Guide to Documentary Filmmaking Pt.3: Development
Discussing the detailed outline for PURITAN.
In development, your idea becomes words on a page, and flesh is given to bone. All my projects start with a blank document (I like Dropbox paper for this) that becomes my canvas for my detailed outline. This is the very heart of the project.
After I secured funding for Luther, we entered into development. I immediately started to flesh my idea for Luther, knowing that I wanted to tell the whole story of Luther, warts and all. This began with referencing the initial visual treatment so that I could further develop the ideal story arc, the themes, and any important stylistic thrusts.
This stage can be as long or as short as you’d like. The most time-consuming part is the research and reading necessary to create a detailed outline. I organize my research thematically and chronologically.
One of the most crucial and challenging parts of this stage is determining the specific narrative arc. To do this, you have to ask these questions:
Who is the intended audience?
Is there a thrust/message to communicate?
Which parts of the story do I want to include?
Which parts of the story are nice but not crucial and thus should be excluded?
The answers to these questions form the very crux of what becomes your story.
For an example of how you could lay out your project, here is my detailed outline for Puritan.
Tip: Much of The Idea stage and Development blend together. The order of each project will be slightly different. For example, the Moody Visual Treatment Proposal from pt. 1 was after I had done the detailed outline which is why it’s a lot more fleshed out.
In part 4 we will be entering pre-production, more specifically the scriptwriting and storyboarding phase. If you have a question or found this helpful please leave a comment below or send me an email.
Stay watchful.