Dramatic movie vs. Documentary, part 1 of 2

NOTE:  My long silence is due to my daughter´s coming to visit me in Spain, followed by my preparations to return to California for a long stay, followed by the actual trip back to California.  

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 My two major current projects, Domino:  Caught in the Crisis and A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz, are respectively a dramatic movie, and a documentary.  And this seems as good a time as any to talk about some of the differences and similarities between the two genres.

To begin with, a dramatic movie, or a dramatic narrative film, is fiction and a documentary is, well, "real life" (whatever that may be).  But as soon as you look closely at these two categories, they begin to blur.

Some of the actors from Domino.  I just love this photo!  taken by Ana Alvarez.

A good drama is good because it has a strong relation to "real life."  It may engage in enormous flights of fancy, but at its core, it speaks to real people in a way that real people can relate to their real experiences.

And a good documentary usually is good in part because it has a strong story line.  In addition, the documentary might look at something really unusual or weird-looking, something that almost appears to be out of science fiction (a form of drama).

But let´s forget all of that for a moment.  When creating a drama, you need a script.  The script can easily run close to 100 pages for a feature-length film.  The general rule of thumb is that one page of script equals one minute of finished film.  For your feature-length film, then, you´ll expect a script to be about 90 pages long.

Actor with script (from Domino).

 Why do you need the script?  Well, mostly because you need something that tells you who the characters are, that gives the actors their lines to memorize so they know what to say and when to say it, and that gives some stage directions so they know HOW they should say it.  Just the fact that you´re using actors is one of the hallmarks of a drama.

For a documentary, on the other hand, you don´t use a script.  Instead, you work off of a "treatment."  A treatment will often be only 3-5 pages long.  It tells who needs to be interviewed, and where, and why.  It gives a general idea of where the filming should take place, and where you should film any extra visuals.  But the people being interviewed, for example, don´t have lines to speak.  They have questions to answer, and you will only have a very general idea in advance of how they will answer these questions.

One of our interview subjects from A Zest for Life.

OUR NEXT POST will finish up this topic