Documentary editing is different from editing narrative fiction (film) in ways that new editors should understand before picking a project from the EditStock library. You're not choosing the best take of an actor's performance. You're building a story from real human reactions to events.
The story spine of a film is the script, a pre-written story that must be performed. In docs, it's cutting interviews where you discover the story. Many times documentaries will hire story producers who do nothing but research, interview, and organize interview soundbites into the stories that editors tie together. The work of digging out the story is enormous. Sometimes there's a mountain of good ideas or perspectives that need to be narrowed into a single story. Editing interviews and editing a script are different skills, and they need different material to practice with.
EditStock documentary projects give you what film dailies can't: interviews with real people, transcripts, and b-roll that documents a real work event. You get to solve the actual problems a documentary editor solves: what story does this interview tell, what does the b-roll signify, and how do you use both to build a cohesive story?
Why documentary projects teach you about life
Documentary editing is about listening to people and trying to understand who they are and what they experienced as objectively as possible. For example, in the film Like After Ike you visit a man who lost his home in hurricane Ike. The interview takes place directly in front of the home as he recalls the story. You want to show the truth in what happened to them without exaggerating it or incorporating your own feelings into what they say.
With EditStock documentary projects, you get the raw material. The interviews come uncut, with full transcripts. The b-roll is organized into events or locations. You have to make the difficult choices.
Projects worth starting with
Donut Dynamite is a project built around a donut shop in Hawaii. It has interviews with the owners and staff, b-roll of the shop creating masterful, delicious donuts. If you've never cut interviews before, this is a good place to start because the final project is relatively short. You will keep something like three minutes out of a half hour interview. The material is straightforward, the story is clear, and the b-roll is fun to work with.
The Ovens of Cappoquin is a documentary about a bakery in Ireland and the baker who's family has baked traditional bread for 100 years. What makes this story more complex to cut is that it's longer, with more interviews and b-roll from events in multiple locations; a farmers market, a home, a tea shot, and the bakery. Do you use all the scenes? This project is better for editors who want to practice building a longer narrative arc from interview material.
Both projects come with interview transcripts. You can read what was said and then make cuts based on what the cut actually conveys, which is more interesting than just random trimming.
What kind of documentary practice you'll get
Cut interviews to real world events. Practice finding the moment where the person says what they mean, and cut everything else away.
Work with b-roll pacing. A great editor once told me, "there is no such thing as B-roll, only scenes." They show events, places, and in a good cut it says something about what's being said in the interview. Figure out how to use it so it feels like it's part of the story.
Build a short sequence. Take one interview and three to five pieces of b-roll and make a scene that stands on its own. Not the whole film, just one moment.
If you need talking-head footage for interview editing practice, a documentary project is what to buy. EditStock doesn't sell isolated stock clips of people talking. We sell complete projects. But complete projects come with interviews, and those interviews are real material that teaches you something.
Start with a smaller documentary project and work through one section. You'll understand what documentary editing actually is.
