Documentaries are short non-fiction films that in some way illustrate or capture reality. Documentaries are good because they open people’s minds to the struggles of others in the world, and bring awareness to a wider audience. 

The Academy Awards, popularly known as ‘the Oscars’,  define documentary films as the line between a short and feature-length film (at 40 minutes), while the Sundance Film Festival places the cut-off at 50 minutes.  

With many aspiring filmmakers in the country today, we look at the ways in which one can make a good documentary film. 

When making a documentary,tell a story you care about. Photos/Net

According to David Habakurema, a cinematographer based in Kigali, the first thing to do when planning to make a documentary film, is to come up with a topic that interests you. For you to really understand the content, think about the purpose of the documentary, what is it trying to say about the subject of your film? What production methods and techniques will you use? 

"A documentary film needs focus and you really have to illustrate all the content. Set your camera to make sure the photos are suitable for clear print, consider big and narrow shots and make sure you are not going to tell a one dimensioned story, tell an effective visual story for your documentary film,” Habakurema says.

With storytelling in filmmaking, Habakurema says, you have to follow and focus on the main activity of the event, the obvious action conducted by the subject, usually for the reason for the event itself.

Abel Baraka, a student doing a course in mass media and communication at Mount Kenya University, says if you are aiming at a good film documentary storytelling, you have to follow the various types of shots, like establishing shot; these are usually wide shots, an extreme long shot that shows a lot of the setting for context. They are normally a few seconds long and unlike other shots in a documentary.

"Secondary establishing shots introduce new scenes and tell the viewer when the action is happening. In this they can even help develop a character; this involves single details of everything happening, even that others are not able to see,” says Baraka. 

Giving an example, Baraka says imagine you are working on a film documentary about people receiving vaccination, the thing to show in the first 15 minutes is the site where people are going to receive their vaccines from, include the name of the place and what happens there usually, then go on to show the vaccines arriving at the site and being handed over to officials and health workers.

"Go on with atmospheric and situational shots including people lining up for the vaccines and other settings, you can add B-roll shots to make your video much better, this happens especially when a person is being interviewed to avoid the same image and boredom from the watchers,” Baraka says. 

You need to take a close picture showing the name of the vaccines that people are receiving, individuals involved in the activity such as health workers and people receiving the vaccine. You need to also show health workers vaccinating people to really show that people received the vaccine. Show the details of how people were reacting after receiving the vaccine.

"What is important here is the creativity behind being able to gather all the information in a short time and showing the audience exactly what happened with all the dimensions of the story,” he says.