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.

Documentaries are essentially based on real life situations or on important topics that could be historical, geographical, and political or in that case, anything serious. There is a definite way in which a documentary must be written, so that it can hold audience’s attention and maintain their interest. This report looks into the different steps to write a documentary that would interest the audiences.

1. An idea for the documentary must be thought through. The idea has to be original, as well as loaded with content that can keep them interested for its entire length period, whether a short film or feature length movie of 90 minutes.
2. The goals that are to be achieved through the documentary must be outlined at the onset in the documentary proposal (which is often serves as the “script). There can be a lot of genres on which the documentary can be based. Depending on the genre of the documentary, a set of objectives should be prepared and the documentary and the eventual filming must reflect those.
3. The subject of the documentary must be thoroughly researched and widely covered. It is not enough to load the documentary with information, as just that alone would not interest the audience. Often, a lot of information is already known to a lot of people, therefore interesting and innovative ways to present them must be adapted.
4. Communicating with experts related to the subject of the documentary would be a good idea to maintain a rich collection of resource for research purposes. In some cases, especially, historical documentaries, there is a scope of controversy with the portrayal of the content. In that case, advices and suggestions of experts in the related field would be invaluable.
5. The viewer plays an active role in the writing the documentary. An outline of what the viewer takes back from the documentary must be made. There are certain emotions that a particular documentary might bring out of the audiences. Therefore, such expectations out of the viewer must be considered and implemented likewise.
6. The documentary must be filled with the research done by the writer. More the information, richer the documentary would be. However, stuffing of information would lead to undesired consequences.
7. The sound and camera angles, along with the complete cinematography play an important role. A certain amount of information might be given away through background narrations. These things are to be thought of and implemented in the documentary.