after a while it gets pretty boring just
shooting b-roll
over and over again i don't know how
many times i've shot palm trees or
beaches in southern california
don't get me wrong i definitely enjoy
shooting b-roll however
when you can tie that b-roll into a
story you can do
so much more with your filmmaking so in
this video i'm gonna go through
six different steps on how you can craft
a documentary
specifically geared towards a youtube
audience because i think all of us have
access to stories even if you don't
think so there's definitely stories in
your life that you can tell
and i think when you do it in a certain
way you can help inspire people to take
action
or make people think about a subject in
a different way alright guys
so let's get into it
[Music]
some of the biggest youtubers on the
platform really
excel because they use story and you're
gonna hear this
again and again among the filmmaking
community story is
king but what does that really mean
essentially you're taking the viewers
on a journey and there's something that
happens at the end that transforms you
or changes the way you think around
something
that in a nutshell is a story it's super
simple however crafting good stories
that people want to watch
it's a lot harder than it seems what i
hear a lot on youtube is that a story is
a beginning middle and end with a hook
and
you know something else but it's it's
very different than that when i'm coming
up with my stories the easiest way for
me to
start crafting something that people are
going to want to watch is start with the
ending
so what is the transformative experience
that you're going through
like what is that thing at the end
that's going to make you different than
you were at the beginning
now if you start there and work your way
backwards you add all the components of
storytelling
then you'll be able to have something
that's going to be engaging because the
most important part is
what is that thing that transforms you
or makes you think differently
and where did you start you got to start
at a place where you don't know about
something or
you think differently about something
you go through this journey
it transforms you that's a story and i
think that documentary is kind of
blended with vlogs in a lot of ways on
this platform
so that's why i'm bringing up story
vlogging and documentary altogether
i think the strongest documentaries that
you'll find are tied specifically to
a creator so you're going with this
creator on a journey rather than just
being a documentary about
a subject about just this thing you're
actually going with someone on an
experience and i kind of think of these
as vlogumentaries they're not really
just a vlog because they tie in
storytelling elements
and so much of the documentary world
however they
are coming from you and your experience
and your journey so it in a way
is a vlog so it's a blend of the two and
i think when you can do this
right you really can capture an
audience's attention
and you can really get people interested
in the stories that you want to tell
and this style of filmmaking is very
different than what you're seeing on
youtube
there's definitely creators out there
who are really harnessing this ability
to craft a story
that really involves the creator you but
there's also just a lot of content out
there that's tutorials reviews
all of that kind of content which is
great there's a place for every style of
content however
i think the way that things are shifting
in the youtube algorithm and the way
that
people are engaging with youtube if you
can craft a
story that grabs the attention of your
viewers
that video is gonna take off it's gonna
get suggested to more people
because a lot of times these stories are
engaging from beginning to end
it drives up your watch time it drives
up your audience view duration
pair that with a strong title and
thumbnail and boom
you have a viral video so let's break
down the six things that i think you
need to be able to craft a
documentary for youtube or a
vlogumentary
so number one is the interviews now when
you're shooting this style of content
you really want to
grab interviews from the different
people that you're interacting with
on the go so when i recently went up to
belcampo and shot a film about
regenerative farming everyone that i
talked to
i tried to grab little sound bites from
so i would stop someone
ask them a few questions to try to
explain what's going on
and then those interviews help tie the
story together along with the other
pieces that we're going to talk about in
this video
now interviews are super important and a
lot of times i
overshoot in terms of my interview i ask
a few different questions
and i might just use one or two sound
bites because when you get back into the
edit bang and you're editing documentary
style content
a lot of times that you'll find that you
want to shoot more than you actually are
going to use you really want to
overshoot when it comes to
documentary because there's always going
to be these little things that you'll
use
from this interview or this set of
b-roll you know whatever it is that
you're grabbing
if you have more you're gonna end up
using it for example
last december when i went to thailand
with levi we were shooting a documentary
about an elephant sanctuary
and when we were walking through the
jungle with the different people that
worked at the sanctuary
we'd be asking them questions and we
always had the cameras rolling whether
it's down by our side
you know just grab quick kind of like
rough like next to us
there's a lot of times where we would
have just cameras rolling the footage
wouldn't be that good but if you're
capturing the sound bites that's more
important you really
want to get specific sound bites that
are going to help tell your story
and a lot of times this is said off
camera or it's said when people aren't
doing the
sit down interview you can definitely do
sit down interviews and
ask a series of questions but a lot of
times the best moments
are when you're not in a formal
interview setting
a lot of times it's like on the go
you'll end up capturing these moments of
people just being genuine
and it's much more engaging than having
someone sitting there and just rattling
off facts so when it comes to shooting
your interviews think of how you can do
them kind of
on the go think of how you can do them
creatively so they're not always just
a sit-down interview that's a very
traditional way to shoot documentary and
yeah
there's going to be moments when you
want to grab interviews like that
however
start thinking of ways that you can just
grab sound bites when you're in the
process of doing the thing that you're
shooting a film about
now one more thing about interviews
because this is a really key component
of your a-roll
when you're crafting your interviews
really pay attention to the person that
you're
interviewing so you might have a set of
questions maybe you have five questions
that you want to ask somebody
but really listen to what they're saying
and start bouncing questions off them
as they're talking so you might be
coming up with a whole new direction
as they're delivering you an answer and
follow that thread pull on that thread
and go down a different path i don't
know how many times i've come into an
interview where i've had like eight
questions
and then i end up doing two and then the
interview goes off in a completely
different direction
because what the person was saying in
that interview became much more
compelling than the questions that i had
asked and this is also why i scratch so
much when i'm editing
because a lot of times when you're doing
an interview you just have
all of this content and you end up only
needing this one little section
now the second thing you need when
you're shooting a documentary is b-roll
this is the fun stuff this is like all
the cool footage the gimbal work the
drone work
you need all of that it's all good but
when you're shooting your b-roll you
want to think how does this relate to
the story
is this something that is going to tie
directly to the a-roll on capturing
or is this just like random b-roll that
doesn't even make sense
so think through your story think
through what the progression is from
beginning to end
and think how can i shoot b-roll that's
going to fit in that sequence
one thing with b-roll is that you really
want to shoot transitional b-roll
and so when i'm shooting these projects
i will set the camera down on a tripod
and walk through a scene or i'll have my
car drive through a scene
or i'll grab some shots of me going from
one place to a next
just because that footage ends up
becoming so
useful when you sit down to edit and
you're working with your a-roll
having those transition scenes gives you
an ability to tie things together and a
lot of times those are good
spots to lay over voiceover to kind of
talk through how you transition from
point a to point b just getting that
extra b-roll of your subject in
different scenes whether that's you
or some other people that are involved
in the story that you're telling
just getting those moments is super
important and trust me you'll use a lot
of that in the edit
so the third thing that you're gonna
need when you're shooting a documentary
is
voiceover and i'll come up with some
voice over before and i'll also come up
with some
during and i'll come up with some when
i'm sitting here editing as well
i don't think there's a right way to do
voice over i think
it comes down to your story so when i
was crafting this farm documentary i had
a few moments that i scripted out before
i even left to go
shoot at the farm the whole intro
sequence where i'm at home where i'm
talking about the setup for
the story i actually had all of that
scripted out and i recorded some scratch
voice over so when i was up at the farm
shooting i had that in my timeline
it wasn't good voice over but it just
kind of helped me craft my story
and it gave me something to work off of
as i was pulling the pieces together
so there's times where i'll have voice
over before i start but when i'm editing
this is when i find that i'm able to
craft my voice over
and really come up with the scripts that
tie the pieces together
so as i'm watching my a-roll and cutting
it together
i'll realize that yeah i need some voice
over here to explain this or i need some
voiceover to transition this
or i need some voice over here to engage
with the audience in a different way
that you're not getting from the a-roll
i shot in the project
voiceover can be used in a lot of
different ways and i think it's a great
tool to add into your a-roll
to go back and forth and it also is that
element that's really going to connect
your audience with you
the whole idea of shooting documentary
or vlogumentaries here on youtube
is to have the audience be connected
with you on the other side of the camera
you want to take them on a journey and
you want the person to be in your shoes
so the more elements that you can use to
connect to your audience the more that
your audience is going to become engaged
and want to see what happens next now
the fourth thing you're going to need
for these documentaries is music
and i think music is super impactful
it's a huge component to be able to
drive a
feeling or be able to craft an emotion
from a scene
so how i work is as i'm writing my
script and creating my outline i'll find
different tracks that i feel like tie
into the emotion of what
i'm trying to convey and i'll bring
those with me when i'm shooting just to
see if my b-roll is matching up to
what the kind of music is that i was
going for obviously everything's
fluctuating when you're creating
things change things evolve but you'll
find different types of music that
really fit the style of content that you
produce
so i use epidemic sound for all my music
i'll go on the website i'll start
browsing through i'll pick out songs
and i'll use those as i'm crafting my
story to set the emotion
now a big thing that i do is when i get
into the edit bay when i'm
here working on my cut i drop the music
in pretty early so i'll use the music
and i found that for me
music is a huge element to drive my
films and so
i like to bring my music in early play
around with it i'll switch tracks out as
i go but a good way that i've found to
edit is
pacing my project with music as i'm
doing the initial cut
it really helps tie everything together
and then i'm able to move on the edit a
lot faster
one thing when it comes to youtube in
general is just speed
like you don't want to spend months and
months on one of these projects you know
this video i shot in four days
i came back to my edit bay i edited it
in two i was done within a week
and i had a pretty powerful documentary
that looks much more involved than
you know shooting one of these videos
like a tutorial video it's a lot
different than say a full-fledged
documentary
vlogumentary i don't know which term i
should use what do you guys think let me
know down in the comments
do you think these are vlogumentaries or
documentaries do you think i'm crazy for
talking about vlogumentaries
alright the next thing you're going to
need when you're shooting these types of
projects is natural sounds so when
you're out shooting
in the different environments that
you're shooting in you want to capture
the sounds
of what is there you're not always going
to use music under everything you do and
sound really sets the tone for a
location or
really draws the viewer in so you want
to be thinking sound design
and when you're in an environment if you
have a rushing waterfall
you want to capture the sounds of that
waterfall if you're in a forest you want
to capture the sounds of that specific
force
spend a little bit of time and capture
some sounds within the scenes
whenever you shoot an interview always
capture like 30 seconds
of sound in that space without anyone
talking
because as you cut your interviews
together you want to make it sound
completely seamless and to do that
you'll use that 30 seconds of empty
sound of just background noise and
you'll lay it under your edit
and that helps allow you to make the
interview sound seamless
even if you're cutting sections from the
beginning and sections from the end and
putting it together you know so it's
much quicker now the sixth thing you
need for these films
is you and this is so different than
traditional documentary filmmaking
because
traditional documentary filmmaking you
might be making a project about
a subject someone else so they're going
to be the focus of everything that you
do the b-roll the a-roll
but you as the filmmaker might not be
involved but i think on youtube
crafting stories that are tied to the
creator are much more engaging
especially the more that you build a
channel so as your channel grows your
audience is going to be connected to you
so they want to see videos from you and
if you're taking people on a journey
it's much more engaging than if you're
shooting just another subject
and this is where i think youtubers
really excel like i've seen some pretty
amazing filmmakers try to post these
documentary shorts on youtube
and they just tank like they just don't
do that well
because there's no real grounding
element on their channel
like they might be an awesome filmmaker
and their films might be amazing
however when you go from film to film
they're completely unique and different
there's no thread tying it all together
and i think vloggers really discovered
this ability to connect with an audience
on the other side of the camera
when you're watching a vlog you're
watching someone else's life you're
really
diving into that person and you're going
along with them for the good the bad
and everything else in between you're
along on that journey
so if you want to craft documentary
pieces for youtube
that's the kind of approach that you
want to take you want to take the
viewers on the journey with you
and you want to be that thread from
video to video so some things you want
to think about
when you're out shooting these types of
projects is make sure that you get
elements of you talking to camera
explaining what's going on
i don't know how many times i've missed
moments because
i just didn't grab a quick shot of me
talking to camera about
what i was doing at that moment and then
i have to go back and do it in voiceover
it's much more impactful if you are
there in the moment
and you're on camera talking or it's an
exchange between you
and someone else versus trying to do it
in voiceover i think that voiceover is
great but i also don't want to rely on
voiceover to tell the story
i would rather take someone on the
journey and have the viewer experience
all the beats of the story as
i'm experiencing them so just as i was
talking about b-roll having
transitional moments where you want to
capture going from scene a to scene b
you also want to do this with you so in
between the different story beats that
you're going on you want to make sure to
capture you
talking about what's going on explaining
what's going on talking about your fears
your frustrations
something you're excited about like
really just put a lot on the camera and
talk about your feelings and how
everything is going at that moment
because you're taking your audience on a
journey and those might be moments that
you really want to use
to be able to transition to the next
scene rather than just having
b-roll with some voice-over so for
example in this regenerative farm
documentary i
had a lot of these moments and some of
them became key moments that i used to
tell my story
and one thing that's really helped me to
know when to shoot these
sections is to lay out my story as i'm
actually shooting the story and i think
that's going to have to be in another
video i'll break down
my process of being able to lay out all
the story beats in a visual style
and be able to see where things are
missing so guys i'd love to hear your
thoughts on making a documentary or a
vlogumentary
and i'll put a link down below in the
description to my documentary on
regenerative farming and i highly
suggest you check that out
and guys i'll be doing more videos on
the subject so make sure you hit that
subscribe button
and that's it i'll see you on the next
one
also if you want to see how to craft a
story in
a vlog which is similar check this out
right here
it's a video i did it's an hour-long
master class here on youtube
i highly suggest you check that out