starting out making a documentary can feel overwhelming as it's hard to know where to begin and it's easy to lose confidence or get stuck during the filmmaking process as a documentary filmmaker myself i see so many people making the same painful mistakes over and over again many of which i made myself were now starting out in this video i'm going to run through one of the most important fundamental elements when starting out making a documentary that will help you go from an unfocused to a focused filmmaker and this is narration style so what is narration style it's the backbone of how the story of your documentary will be told choosing what narration style or styles you want to use in your documentary is an important decision as it will dictate where the main emotion comes from in your story without a narration style your film won't have a focus or direction and may result in a boring documentary that puts your audience to sleep so to make sure this doesn't happen to you let's run through some of the main narration styles you can use to help make your documentary more engaging for audiences before we get into the different styles i want to point out that there are many ways to categorize documentaries for example film critic and theorist bill nichols categorized docs into six modes poetic expository observational participatory reflexive and performative but nichols modes are written from more of an academic perspective and they overlap narration style with subject matter and visual technique and i thought for teaching purposes it's much simpler to just explain each of these elements separately so instead i've simplified nickels modes down into four categories focusing purely on narration style as the distinguishing factor so let's get into it here are my four main narration styles i use when making a documentary first up is interview led documentaries this is where the main characters in the documentary are interviewed by the filmmakers in the editing process the characters answers are woven together to form the story the interviews are then usually overlaid with b-roll footage photos or animation to visualize the experiences and emotions that the characters are talking about an example of an interview led documentary is the feature film searching for sugar man about an early 70s musician known as rodriguez who had become a huge hit in south africa but it was widely rumored that he had died the story is told through interviews with different people talking about their experiences of rodriguez his music and the impact that it had on them next is narrator-led this style of filmmaking is when footage or images are shown with the narrator's voice which describe the story so you can hear the narrator but you don't actually see them often the narrator will provide context to a scene or give the audience additional information to a sequence a great example of this is in the featured documentary march of the penguins narrated by morgan freeman where freeman's voice describes the action happening on screen and tells us a story about the emperor penguins and their journey of surviving the harsh conditions in antarctica the distinguishing factor is that the person telling the story the narrator he or she is not visible on camera and is reading from a script so the audience just hear the voice then we have presenter-led documentaries where a person presents the story to camera the presenter could be the filmmaker themselves a journalist actor media personality or an expert that is knowledgeable in a particular area the presenter appears on camera conducts interviews and may also do voice-overs for parts of the film with this style often the emotion of the story will come from the presenters feelings and perspectives about the topic as well as coming from any characters they may interview as part of the film an example of a presenter-led documentary is the film bowling for columbine where the presenter and filmmaker michael moore explores the circumstances that led to the 1999 columbine high school massacre he explores the gun laws in america and shows how easy it is to get access to these dangerous weapons so the distinguishing fact of a presenter-led documentary is that the person telling the story the presenter is physically present in front of a camera if the person isn't on screen the style would then be a narrator-led documentary then there's an observational led documentary also known as fly on the wall which is where there is no interviewee presenter or voiceover to narrate the story instead the filmmakers invite each viewer to draw their own conclusion about the film an example of an observational led documentary is the short film skip day which shows a glimpse of a special day and the lives of high school seniors of the florida everglades in america the filmmakers chose to show what unfolds in front of them rather than using interviews text or voiceovers to tell the story so one of the reasons i'm sharing these tips on documentary filmmaking is because over the last two years i've been developing the documentary film academy which is launching next month so if you happen to be someone who's looking to make a dock or you're in the process of making one and you're stuck i'm really excited to introduce to you the documentary film academy and i've put together a little trailer to get you excited hi i'm sebastian solberg and welcome to the documentary film academy the complete filmmaking course and guide to making engaging documentaries the problem with so many filmmaking courses currently on the market is that they just focus on the gear and the technical side of filmmaking rather than teaching you how to craft an engaging documentary that gets into festivals and wins awards or they just focus on one specific topic such as editing rather than taking you through the whole process of making a documentary from start to finish from developing your idea through to filming editing and marketing and that's why i created the documentary film academy to teach you the entire creative process of making a documentary and to be there for you every step of the way as you make and complete your film after talking to lots of aspiring filmmakers all wanting to make documentaries i discovered what their biggest challenges were then i spent two years crafting the ultimate documentary filmmaking course i've condensed over 15 years of professional documentary filmmaking experience into seven carefully structured modules in the course i'll be sharing everything i've learnt in my filmmaking career and continue to learn and share the roadmap that has helped me make films for top brands such as google visa and canon and create documentaries that get into festivals and win awards this course has over 50 video tutorials taking you step by step through my entire documentary filmmaking workflow and i'll be sharing it all without holding anything back as part of the documentary film academy you'll also have access to workbooks to help you get clear with your intentions for your documentary templates to help save you time and filmmaking assets to help you make more cinematic documentaries this course will revolutionize the way you think about and make documentaries and will help you overcome many of the roadblocks that stop even the most experienced filmmakers from finishing their documentary and what's been most exciting for us at dfa is seeing the results our students have been achieving after joining the course having taken the first half of this course i genuinely cannot tell you how much it has lifted at least my confidence and the ideas for this documentary and therefore its creativity and its breadth and its potential from here i don't know if you can see this but from here to here to there seb's honesty and his positivity you know just shines throughout the course and it made it you know just such a pleasure to to take every documentary project i make i'm going to be basically redoing the whole course just to you know just not only to just refresh my mind on all this important stuff but just for the fantastic resources and just the ideas and just your general positivity and honesty and you know it's so inspirational and it's just it's gotten me i'm freaking buzzing when you sign up to the documentary film academy as well as getting the 50 50-plus video tutorials you'll also get access to live coaching where you get to speak to me directly and get advice on your filmmaking projects and you'll have access to our private facebook community of like-minded filmmakers who are all there to support and grow with one another this is where you can ask questions share behind the scenes and chat about your favorite films i'll also be taking you behind the scenes on my own filmmaking projects showing you what it's like on set filming a documentary and sharing tips and tricks along the way my goal with this course is to give you the confidence to get started take away any of the confusion and to help you master documentary filmmaking so you can make engaging films that wow audiences and get into festivals whether you're brand new to filmmaking a video hobbyist or professional videographer journalist or photographer this course is here to give you the roadmap on how to make your dream documentary i look forward to seeing inside the course so if you want to learn more about the course or you want to sign up to the early bird wait list you can go to doc filmacademy.com or click the link in the description down below i'm so excited about this course i've poured everything i've got into it over the last two years and i hope it can bring you a lot of value and help you on this exciting journey of making your documentary thanks for spending this time with me and i hope to see you inside the course catch you later [Music] you