The Insiders' Guide to Factual Filmmaking

The Insiders' Guide to Factual Filmmaking is an accessible and comprehensive 'how to' guide about the craft of making documentaries for TV, online or social media. Filmmaker Tony Stark distils a long career at the BBC and as an independent producer to explain the conceptual, visual, editorial and organisational skills needed to make impactful and stylish factual films. Interviews with top industry professionals in the UK and US - commissioners, executive producers, filmmakers, strand editors and media lawyers - add valuable insight and authority to this book. For more experienced filmmakers The Insiders' Guide tells you how to get the green light for undercover investigations, how to tell film stories online and on social media, and how to budget a factual film. This is a key text for anyone who wants to succeed in the rapidly changing, competitive freelance markets in Britain and America. It provides expert guidance to students on filmmaking courses, journalists wanting to move from print to video and non-professionals with an interest in film-making. Whatever the final destination of your film - and whatever the budget - The Insiders' Guide provides a vital roadmap. The book's accompanying website is a 'show-me' resource for new directors: with 24 specially-shot film clips illustrating the key rules of filmic grammar and sequence shooting - together with downloadable versions of essential production forms.

Tony Stark is a documentary filmmaker, executive producer and former BBC commissioner with a 30-year career making high profile documentary films and series for broadcast television, specializing in investigative filmmaking. His films have been shown on the BBC, Channel Four, ITV, Al Jazeera, American PBS channels and many European TV channels. His programmes have been nominated for several industry awards: a BAFTA, the Foreign Press Association Media Awards, the Association for International Broadcasting and the San Francisco International Film Festival. For more information go to moonstonefilms.co.uk

INTRODUCTION; PART 1: SURVIVAL SKILLS; THE FACTUAL FILM-MAKER'S SKILL-SET, A Survival Guide for Newcomers to the Industry; PART 2: CREATIVE SKILLS; THE ART OF TREATMENT WRITING, Persuading a Commissioner Read your Proposal from Beginning to End; ON LOCATION, Filming Images, Directing Sequences and Working with Reporters; TALKING HEADS, Choosing Contributors, Conducting Interviews and Making your Characters Look and Sound Good on Camera.; VISUAL STORY-TELLING, Constructing and Illustrating a Linear Narrative; FROM PAPER CUT TO FINE CUT, Editing A Factual Film; HOW TO THRIVE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD, Factual Film-Making For Online Platforms; PART 3: PLANNING SKILLS; REDUCING RISK, Keeping Crew and Contributors Safe on Research and Film Trips; PLANNING A PRODUCTION, How to Organise Yourself Before, During and After a Film Shoot; PART 4: UNDERCOVER SKILLS; SECRET FILMING, Evidence, Ethics, Safety and the Law in Undercover Film-Making; PART 5: FINANCIAL SKILLS; COUNTING THE COST, Budgeting a Factual Film