I want to make a documentary: where do I even begin?

A lot of posts come from good questions in my personal life.
And thanks, Jeremy Wagner, for another goodie of interest- only asked after reaching out to one artist who feels a bit sick and tired now and then like any soul in this world. I happened to seem blind to the awesomeness swirling around my multi-tasking imagination and life. It's good to be reminded, I was thankful for where I ended yesterday.


He then gave me this one:

I want to make a documentary: where do I even begin?

So I thought about it a minute, and said:


Look around you to the means of recording things: your own senses, natch, but, from pencil and paper to webcam. Start using any of them; keep the continuity of that habit until you've figured out each stage and grown more skilled at translating what you want to display, and meanwhile, a documentary is completed. Give yourself room for the concept to breathe a bit, roam a bit, but fashion a ritual of adding something to it daily until it's done. There will be times to think about it further while resting or in relaxed moments with other concerns, but you will be surprised and pleased to see how, soon, it becomes so much what you think about that it crowds out undesirable thoughts with productive ones. Stuck? Check online for techinical solutions.
(This is all before we get into the idea of "go to school for it." That's fine, really, but I mean, if you want to actually start doing your daydream ASAP. Do what you can fund! Then use those results to gather allies, constructive criticism- and outside funding.)

The steps of the craft offer you a chance to reflect your integrity, and your resolve in detecting the challenges and finding solutions is a test of character- for so long as the task is relevant. Things sometimes don't make it to completion, but the process of creating always serves its task, so don't be daunted by the bugabears when you can only find the rewards in the doing!

Only after you've begun your very own individual efforts need you concern yourself with how others did it, but any resource documenting the making of a documentary film- especially close to the genre you envision- could hold answers.

You might enjoy looking at video editing software: what you realize you can do opens your entire approach, so once you've started taking photos and making outlines, start looking around! My next steps personally will depend on YouCam7's Director Zone. I bought myself an affordable Logitech C270 webcam at my local Staples along with my headset. My video objective? A demo to join an online learning institute. First I worked on location, lighting, sound, my initial script. I spent a couple of weeks getting comfortable with the process and practicing clips. Today I hope to finish up: recite my edited talk (mine's memorized because that looks better on camera, for this). It will run about a full minute.
Going forward, I'll open DirectorZone and learn more about how to drop in Power Point charts, cut in pre-recorded audio to my live feed. It's a different direction than a documentary, but an online English class is still an exciting film project.

There's a lot of things you need first before getting into the very technical range of answers. Don't worry, you'll figure those out as you get a sense of your own aesthetics- but don't over-think and miss the satifaction of the first steps!

I hope what I've said about living in the creative process will be a helpful pillar in the foundation of a vision to try something new. Even attempting to formulate a response to the desire through yoru efforts will build your self-esteem, and the more effort you put into it, confidence and audacity grow. Only by attempting Anything- some thing!- can you discover what a creative process response in life might open up, about yourself, communication with others, patterns by which one affixes great personal meaning to the aggregate of one's choices. The decisions and actions matter, but elevating one's self to a place of seeing an array of choices is the goal; it's in this manner Art uplifts any who look at Life, say "I am creating my responses," and dedicate some immediate attention to interacting with a broader horizon.