the footage from Muscle, I realized that I needed to construct a story and character outline for the film with the footage I had shot, not with what I had written about in the treatment. I also realized that I needed the characters to represent a different facet to their complex relationships with their bodies.

Whilst some observational filmmakers would never even write so much as a synopsis prior to filming, the writing process has become an invaluable part of my documentary filmmaking process.

Fleshing this out with editor Andy Canny, we worked out that Jo represented the emotional relationship an acrobat has with their body as she become increasingly torn between the needs on her body of both her children and her work. Simon represented the mental burden of injury, and Mozes the physical challenges of preventing the HIV from destroying his immune system.

Once we had worked out these basic character journeys we could approach the edit with a renewed and consolidated idea of the story that still honoured the premise of the original treatment but that, most importantly, honoured the actual footage that was captured.

Revisiting some my favourite documentaries – particularly the observational films from the Direct Cinema moment – I am reminded of how they utilised the devices of narrative fiction film to create an engaging and compelling story.

It is story that motivates the viewer to continue watching.

The work of the Maysles Brothers (pictured below) is particularly successful on this level with their films setting out to have all of the character development, conflict resolution, tension and plot of a fiction film.

Whether creating a character based documentary like Grey Gardens about an odd mother-daughter relationship or an event driven documentary like Gimme Shelter about the ill-fated Rolling Stones concert at Altamont, it is story that motivates the viewer to continue watching.

Like fiction films, these documentaries create a sense of intrigue prompting the viewer to ask, “what happens next?”, “how will story this turn out?” and “will the subject/s get what they want?”

Some observational filmmakers would never even write so much as a synopsis prior to filming. For me though, the writing process has become an invaluable part of my documentary filmmaking process.

Rather than stifling the creative process, I feel that it has enabled me to be more focused on capturing footage to enhance the story rather than searching for the story whilst shooting.

The important thing is to be responsive and open to those spontaneous, unforeseen moments that give a meaningful insight into the lives of the subjects and the worlds they inhabit. Those moments that, when captured by the delicate observations of the documentary filmmaker, transport us on that serendipitous journey Maysles refers to “so for that period of time, as you watch the film, you are, in effect, in the shoes of another individual”.

What a privilege it is to not only have that experience as a viewer but as a documentary filmmaker.

Natasha Gadd is a Melbourne based writer and director whose recent works include the AFI nominated documentary, Words From the City, and Anatomy – Muscle, awarded Best Documentary at the 2008 Australian Directors Guild Awards.

Cleo Mees

Cleo Mees is a Sydney-based writer, filmmaker and dancer. With a background across several disciplines, her interest is in finding out how these different disciplines can intersect and inform each other.

“In a way you’re on a serendipitous journey, a journey which is much more akin to the life experience. When you see somebody on the screen in a documentary, you’re really engaged with a person going through real life experiences. So for that period of time, as you watch the film, you are, in effect, in the shoes of another individual. What a privilege to have that experience.”

Albert Maysles

On a busy New York street, a silhouetted figure slips through a manhole into the dank, dark world beneath the city. As a train rumbles past, the figure walks through a network of subway tunnels that have become home to a large community of New York’s homeless.

Watching this memorable sequence from Marc Singer’s feature length documentary Dark Days is the beginning of the kind of serendipitous journey Albert Maysles is referring to, propelling the viewer to the farthest reaches of the earth to reveal the extraordinariness of everyday life.

Welcome to the wonderful world of documentary cinema.

As a programmer for documentary film festival, Real: life on film, I spent five sweltering summers with the blinds drawn perched in front of a glowing screen as images of thousands of different characters and places flickered before my eyes.

From vodka fuelled punks working in a Russian boot factory to Japanese female wrestlers or Romanian orphans living in the underground subways of Bucharest, these films revealed both the beautiful and the wretched characteristics of the human condition.

The Documentary Landscape

Looking back through the documentary archives there have been a number of significant stylistic movements that have been shaped as much by technological developments as by the desire of documentary makers to find more effective methods for telling stories about the real.

Whilst the languid observational documentaries of the Maysles Brothers (Grey Gardens, Gimme Shelter, Salesman) or Kim Longinotto (Dream Girls, Divorce Iranian Style, Sisters in Law) differ vastly from the highly stylised documentaries of Errol Morris (Thin Blue Line, Fog of War) and the evocative and performative documentaries of Werner Herzog  (La Soufrière, Lessons of Darkness), they are all shaped by story.

The strength of these films lies in not just what the films are about but how the story is told.

The concept of writing for documentary seemed something of an oxymoron. How could documentary be distinguished from the realm of fiction films if the events are scripted prior to the events occurring in real life? How does this effect the representation of the real world?

For many observational documentary makers, story is largely shaped in the edit once reels and reels of footage have been viewed and catalogued. For documentary filmmakers creating more stylized or constructed non-fiction films, story can be scripted prior to filming and the shoot executed with as much control as a fiction film.

After many years viewing, selecting and writing about non-fiction film, I decided I would try my hand at making documentaries. With a bent for purist observational documentary, I assumed that once I had selected a documentary subject and worked out the angle for the story, the most intensive part of the process would be the shoot and the edit.

What I did not realize at that stage was how essential the writing process is to documentary, not only in the shaping of story, but in attracting investors, distributors and broadcasters to the project. What struck me when looking through the funding applications was the requirement of a full written treatment, script or outline of the project.

The concept of writing for documentary seemed something of an oxymoron. How could documentary be distinguished from the realm of fiction films if the events are scripted prior to the events occurring in real life? How does this effect the representation of the real world?

Next week: Writing a Treatment that Sells

Natasha Gadd is a Melbourne based writer and director whose recent works include the AFI nominated documentary, Words From the City, and Anatomy – Muscle, awarded Best Documentary at the 2008 Australian Directors Guild Awards.

Cleo Mees

Cleo Mees is a Sydney-based writer, filmmaker and dancer. With a background across several disciplines, her interest is in finding out how these different disciplines can intersect and inform each other.