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How to Storyboard a Documentary (When You Cannot Predict the Day)

· 6 min read

Documentary boards are hypotheses: interview coverage, b-roll lists, and sequences you can only plan as modules. What to draw, what to leave as a shot list.

You cannot storyboard a stranger's answer. You can storyboard the machine that will catch it: interview coverage, b-roll modules, and the sequences you already know (a process, a walk, an archive insert).

Interview coverage as a tiny board

Two or three frames: wide of the room, MCU, CU. Note eyelines toward the off-camera brain. That is enough for an editor. Do not draw the subject's yet-unspoken emotion.

B-roll as a shot list first

A list of inserts and wides beats fake pictures of a factory you have not seen. Promote a line to a frame when the location is locked. Inserts · shot list.

Sequences you *can* board

Anything with blocking you control: a demonstration, a reconstruction, an opening title walk. Treat those like film.

FAQ

Is boarding a doc a waste?

Boarding the unknowable is a waste. Boarding coverage and modules is how you still have a day when the interview runs long.

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