When my partner Ivan and I started diving into the world of documentaries as viewers we noticed many styles and multiple ways to film, edit, and present a documentary. From the talking heads interview style as seen in 13th (2016) by Ava DuVernay, which explores racial inequality in the American prisons; to personal point of view where the documentarian is the subject such as in Super Size Me (2004) by Morgan Spurlock or Tickled (2016) by David Farrier where he uncovers the strange world of competitive tickling; to investigative documentaries such as Into the Deep (2022) by Emma Sullivan which follows the murder of journalist Kim Wall on a submarine by eccentric inventor Peter Madsen – there are as many styles and techniques to present a documentary as there are stories waiting to be told. But one technique that stands out as a powerful tool to enhance your storytelling is animation.
Read MoreWhat I’ve Learnt from Directing my First Documentary
I've been in this indie filmmaking community for over a decade, and I’ve been directing since 2013, yet it always amazes me how there is always something more to learn in this industry as a director with each project.
This year I fell into directing my first documentary, Cats of Malta, and man did I learn a lot as I researched the topic and subjects that make up the Maltese cat community. Right now as we edit the project I'm becoming even more knowledgeable on how producing docos work, thanks to Google.
I have watched a few docos this year too, standouts being Tiger King, which showed me a lot about how to interview subjects and that true to life characters exist, you just have to find the interesting and sometimes kooky parts of their story. Another Netflix doco, High Score, was entertaining from start to finish. Even though I am not a gamer, High Score was so well put together as a series, each episode explaining a different shift in the industry, that even I as a novice on the subject was hooked.
One of the first things I learnt from the process of directing a doco is that I had to know what I could legally film. People in the background, peoples faces as they interacted with our interviewees on the street, and I will confess that I was reading about the legalities as we were filming.