Excerpts from an interview published online, http://www.albany.edu/news/20478.php, shortly before the feature documentary "Slavery by Another Name" premiered in competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
In
fact, writing a documentary is similar to writing any work of creative
nonfiction, in that it involves making narrative choices. Which stories will
told? How will the work be structured? Who are the characters? What is the
point of view? How will evidence be selected and presented? Every documentary
film, to some extent, addresses these questions, whether or not a writer is
credited. It's a collaborative process that begins well before footage is shot
and, unlike Hollywood screenwriting, continues until the last days of editing.
At that point, when the words and images are locked, you have a script.
Until
then, you have a series of increasingly polished outlines and drafts that you
revise to incorporate new research and incoming footage and other materials.
It’s a lengthy process. As the writer on Slavery
by Another Name, I worked for about a year with producer/director Sam
Pollard in New York, co-executive producer Douglas A. Blackmon in Atlanta, and
executive producer Catherine Allan in Minneapolis, and we’d all meet
periodically in New York. The film elements include re-enactments, interviews
with scholars and descendants, archival materials and images, and of course,
music.
(full interview available online; view the entire film at www.pbs.org/sban)