![The template open in Strokes: a banner picture of a wide landscape at dawn, above the title “Documentary script: [Working title]”.](/_next/image?url=%2F_next%2Fstatic%2Fmedia%2Fhero-light.5de9d71b.webp&w=3840&q=75)
![The template open in Strokes: a banner picture of a wide landscape at dawn, above the title “Documentary script: [Working title]”.](/_next/image?url=%2F_next%2Fstatic%2Fmedia%2Fhero-dark.d662fa59.webp&w=3840&q=75)
When to use it
- Feature and short documentaries, from the first outline to the paper edit
- Interview-led films and series where the story is built from transcripts
- Narrated history and explainer pieces that mix archive, interviews and voice-over
- A first documentary that needs a plan before the first shoot day
- Documentary-style films for a nonprofit, a museum or a brand
How to use this template
- Write the question before you shoot
Fill in "The film at a glance" first. The logline says what the film follows; the central question says what it wants to find out, and that is what tells you what to film. Write the ending you expect, then hold it loosely. Documentaries find their story in the edit, but a crew with no question comes home with forty hours of pleasant footage and no film.
- Outline sequences, then plan the shoot from them
A sequence is a run of scenes that tells one part of the story. Give each one a row and fill in "Question it leaves" with care: it is what keeps a viewer watching into the next sequence. The "Material" column then becomes your shopping list. Every interview it names goes into the contributors table and the interview plan, every scene into the shot list, every photo or clip into the archive log.
- Transcribe, then build the paper edit
After the shoot, transcribe every interview with timecodes and read the transcripts with a highlighter. Copy the answers you want into the script table word for word, each with its clip and timecode, in the order of the sequence outline. Add the natural sound and B-roll that go under them. Write narration last, and only for the gaps nobody on camera fills.
- Read it aloud, then lock it to the cut
Read the paper edit aloud with a timer, soundbites and all. If it reads long, it will cut long. Hand it to the editor as the assembly plan, and keep it in step with the cut as it changes. When the picture is locked, the script becomes the record the narrator reads from and the starting point for captions and any translation.
A documentary script is written twice
A screenplay is finished before the shoot. A documentary script is not, because you cannot write what people will say. You write a plan before the cameras roll and the real script afterward, from what you filmed. The template holds both, so one document carries the film from the first idea to the locked cut.
| Stage | When | What you write | Template sections |
|---|---|---|---|
| StageDevelopment | WhenBefore funding or the shoot | What you writeLogline, central question, a sequence outline you expect to change | Template sectionsThe film at a glance, Sequence outline |
| StagePre-production | WhenBefore each shoot day | What you writeWho to interview and what to ask, scenes to film, archive to find | Template sectionsContributors, Interview plan, Scenes and B-roll, Archive and sources log |
| StagePaper edit | WhenAfter transcription, before the edit | What you writeSoundbites in order with timecodes, natural sound, draft narration | Template sectionsScript |
| StagePicture lock | WhenWhen the cut is final | What you writeThe script matched to the film, line for line | Template sectionsScript, Narration for the record |
Funders and commissioners usually ask for a treatment as well: a few pages of prose that describe the story, the people and the look of the film. Write it from the first two sections. The script itself uses the two-column layout of any nonfiction video, picture on the left and sound on the right; the guide to writing a video script covers the shot abbreviations and how to time narration.
Decide who tells the story
Film scholar Bill Nichols sorts documentaries into six modes: poetic, expository, observational, participatory, reflexive and performative. For the script, the useful question is narrower: who does the talking? The answer decides how much of the audio column you write yourself.
| Approach | Who carries the story | The script is mostly | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| ApproachNarrated | Who carries the storyA narrator in voice-over, or a host on camera | The script is mostlyNarration drafted early, then fitted to the footage and soundbites | Watch forNarration that describes what the picture already shows |
| ApproachInterview-led | Who carries the storyThe contributors, with no narrator | The script is mostlySoundbites in order, with SUPERs for dates and facts | Watch forGaps only a narrator could fill; plan a question or a title card for each |
| ApproachObservational | Who carries the storyScenes as they happened | The script is mostlyA sequence outline and a scene list, with little written audio | Watch forContext the viewer needs; a few title cards can carry it |
| ApproachPersonal | Who carries the storyThe filmmaker, in first person | The script is mostlyFirst-person narration, written late, in your own voice | Watch forA film that drifts from its subject to its maker |
Documentary script example
An original short documentary, planned with the template. The town, the ferry and the people are invented.
Logline: For more than sixty years the Dunmore family has carried a river town across the water on a cable ferry; when the county's new bridge opens in April, June Dunmore has to run the last trip.
Central question: What does a town lose when a five-minute crossing becomes a ninety-second drive?
- Cold open (0:00–2:00). 5:40 a.m. June starts the engine in the dark and the first car rolls on. No words. Leaves: who is she?
- The crossing (2:00–7:10). A day of regulars: a nurse on the early shift, a school bus, a farmer with a trailer of hay. A SUPER over the day's last trip: the bridge opens April 12. Leaves: what happens to them?
- The bridge (7:10–10:30). The county engineer makes his case. June does not argue. Leaves: if the bridge is right, what is lost?
- The landing (10:30–14:00). Photos of June's father building the landing in 1961; June remembers riding the deck as a girl. Leaves: what will she do next?
- Cal's plan (14:00–18:30). Her nephew wants to keep the ferry as a summer attraction. The county says no. Leaves: will anyone fight for it?
- Last day (18:30–23:00). Riders come back for one more trip. June runs the final crossing with the deck lights on.
- Ending (23:00–25:00). June drives over the bridge for the first time: one take, no music. The answer: the town gains a road that never floods and loses the five minutes a day it spent together on the deck.
Sequence 3 as a paper edit: the first minute
| Time | Video | Audio | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time07:10 | VideoDrone WS: the unfinished bridge, two spans not yet meeting. SUPER: Tamsin River Bridge · opens April 12 | AudioNAT: wind; a pile driver in the distance. | SourceB-roll card 03, clip 0142 |
| Time07:18 | VideoPete Arreola at his desk in the site trailer, MS. LOWER THIRD: Pete Arreola, County Engineer | AudioSOT ARREOLA: “When the river's high, the ferry stops. Last year that was thirty-one days. On those days the ambulance from Hollis goes around by Route 9. That's forty minutes.” | SourceINT_Arreola_01 · 00:14:22–00:14:39 |
| Time07:35 | VideoNewspaper photo: the ferry landing under floodwater. | AudioV.O.: The county first asked for a bridge here in 1974. The money came through two years ago. | SourceLog #7 (Hollis Courier photo) · fact: log #12 |
| Time07:44 | VideoJune at the rail, looking up at the bridge. | AudioSOT JUNE: “He's not wrong. I've sat out here with the cable slack and watched the lights go the long way round.” | SourceINT_Dunmore_02 · 01:02:10–01:02:18 |
| Time07:52 | VideoCU June's hand on the cable lever. | AudioNAT up: the winch takes the cable. | SourceA-cam card 11, clip 0388 |
| Time07:55 | VideoJune, MS. | AudioSOT JUNE: “Doesn't mean I have to like it.” | SourceINT_Dunmore_02 · 01:02:31–01:02:34 |
| Time07:58 | VideoWS: the ferry pulls away from the landing, the bridge behind it. | AudioMUSIC: cello cue 3 in, under. | SourceDrone card 02, clip 0091 |
Two short lines of narration in seven rows. The engineer makes the case, June concedes it, and the cut from his trailer to her rail makes the argument. That is juxtaposition doing a narrator's job. The narration supplies only what nobody on camera says, the year and the money, and points to its source so the fact-check has somewhere to start. Her last line is cut from the same answer a few seconds later, which is why both soundbites carry their own timecodes.
Interviews and narration that work
- Ask for scenes, not opinions. "Take me back to the morning the river came up" gets a story with a beginning. "How did you feel about the flood?" gets a summary.
- Ask for full sentences. Your questions will not be in the film, so ask contributors to fold the question into the answer: "I started on the ferry in 1987," not "'87." Agree on it before the camera rolls, not mid-answer.
- Open in the middle of something. A cold open that drops the viewer into a scene already under way, the documentary version of in medias res, buys more patience than a minute of background.
- Quote soundbites exactly. Editors call an answer stitched together from separate takes a frankenbite. In a documentary it puts words in someone's mouth. Trim within an answer only when the meaning stays the same, and never join two answers to make a sentence nobody said.
- Time the narration. Narration guides put a natural pace at 130 to 150 words a minute. Count the V.O. lines in each sequence against its time estimate before the narrator books the booth.
Narration that adds
- Gives a date, a number or a place the viewer needs, then stops
- Sets up a question the next soundbite answers
- Bridges a jump in time or place in one line
Narration that repeats
- Says what the contributor is about to say
- Describes what is already on screen or tells the viewer how to feel
If the narration will be recorded as its own session, copy the V.O. lines into the voiceover script template for the narrator. For interviews you plan to quote in print as well, take notes with the interview notes template.
Frequently asked questions
How long is a documentary script?
Documentary scripts are measured in minutes, not pages. Narration runs at about 130 to 150 words a minute, and soundbites, natural sound and music fill the rest. The Academy, the American Film Institute and the British Film Institute all count a film over 40 minutes as a feature. Give each sequence a time estimate and add them up.
Do documentaries without narration need a script?
Yes. Observational and interview-led films still need a sequence outline before the shoot and a paper edit after it. The script decides which moments and soundbites go where, even if nobody reads a line of it aloud.
What is the difference between a treatment and a documentary script?
A treatment is prose, usually a few pages, describing the story, the people and the look of the film; it is written to get the film funded or commissioned. The script is the working document: the sequence outline and interview plan before the shoot, the two-column paper edit after it.
Can I use archival footage or music I don't own?
Log every item with its source and rights status, and license what you can. In the US, many documentary makers start from the Documentary Filmmakers' Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use, published in 2005 by documentary organizations working with American University's Center for Media & Social Impact. It is guidance, not a guarantee: ask a clearance lawyer before you rely on fair use.
