Documentary script: [Working title]
The film at a glance
Logline:
Central question:
Who tells it:
Runtime and outlet:
Audience:
Ending we expect:
Story outline
One row per sequence, each ending on a question that pulls into the next.
Sequence | What happens | Question it leaves | Time |
1. Opening | |||
2. Who we follow | |||
3. The obstacle | |||
4. The turn | |||
5. Rising pressure | |||
6. Ending |
Contributors
Name | Role in the story | What only they can tell us | Release |
Interview plans
One plan per contributor: copy from its heading down to the divider.
How to plan an interview
Start easy and concrete: where they were, what they did. It warms them up and gives you the scene.
Ask for scenes, not opinions: “Take me back to the day when… What happened next? What did you see?”
Save the hard question for when there is trust, and ask it once, in neutral words.
Before you stop, ask what you should have asked and didn't. The best answer often comes then.
Interview: [Name]
Date and place:
What the film needs from them:
Warm-up:
Scene questions:
The hard question:
After the interview:
Room tone
B-roll of their hands and their place
The objects they mentioned
Signed release
To film
Scenes, B-roll, an establishing shot of each place, details for transitions.
Paper edit
Picture left, sound right, one row per moment. Copy the table for each sequence.
NAT: natural sound up full · V.O.: narration · SOT: an interview soundbite · SUPER: text on screen
Sequence 1: [Name]
Time | Picture | Sound | Source |
See an example sequence
Sequence 2: The last delivery · from a short film about a village bookshop closing
00:00 · Picture: WS: the high street at dawn, shutters down. SUPER: Hebden, March 2024.
Sound: NAT: rain on the awning, a delivery van idling.
Source: Card B, clip 0112
00:09 · Picture: CU: Margaret's hands cutting the tape on a box of books.
Sound: SOT MARGARET: “Forty-one years, and I still open every box like it's Christmas.”
Source: Interview 1, 00:14:02–00:14:07
00:16 · Picture: Archive photo: the shop's opening day. SUPER: Opening day, 1983.
Sound: V.O.: She opened the shop the week the town's last mill closed.
Source: Photo, log 1 · fact, log 4
00:24 · Picture: MS: Margaret shelving, then still, looking out of the window.
Sound: NAT up full, then MUSIC: cello cue 2 in, under.
Source: Card B, clip 0118
Why it works: the narration gives the one fact the pictures can't, the soundbite is copied word for word, and every fact points to its line in the sources log.
Narration
Write it last, line by line with its sequence and time: only what the pictures can't say.
Archive and sources log
# | Item | Source | Used in | Rights or check |
1 | ||||
2 | ||||
3 |
Before picture lock
Every sequence ends with a question or a turn that pulls into the next
Every soundbite matches the recording word for word, with its timecode
Every fact in narration or on screen has a line in the sources log
Every contributor on screen has a signed release
Every archive item and music cue has a rights status
The ending answers the central question, or says honestly why it can't
The script matches the locked cut, ready for the narration record and the captions