186 MAKING DOCUMENTARY FILMS AND VIDEOS

. to know rvhat infbrmation you have available

. to choose from this the information to be used-and that to be ig-nored

. to placc the information in a seqllcnce that will convey the mes-sage to the audience

You can takc the time to do this bcfore you start writing. or vou canwrite a draft and then take the time to revisc it afterward, when the draftdoesn't u'ork. I've done it both ways and, frankly, I much prefer to knorvwhere I'm going bcfore I start w,riting.

I use an existential outline for cverything. Every script is plannedthis war Each chapter of this book goes up on a board and is shuffledaround until it offers an organization that covers the information eco-nomically and organiz.es it logically.

Do I write the manuscript exactly as it is outlined on the planningboard? Flardly ever. Every s'ritel knou,s that the work takes on a life ofits own. what seemed like a good idea days or rveeks ago wher-r I wasconstructing the outline sometimes doesn't seem so great when I'vew'ritten my'd/ay Lrp to it. No problem. I just shuffle the Post-its until Ifind srmething that works. That's rvhat I love about this system. It's outin front of you where yolr can see it. And it always maintains its flexibil,ity. A Post-it on a piece of foam-core board is not very/ intimidating. Itcan bc moved easily. so you are not being controlled by some arbitraryoutline. You are in control of what you write.

Two Final Points

First, this is simply one way of planning your work before rvriting. It'scertainly not the only way to do it, and if you have another, use yours. Ifnot, try mine.

Second, when I was teaching a college rvriting course, I showed thissystem to my studcnts, most of whom had never made a plan beforewriting. Some used it; some didn't. Those rvho did usually were writirrgbetter by the encl of the semester. Those who didn't, often rveren't.

t9

PROPOSAL AND TREATMENT

' B"f"re there is a script for a documentary, usually there is a

,script treatment. And for many documentaries a comprehensive treat-

rnent serves as the blueprint for filming, with the actual script written

.after principal photography-if at all.

,'' Before there is a treatment, there may have to be a proposal to de-

scribe the hoped-for documentary, And sometimes even to raise thc

money for research and treatment writing.

PRoPosAL

There's an enormous difference betvveen a neat idea in your heaci and a

workable plan for a production. Somehow, what seems so purc and sim-ple in your imagination gets a lot tougher to describe rvhen you beginwriting about the way the film rvill actually be made. So it's a good prac-tice to do a proposal even if you're doing the documentary all by yourselfwith your own money. Getting it down on paper can be a worthu'hile re-ality check and a big help in moving forward.

And, of course, if you're trying to raise money, a proposal is essential.It's a selling documtnt. Docume-ntarids can bp &pensive to procluce.The organizations putting up the money have to bc convincecl that thebenefits of financing a documentary justify the cosr, either in profitablediskibution or by doing good in some \liay. So you have to take the ideathat is so beautiful in yor,rr mincl and bring it out whcre others can seeand react to it.

Some funcling or-ganizafions ma\i har.c l stalrclard fonnat for a propclsal.

ii?:1.' 1' -

':.:,:i,:r,:li.: . r ll:l:

.:'..,.'

riir.!,1:t ',: l '

MAKING DOCUMENTARY FILMS AND VIDEOS

egardless of rvhether it is written to format, done as a letter, or writ-s a report, the proposal, in a few pages, has to engagc the fantasy

f the sponsor, stress the benefits of making the documentarl,, and

, Ioose the monev.

ow long is a proposal?'Ihe be-st rule is to be as brief as you can, but be

rlctc. Keep the proposal short, and save the details for thc trcatmcnt.

ing Started

hard it can be to take that first stcp! Especially if you have livcd

the idea for some tine. I received an e-maii from Ann-Eve Fillen-

r, a Belgian journalist in London, embarking on her first documen-

that, she said, "aims to be a love story amongst the hon'reless oflon."

[e had an interesting idea fbr a documentary. l{er problem was get-

romething written. She wrote: .,

lhe project is moving forn'ard, but people and my producer keep lit-:rally harassing me for a script, and I just feel incapable of providinghis to them! I want to follow three couples for up to a year and ob-

erve how their condition affects something that is hard to maintainor all of us, even under a roof-a relationship! 'I'hrough this, I rvor,rld

LIso lilie to suss out the multiple other issues that undcrlic homelcss-ress such as mental health, drug use, family, and empioyment, Al-hough I personally know the couples I am wanting to work with (lrave volunteered in a shelter for over two years), I do not yet knowrnything about the way their relationship works (or doesn't) andherefore do not know how to provide the dreaded scriptl

y'hat she really needed at this point was a proposal, somcthing inng that would begin to solidify a neat idea into a workable docu-

tary project. And that's r,vhat I told her:

t-.'C tnrrvrl tA dlf['he reason you car['t write the dreaded script is quite siinple: You are

Joing a behavioralldocumentary, and, cluite properly, ),ou clon't knowvhat the behavior will be. \Aihat your producer and others probablyvant, in asking frir a "script," is some description of the documentaryn your heacl tliat they can use to raise rtoney, plan a budget, etc.

u- So try this. Start r.r,ith the Sol \\/orth exercise: "I u,ant to nrake ailm aborrt . . ." and u,r-ite out u'hat vou want to nake vour film aborrt.

PROPOSAL AND TRFATMENT

Don't worrv about iength in the beginning; get it ail down. Sincc this .l.,. ,

is a bciravioral docurncntary, describe the behavior you hope to film.(iive examples of the sort of behavior ),ou hope to fin<l ancl to film,and make it clear that these are rnade-up examplcs. Think aborrt howyou are going to do vour inr,estigation with a canrera, because that'swhat this is. You are going out with a camera and a microphone to in-vestigate the bchavior ol six people. )bu arc cspeciallv interestccl inthe behavior o{' "a lor,'c story," and yoll are going to have to thinkdeeplv ab<lut rvhat that means. Do yor.r hope to film two people fallingin love? Or do you want to explore an existing iove relationship,which iust happens to be among homeless people? Are you going toexplore u,hy these people are homeless? And horv this alfects wl-rat-

ever relationships they mav h-ve'And how things might be differentif they were no longer homeless?

When you've gottcn all this figured out, then you are going to have

to boil it down to a one-page statement. This usuallv takes me any-

wherc from a day to a r,r'eek to write. I do a lot of drafts. 'l'he one-

pager should start with a short, 7Y Guide description of the film.Shoot for I 4 lr,ords. and don't go over two rypecl lines. The rest ol the

page clescribes the exciting documentarv you plan tcl mal<e in a waythat makes e\rervone who reads it want you to hurry up and get itdonc so the'y can sr't' it.

Keep lt Brief

One of the reasons people have trouble with a proposal is that they want

to tell everything. But_jhg pypose of a proposal is not to tcll everything,

but to telljust cnough to get tiie recipicnt of thc proposal lo express in-

terest and ask for more information.

For example, marketing experts talk about "the elevator pitch," whichis a way to tell about your product or seMce in the time it takes an ele-

vator to get to the tenth floor. It starts with the u,ords, "Do you knorv

how . . ." and a description of a problem. This is foilou,ed b,v, "What Ido..."

You don't have to clo this on an elevatur, of course. Actually, y{lu're

more likely to do it in other settings lr,here it woulcl be natural for some-

one to ask, "What do you do for a living?" According to thc experts, yolr

don't say, "Oh, I'm a mortgage broker." You say:

Do vou know how some people look all thc,ir life |or the perlecL

horre? Ar-rcl then ther,finallr'{lncl it. []ut t]rev iusl r:;rn'r nrul-'r'tlre

189

s0 NTAKING DocuMENTARy FTLMS AND vlDEos

monthly payments_work. They can,t get a loan. ll,hey can,t get theright interest rate. They can,t get approued)

Mrell, what I do, I work rvith hund.eds of lenders .around rhe

country' we er'en do those new "no doc" roans, where thcre's no croc-umentation, no income verification. Low intcrest rates, hr-rndreds oflenders, we get people in that home of their dreams at a price theycan afford.

That's your goal: to have a brief, complete description of your filmhat you could tell someone in an elevator. Most of us, when ne,re'sked, "whart's your documentary about)" want to take the personhrough our whole thought process, from u,hen this idea hit r-rs whirevalking across the strcet to the names of the film festivals we,d rike to:nter it in. And long before we EIet to the good str,rff, the other personras gotten off the elevator.

Try describing your documentary in terms of a problem and a solu_ion. Or a problem and an investigation:

Do you know how when crossing the street, you wait for the walkiight, and then as soon as you start to go it changes to don,t walk?And horv cars turn in front of you so yoian,t rvulk-ony_"y) My doc,umentary investigates why that happens. Is it bad engineering, bu_rcaucratic inclifference, stupidity, or something else)

once you are able to describe the documentary you want to makevith an elevator pitch, you will have a pretty good idea of the essence ofour project. And that's what goes into the proposal.

ixawple of a Proposal: Lost Legendgot an e-mail from steve Harnsberger, who wanted to make a docu-

nentary about a disastrous flood in china in 193r, and the part thatnembers of his family, missionaries in china, played in the recovery.{e was on his way to China to help open an exhibit commemorating thevent. We agreed on a consulting fee and he started sending me mate_ial' Included was a "Documenlary outline" which ran some thirty'ages' along rvith many pages of background information and photos.iventually, I rvrote a proposal that fit, J.,gl"_rpu."d, on one paje. T.his; sholl,n in {rigure 19.1.

Figure 19.1. losf Legend proposol

The Lost Legend of the World's Worst Flood

f'he c{evastating flood rhat kilied 3.7 million chinese jn i93l i,r,as largerly un-remem'bered, even in china, until a missionarv's son ancl grandson broughtthc story homr'.

A Proposal for a Documentary Film

"Imagine Lake Erie set down on top of Massachusetts, a mammothiake stretching as far as the eye could see, smiling peacefully over drowneclhomes." Those are the i,r'ords of Anne Morrow LrnJbergh, describing just oneportion of a giant flood that she and her husband *itnessed. A floocl thatkilled neariy 4 million people-and th,en crlnrost conrpretely vanished frommemory!

The worst weather disaster of the 20th century occurrecl when typhoonsstalled over central china in August r93r, following eight,"""k, oi h"uuyrain. The Yangtze and Huai rivers ran wild, breaking through the dikes an.iflooding an area of 70,000 square miles. Lake GuoyoJ,

"leuatld above the sur-

rounding countryside, tore a 700-meter gap in the levee containing it, killingthousands instantll.. Throughout the flood area, an estimated 140,000 peopl.died in the first felv days. some areas remainecl flboded for up to si-r montirs,resulting in extensive disease and starvation. called "the greatest flood on his-torical record" in the report of the chinese National Flood Reilef commis-sion, the tragic event caused an estimated 3,700,000 deaths over tlre course ofa year.

Yet it was a disaster that, incredibly, much of the worrd, and even rnanypeople in china, had ail but forgotten as worldwide depression, civil war, theJapanese invasion of china, world war II, and the resumption of civil warpiled one catastrophe upon another. The memory of the flood ,t"s preserved,

ly"":t in the family lore of the descendant, oi Tho*as "Lyt" Ha.nsberge..A Presbyterian missionary to china, he played a key role in rebuilding the al-most,half-mile-long breach in the levee at Gaoyou.

- The proposed documentary is the story of the great flood, of the heroic

effort to rebuild after the disaster, and of thelifelo.rg".l."a- of Hutch Harns-berger, son of the missionary, to s€re the story of trre floocl-and his father'scontribution-restored to china. As Hutch fell rll, the dream passed to hisson steve, and was finally realized when the lost legend of the world's worstflood u'as reborn in a ner,r, museum along the Grand canal i. 2005, just eightrnonths after Flutch Harnsberger died.

- Among the museum's exhibits are ner.er-before-seen photographs of thefloocl tal<en bv fll'rarles ancl Anne l-indircrg]r, rvho harl fl,r..',.,,.i.,,'I.-o,.-i-o

PROPOSAL AND TREATN4EN]T l9t

192 MAKING DOCUMENTARY FII MS AND VIDEOS

Figure l9.l (conflnued)

float plane lrom the Unitecl States to China via Alaska and Russia, as recountedin Anne's bool<, North to the Orient The Lindberghs arrived in China shortlyafter the flood and volunteercd to conduct an aerial survey of the dcvastatedarea, photographing it from their plane, Slriras. The photos were fbund in thehome of a 93-year-old American \voman who hacl l<ept them since 193 i.

Three dedicated men led in rcbuilding after the flooc1. L)'t l'larnsbergerrealized that the waters would not recede in thc floocl area until the massivebreak in the levec was repaired. He put his missionary duties on holci for ayear while he managecl the levee repair. Missionaries are often portrayed as

spiritual creatlrres with no grounding in the rcal world. Those who made theirvr'ay to china in the early 20th century ancl sun ived were adept at handlingaclversity. Harnsberger rnoved his family to the flood area in a Chinesc house-boat, where he managed, paid, and fed 15,000 iaborers who rebuilt the ieveeby hand. Hermit L,in, a Chinese Buddhist who had renounced the world, soldeverything he owned and donated $200,000-equivalent to two million dol-lars today-to fund the Gaoyou dike project. In his donation leter, he wrore,"To save others is truly to save myself." Wang Shuxiang, a retired Chinesegeneral and engineer, rvho had a iifetime o1' experiencc with dike buildingand management, provided the technical expertise to pian and execute theproject.

The dike rebuilding project was completed in about a year, with the projectcost kept under the budgeted amount. Steve Harnsberger proudly notes, "Mygrandfather returneci about l0 percent of the original funds ro the Reliefcommittee in Shanghai. They said it was the first time in a hundred years thathad happened. Then he returned to his Christian minisrry work."

Visual Evidence: A 30-minute program appeared on China Central Tele-vision, produced at the suggestion of steve Harnsberger and using his materi-als. A 20-minute program appeared on Gaoyou television. In addition thereare more than 200 photographs from the Harnsberger family, the Lindberghs,and the Nanjing Archives, showing the flood and the reconstruction. steveHarnsberger has video and audio interviews with his father Hutch and his un-cle Jim Harnsberger.

Production Team: Executive producer for the proposed documentarv isSteve F{arnsberger. Production partncr is Dreamtime Entertainmcnt, which hasproduced many documentaries for PBS, the l-listory Channel, the TravelChannel, ancl others. Scriptwriter is Barry Hampe, documentary filmmakcrand author of Making Docu.mentary Films anrlVicleos.

PROPOSAL AND TREATMENT

Beuise, lrnprote, Rewrite

Another reason peopie have trouble writing a proposal is that they some-

how think they can get it done in one draft. Ancl u,hen the {irst draft isn't

perfect they say, "l just can't write a proposal."

My time log shor.vs that getting that one page w'ritten for Lost Legend

took about a day and a half of my time, spread across four calendar

days. Each nerv day I started with a fresh look, and every sentence was

revised, shortened, or completel), rewritten several times.

As I u,rite this, the project is still developing. The one-page pitch may

become a more formal proposal tailored to the preferrecl style of the

funding or distribution sourcc. Eventuallv a treatment will be written,

and then a script.

l- i' ,= i;i::.: :. :

193

TnneruEur

If the written script is the blueprint for a film, the treatment is the blue-

print for a script. The treatment sets forth the idea of the documentary

comprehensively enough to be understood, but u'ith enough flexibility

to allow for chance, change, and the occasional flash of creativity. Ap-

proval of the treatment by the producer, sponsor, or network is approval

of the concept and approach set forth in the treatment.

Lengtlc

How long is a treatment? As long as it takes to do the job. And this will

vary according to what stage of the planning and filming process you

may be in. Early in the process the treatment may simply elaborate on

the proposal to show that you understand what you are trying to do. As

you get closer to either writing a full script or beginning principal pho-

tography without a script, the treatment rvill become more detailed.

The treatment should be specific enough that it can be used as the

basis for developing a preiiminary budget for the documentary. Most of

the information on the Post-its and printout strips on my planning board

will eventually make it into the treatment-sometimes summarized for

brevity, sometimes in detail for clarity.

194 MAKING DOCUMENTARY FILMS AND VIDEOS

Elements of a Treatrnent

A treatment is often refcrred to as an outline for a script. But it's more

than that. It's really an explanation of the clocumentary. It describes

thc contcnt of the film-r,vhat it is about, what will bc included-andwhat it r.r,ill look like, inclucling the style in rnrhich it tvill be shot ancl

the way it rvill be cditecl. It inclucics all the contcnt items-the peo-'

ple, places, things, and events-that must be a part of the film. And itteils how the clocumentary will be organized to communicate with an

audience.

ExawpLe of a Proposal and. Treatrnemt: Travels of a T:Shirt

Producer Mark Sugg optioned thc rights to make a documentary based

on the book The Travels of a T-Shirt in tl're Global Ecomowy by Pietra

Rivoli, a professor of economics at Georgetown University. Sugg had

written a first draft treatment, which he wanted to use as a pitch to PBS,

but he wasn't completely hoppy rryith it and asked me if I'd be interested

in taking a crack at iL.

First I started reading the book and couldn't put it dorvn. lt's a reallife

economics thriller with a surprise in every chapter. Then I went back

through the book and pulled out chapter titles, subheadings, and various

bits of text that seemed significant to me.'l'hese notes, keyed to the ap-

propriate pages in the book, along u'ith Marks original treatment and

some thoughts I had while reading, became the printout bits to go up on

the planning board. (An example was shown in the previous chapter as

figure I B. I .) The notes printed out on seven margrnless pages, each with

four two-inch-wide columns of single-spaced, nine-point qpe. A lot of

stuff.

This was organized into a set of proposal information posted on one

planning board while the bits and pieces to make r-rp a two-hour docu-

mentary were posted on another.

The pr:oposal tells why a film based on this book would make one

heckuva documentary. The first paragraph says,

Tke Travels of a T-shirt in t'he Global E'conomy by Pietra Rivoli is ajourney in search of the truth, the r,ery cssence of documentary film-rnaking. It's also a fun rcacl -a rare thirrg in au economics boolr--and

PROPOSAL AND TREATMENT I95

destined to be a classic- The author's sense of humor shines through

as she reveals that many things the popular wisclom assumes to be thccase, are \\rrong. That the stoly of our global economy is o{tten a /,arry

one, full of contradictions ancl unexpected, sometimes foolish, out-

The treatment that follows tells what will be shot and what will bc

sholvn, breaking the story into an opening at Georgctown University

lvhere Professor Pietra Rivoli heard a studcnt at a prr,test against the

International Monetary {'uncl and the World Tracle Organization ask

the crowcl, "\4/ho made your T-shirt) Was it a child in Victnam,chained to a sewing machir-re rvithout fbod or water? Or a young girlin India earning cightcen cents per hour and allowed to visit the

bathroom only tu'ice per day?" As the spcaker continr-red to paint a

grim picture of the lives of workers in T-shirt factories arorrnd the

world, Prof. Rivoli reflected, "l did not know all this. And I wondered

about the young woman at the microphone. How did she know)"Thus began a search for ansr,r,ers that resulted in the book The Truv-

els of a T-Shirt in the Global Econowy: An Ecrnaomist Exanrines the

Markets, Power, and Politics of \Alorld Tracle.

Then four sections:

Cotton Corue from. Teksa-which tells the remarkable story of cot-

ton farming in Texas, rvhere rrye meet an eighty-year-old man who farms

1,000 acres of cotton, more or less by himself.

Enter tke Dragon-which takes us to China where cotton lint is

turned into T-shirts, and we ask the question, "How can the American

textile industry be losing jobs to China, if the Chinese textile industry is

also losing jobs?"

The Protection Rachet-which traces the history of protectionism in

the textile industry, anci what has been callcd "the long race to the bot-

tom," as manufacturing moves from country to collntry to find cheap la-

bor. And we discover some reasons why this may not be sr-rch a bad thing.

Afterlife-A Free Market-which follor,r,s the T-shirt, now worn

and discarded but with plenty of wear left in it, to an <-rutcloor market in

Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

196 MAKING DOCUMENTARY FILMS AND VIDEOS

The treatment concludes with this thought:

'As I lollowed my T-shirt around the globe," Professor Bivoli r.r'rites,

"each person introduced me to the next and then the next until I had a

chain of friends that stretched all the way around,the world: Nelsonand Ruth Reinsch, Gary Sandler, Patrick and Jcnnifer Xu, Mohamrnedand Gr-rlam Dewji, Geofrey N4ilonge, Augie Tantillo, Ed Stubin, Su

Qin, and Tao Yong Fang. . . . The Texans, Chinese, Jews, Sicilians,Tanzanians, Muslims, Christians, rryhites, blacks, and browns whopassed my T-shirt around the global economy get along just fine. Actu-ally,, much, much better than fine, thank you very much. All of these

people, and millions more like them, are bound together by tradc incotton, yarn, fabric, and T-shirts. I believe that each of them, as they

touch the next one, is doing their part to keep the peace."

The second draft of the treatment also included the option of a fir'e-

part miniseries. Single-spu""d, the proposal fit on one page and the two-

hour treatment on four additional pages. Adding the suggestion for a

miniseries kicked the treatment up to five pages. I spent thirty-ninehours reading, researching, writing, and rewriting.

The complete proposal and treatment can be found in appendix 6.

ATieatncent Instead of a Script

In writing a behavioral documentary the emphasis is on organization

and visualization, not on writing narration or dialogue. For a behavioral

documentary or a documentary of a unique event, a comprehensive

treatment usually will take the place of a script. The treatment willshow that you know what to look for and how to use it in the film you

are planning, and that the documentary crew is well organized to cover

whatever happens.

Example of a ShootingTreettnent: AYoung Child Is . . .

AYoung Child Is. . . was planned as a documentary of behavior, in whichthe images that would make up the film would be found in the behavior ofthe people we filmed. The treatment had to deal with the fact that whilerve didn't knorv specificallywhat would be filmed, we had a strong concept

of both what thc documentary wouid be about and how it would look.

PROPOSAL AND TREATMENT

The treatment sets out :l series of purposes for the film, such as "to

show the tremendous amount ol learning accomplished by these very

young childrcn befbre they ever con-re in contact u'ith schools and

teachers." The approach to filming is summarized as "what we get is

what you sce." And finally it sets out a list of content points to be cov-

ered cluring filming.I don't know hor,v long I spent writing this treatment. Certainly sev-

eral days of thought, writing, and revising went into it. And it is thc doc-

ument from which the film was shot. The only script was a narration

script that I wrote on a typewriter I kept on a little desk behind my

Moviola film editing table. When I came to a place that needed narra-

tion, I wrote r,vhatever \^ias ncecled, went next door to thc sound room

and recorded it as a scratch track for temporary use in editing, brought

it back, and edited it into the film.

An excerpt from the treatment for AYowng Child.Is. . . is presented

in appendix 7.

The Script Tieatn+ent

A lot of scriptwriting goes into creating a complete treatment for a

script. It wili describe in detail the contcnt that r,vill go into the finished

script, including scenes to be shot. Where footage has already been

shot, it describes the tlpes of shots that will be used, and may refer to

specific shots or sound bites. For interviervs still to be shot it indicates

what the ilterviewee can be expected to talk about or what information

the interviewer should try to elicit.Well, if it's that complete, you might ask, why bother doing a trcat-

ment? Why not go directly to script? Thc truth is, occasionally yor-t

might. But starting v,ith a treatmenl has some advantages.

First, because you summarize-rather than detail-the scenes, nar-

ration, and interview sound bites that wili go into the documentary, a

treatment will be shorter than a script and conseqLrently easier to write

and faster to read. For example, the treatment I wrote for an hour docu-

mentary about the lost warship, USS Perry ran eighteen pages. The fi-

nal script is {ifty pages in length.Second, thc treatment is thc first comprchensive look at how the

documentary rvill be organized and what r,vill be included. Once it is

197