Digital Filmmaking For Kids For Dummies

PROJECT 9

What Makes a Good Documentary?

A documentary or info-film is a great way to present any topic you’re interested in to an audience using the art of filmmaking. What makes a documentary good is simply the story and the way it’s presented.

Making a documentary is very different to making a story-based fictional film because it’s usually more about the research, the story, and the information presented than the creative look and feel of the film.

A good documentary maker should be impartial, which means she should not reveal her own opinions or feelings on the topic of the film in the film itself. Opinions on the subject of the film should be contributed only by the characters and subjects appearing in the film. A good documentary presents both sides of a story and avoids hiding any information or facts from the audience. It simply presents the information in an interesting and creative way.

What Is a Documentary?

A documentary is a non-fiction genre of film that documents or captures a real story. It’s a way of presenting factual information about real-life events and stories to an audience using real people. Documentary makers usually film hours and hours of footage and then choose the best moments to include in the final edit as the aim is to captivate the audience to keep them watching.

An example of a good documentary is March of the Penguins (2005), which follows ...