Reporter: Stella Mae S.

Hermina Course & Section: BA Broadcasting 1B

WRITING FOR TELEVISION: Documentary/Non-Fiction

• What is writing for television?

- Television scriptwriting is the art of telling the story in a particular format. Television is a visual medium
and you have to tell your story through pictures. You also have to include sound effects or music, which
will add to the impact that your script has. The television script can either be for a sitcom or drama.

• Documentary/Non-fiction

- A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion picture intended to “document reality,

primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record”.
- Nonfiction is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only
about the real world, rather than being grounded in imagination.
- Typically aims to present topics objectively based on historical, scientific, and empirical information.

How to Write a Documentary Script:

• Why you need a documentary script

- Every good documentary starts with a documentary script. While your documentary subject and
interviewees might be so compelling that the story ‘writes itself’, you still need a story structure to
hold the whole documentary together. And that structure comes from your script.

• Finding your story

- Your documentary script will tell a real-life story, so you can look for ideas anywhere around you.
It’s all about being aware of your surroundings, staying curious, and spotting interesting story
nuggets in everyday life. Although it’s important to follow your own passion, you need to be
mindful of what an audience will want to see.

• Researching your documentary

- Every good documentary starts with a lot of research.

Your research will involve a mix of:
> Interviews with people who know the subject matter inside out (not necessarily subjects who
you want to include in the film)
> Newspaper articles
> Archival footage
> Academic books and research papers
 - Bringing in more information and points of view at this stage of the process will make for a more
nuanced, compelling and rigorously-researched film. Which will lead to a better story.

• Creating a documentary film treatment

- If you want to get support for your documentary project before you crack on with the
scriptwriting process, you’ll need to create documentary treatment. It’s a sort-of film proposal
(including a logline) that lays out the synopsis of your documentary, helping to attract
collaborators, funders and interviewees.

• Structuring a documentary script

- One of the most well-known formats for writing a documentary script is to break up the visuals
and audio into two columns.
- Just like the script for a fiction film, narrative, structure, character and plot are the essential
components of your documentary film. Your storyline will usually follow a three-act structure,
too: setup, conflict and climax.

Act One: The Setup

- Some people call this the ‘inciting incident’. This alliterative treat is the fancy name for the
moment when the story's set in motion.

Act Two: The Conflict

- Where your characters start going through big changes (the pros call it character arc) as a result
of what's happening.

Act Three: The Climax

- The resolution. Our characters confront the problem, the story comes together, and we wrap up
any loose ends (a.k.a. the ‘denouement’).

• Scriptwriting software

- While writing a documentary script is hard work, it’s a lot easier nowadays thanks to a huge range
of affordable screenwriting software. These programmes handle all the tricky script formatting
bits (margins, spacing, etc.) so that you can get down to telling a great story.
- There are also a load of outlining and development programmes out there. These make it easier
to collect your thoughts and storytelling ideas together before you put pen to paper.

• Formatting your documentary script

- While the scriptwriting software mentioned above handles most of the formatting, it's good to
know how to do the basics. Your script should be a printed document that's:
 90 – 120 pages long
 Written in 12-point Courier font
 Printed on 8.5” x 11”, white, three-hole-punched paper
References: https://filmlifestyle.com/writing-for-
television/#:~:text=Television%20scriptwriting%20is%20the%20art,for%20a%20sitcom%20or%20drama

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_film#:~:text=A%20documentary%20film%20or%20documentary,or%20maintaining%2
0a%20historical%20record%22

https://boords.com/blog/how-to-write-a-documentary-script-expert-storytelling-tips#tips-from-documentary-filmmaker-ken-burns

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-fiction

Student Presentation Rubric Criteria:

 CONTENT – 35% (Introduction, Body, Conclusion)
 EYE CONTACT – 10%
 VOLUME & CLARITY – 25% (Loudness, Articulation, and No Mumbling)
 CONFIDENCE & ATTITUDE – 15%
 VISUAL AID – 15%
 TOTAL – 100%