Choosing Subject Matter for Your Documentary

Video Transcript

What are you going to do the documentary about? Your best bet is to do something that is somehow related to you that you have a connection to, something that you have access to whether it be people or places. For my documentaries, for example, I did two of them on multiple sclerosis so they're kind of a health-related documentary and the reason I did those is I have relatives who have the disease and I know all about their condition and I was able to interview doctors that were recommended and the doctor in turn recommended other people who had MS. So, you know, I definitely had kind of a vested interest in the documentary and it was interesting to me. I learned a lot, you know, it was of interest to me and that's a big thing. If you're going to pick a subject make sure it's interesting to you because, you know if you just think you're doing it to cash in or make it sellable, that shouldn't even be a consideration. What should be the most important thing is that you're interested in it so that the people watching it will be interested as well. Another type of subject are profiles. In addition to the healthcare documentaries I've done ones on, you know profiles of individuals. One was about a German immigrant who grew up during World War II and it was his experience, you know, as a child and how it affected his life and it was definitely, you know a very different sort of thing. It was more of like a biography type production, and then another one I did was on Salonus Casey who is, I guess he's up for becoming the first American born male saint in the US, and he died like fifty years ago so, you know, it was mostly using photos and interviews with people who knew him and knew about him. So, you know, it was very different from the type of, you know, documentary, but, you know, again the subject, you know, is totally up to you.

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