JRN 572DE - News Documentary

JRN 572 - Researching & Writing
the News Documentary
Rich Hanley, Associate Professor
Lecture Seven

JRN 572 - News Documentary
Overview:
• The course now shifts to the
segment where ideas begin the long,
arduous process toward reality.
• We aren’t producing a documentary
in the class but we will establish the
groundwork for one.

Overview:
• This week, we will compose a drift
treatment of three pages in all to put
meat on the bones of an idea.
• The original plan called for a single
page treatment but the added length
will enable students to probe their
idea in terms of the narrative flow
and depth.

Overview:
• The Learning Module for the week
includes a screening for each
program, links to archival sources
and a sample three-page treatment
that can serve as the template.
• The goal this week is to develop the
idea further and connect it to visuals
at a preliminary level.

Overview:
• In short, we begin this week to apply
all the lessons to date on history,
modes, structure, research,
chronology, voice-overs, etc. into a
draft treatment that will conceptually
cover the mechanics of pre-
production based on your idea and
preliminary findings of visual
elements drawn from archives.

Treatment:
• As noted last week, the treatment is
a multi-faceted document that serves
as part funding proposal, part
shooting script, and part guide to
research.
• It does serve the primary purpose of
transitioning an idea from the
ephemeral to the concrete.

Treatment:
• Often, some details might not
emerge until the end of the post-
production (film editing) nears, as the
video on the making of The Orbit
posted this week reveals.
• Still, it’s important to know as much
as possible before committing the
idea to paper in a treatment.

Treatment:
• The key is to make sure the idea is
original in terms of subject or
approach, is within your grasp to
produce and has enough archival
material already available to get the
process going or to reveal to the
reader of the treatment that there are
visual assets available to help carry
expository material as needed.

Treatment:
• Even if your project is about a
contemporary issue or event, it is of
great utility to learn how to knock
around archives and find visual
assets as at some point in the project
or in your career, this exercise will
yield results, unexpected or
otherwise.

Treatment:
• Sports journalists operate at a
severe disadvantage when using
archival materials because most of
the available footage is owned and
must be licensed at a high cost.
• Journalists producing a documentary
about a current event also will
confront licensing costs.

Treatment:
• Just keep these facts in mind when
landing on your idea for a treatment.
• The best archival material is that
which both covers the narrative and
is in the public domain that does not
require licensing fees.

Treatment:
• It’s important to note at this point that
there is no single template for
treatments.
• Nor is there, in fact, a firm definition
of “treatment” that applies the same
to everybody in the documentary
business.

Treatment:
• The documentary business is not like
accounting or even to a certain
extent journalism where the same
pre-production and production
processes are codified.
• Instead, there are broad principles
that can be applied, and that’s what
we are pursuing here.

Treatment:
• Reminder: keep in mind the lessons
on modes, structure and narrative
arc, as the decisions you make on
these points ought to appear in the
treatment.

Treatment:
• Lesson Module Six included a
document that provided a preview of
what a fully realized treatment ought
to include when composed by
experienced filmmakers.
• This week, we are going to write a
condensed version of that to get a
feel for linking ideas to reality.

Treatment:
• Our treatment for the week must
include the following:
1. Logline, or concise
summary, which includes
running time and title.
2. Topic, which is a statement
of purpose that presents why
the film must be produced,
among other things.

Treatment:
3. Narrative Synopsis, or
broad preview of how the film
will unfold and how it will look.
4. Archival Elements, or a list
of the harvest of visual
elements in a preliminary
search of widely used sources
such as the National Archives
and footage.net.

Treatment:
• The sample provides a roadmap to
successful composition of this first go
at a treatment.
• The format is drawn partially from
Sundance’s submission form; the
content is real, extracted from the
Last Days of the Coliseum treatment.

Treatment:
• When reading the sample, note how
the idea expands from the short
logline to the topic and synopsis.
• It is then supported by a short list of
archival material found through
online searches of the National
Archives, Library of Congress and
footage.net.

Treatment:
• The final list of archive sources
assembled for the film is ultimately
several pages long but the
preliminary research starts the
process and points to the ultimate
trajectory of the film.
• The sample lists Yale as a source
but that was unique to the project.

Treatment:
• Your ultimate, fully realized treatment
(not the one for this week) would
include several archives, museums,
libraries and private collections
whose holdings become known as
the research into story development
and visual assets runs deeper on
parallel tracks.

Treatment:
• It’s important to note that just a clip
on YouTube does not mean it is in
the public domain or could be used
with just a courtesy credit.
• In your research into visual assets,
make sure of the legal status of
archival material.

Treatment:
• Material in the National Archives is
generally in the public domain
because it was produced by the
federal government but not all the
holdings are in the public domain.
• Footage.net, for example, represents
35 private archives whose holdings
require a license fee.

Treatment:
• The key to any good search is to link
your idea to a precise keyword of
keywords.
• For the sample posted this week, the
keywords used include “New Haven”
and the name of the architect
entered in separate searches.

Treatment:
• Please note that you must pursue
several different searches with
different keywords even on the same
database in order to yield the most
comprehensive results.
• Be patient and take the opportunity
searches provide to learn about the
these sources for future projects!

Treatment:
• We will examine the treatments
during Week Eight as part of a
review and build from there as we
focus on undertaking the pre-
production work on an idea you want
to see realized at some point on the
screen.

JRN 572DE - News Documentary

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