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A great part of the film & television entertainment industry is documentaries. There is a set of audience that is interested only in documentaries, and thus directors and producers are keen in making such films. Writing a script for a documentary is however a challenging task for the scriptwriter. The script has lot less to do with imagination and entertainment as it is based on some real life event. But, it must be interesting and attractive to the viewer, which gives the script no room for any error. In this report, a few rules and structure format of a documentary script has been discussed.

1.Researching on the subject: This is the primary need of any documentary script. The subject that the documentary deals upon needs to be known extremely well by the writer. Reading and Internet searching on the topic are good ideas to gain knowledge. For example, if it is about a culture, it is important to know and interact with people coming from that culture. The writer must know certain things beyond the scope of the script. It may help them to pitch their script to directors and producers.

2.Continuous communication with the directors and producers: It is a good idea to discuss the subject of the script with people concerned. Potential directors and producers can be impressed upon with a pitch, which gives a general outline about the storyline. Once that is done, constant feedbacks can be taken from them and incorporated in the script. It is very important to have the opinion of the people who would be implementing the project eventually.

3.Documentaries are to be made in such a way that the viewer believes in it. Hence, it is important to get footages of certain elements of the documentary. Directors, in most cases, oblige to shoot certain footages with a rough script. On observing those footages, the writer can rectify the script and continue with the rest part. The main idea is to be in sync with the actual shooting, so that the whole project seems authentic and realistic.

4.The screenwriting should be done now. Will all the research notes, and footages, the writer must now complete the script and keep in mind that all the information must be shared under the veil of an interesting story, otherwise the viewers may find it boring. The audio settings, background narration and camera angles must be kept in mind and mentioned explicitly if need be.

5.The script must now be handed over to the people concerned. The editing team would make its own amendments. Therefore, handing them a reference document (also known as a bible) would be ideal, as it would help them synchronize the edited script with the one you had envisioned.