How to Create a Short Documentary About a Local Business

A promotional video shows what a business sells. A short documentary shows why someone spends their life doing it.

Same shop, same owner, same two days of shooting. Completely different material, and the difference starts long before the camera comes out.

Find the reason, not the story

Every owner has an answer to "why did you start this". Most of the time it's rehearsed, because they've given it two hundred times.

The interesting version is underneath. Why here, in this village, rather than somewhere easier. What they gave up. What almost stopped them. What they'd still be doing at six in the morning if nobody paid them for it.

You won't get that in the first hour, and you shouldn't try. But you can decide, before you film anything, that it's what you're looking for. That decision changes everything you shoot.

Spend the first visit without the camera

Or with it switched off in a bag, which amounts to the same thing.

Watch how the place actually runs. Who arrives first. What gets done in silence. Which customer is clearly a regular. Where the owner's hands go without thinking.

You're doing two things at once: finding the shots, and becoming ordinary. By the second visit you're part of the furniture, and that's when people stop performing.

Film hands before faces

A camera pointed at someone's face early on makes them stiff, and it isn't their fault.

Start with what they're doing. Hands kneading, sanding, pouring, sorting. Nobody has ever been self-conscious about their hands. It gives you real material immediately, and it gives them time to forget the lens is there.

Faces come later, and they come easily once the rest is established.

Don't build an interview set

No chosen background, no lighting rig, no chair facing the lens. The moment you construct a set, the person understands they're being interviewed and they start choosing their words.

Talk while they work. Walking to the storeroom, cleaning down at the end of service, driving to a supplier. People tell you far more when their hands are busy. The talking stops being the task.

The one thing worth carrying is a small clip-on microphone. Interior rooms echo, kitchens are loud, and a voice recorded on a camera across a room is often unusable. It's the only piece of gear that really changes the result.

Ask badly on purpose

Precise questions get precise answers, and precise answers are dead. "How long have you been open?" produces a number.

What opens people up is space. Tell me about that day. What did that feel like. What would you do differently.

Then stop talking. The three seconds after someone finishes answering are where the real sentence arrives, almost every time, and the reflex to fill that silence is the hardest one to lose.

Film the business as a place, not a product

A shop at closing time. The delivery arriving. Rain on the awning. The room empty before opening, and full an hour later.

These shots have no commercial function and they're what makes the film watchable. They're also free. You get them while you're waiting for something else.

Build the edit around one sentence

Somewhere in your recordings there's a single line that contains everything: the reason, the cost, the pleasure. Find it first, then build around it.

From there, the images stop illustrating what's being said and start giving it room. A hand, a street, a look out of the window. That gap between what you hear and what you see is the whole difference between a documentary and a corporate film with a voiceover.

What it costs

More time than a promotional video, and less equipment.

Two or three visits rather than one. An hour of recorded conversation for ninety usable seconds, which sounds wasteful and isn't, because that's how long it takes for someone to relax.

And one thing you can't buy: the owner wanting to tell you something. That's earned by coming back, showing them what you've filmed, and cutting what they ask you to cut.

A note on trust

You're asking someone to be honest on camera about their own business. Show them the edit before anyone else sees it.

You'll occasionally lose a good moment that way. You'll also be the person they recommend to everyone they know, which matters more.

If you'd like to see the rest of what I film, it's here.