Documentaries - Tips from Liam O'Brien and Zoe Comyns.

Liam O'Brien and Zoe Comyns facilitated workshops on making documentaries in Dublin and Galway in September and October.  The BAI also attended the workshop giving participants advice on completing the Sound and Vision Workshop.  The workshops were well attended in Dublin and Galway.  A podcast from the workshop will be available on www.learningwaves.ie in the coming weeks.

Key points from Liam and Zoe were as follows : 

Ideas - you must be able to put your idea into 2-3 sentences
Bring your unique personal experience to the documentary
Know where your focus is going
Don't over research the idea before you start making the documentary
If the listener has to think, they will stop listening - this is where documentaries fall down
All stories must have a beginning, middle and end and the story mus have a past, present and future
Interviewing : When interviewing people, ask one question at a time, let them do the talking, never interrupt someone during an interview, you must develop trust with the interviewee, make everything as easy as possible for the interviewee
Listen and listen to lots of documentaries
Editing - dont make your edits until you have the structure of the story told, label your information
Watch out for more on this in our podcast section.