Chapter 21 — Exercises

Documentary is learned by shaping real material, so most of these put you in front of a real subject or in the edit with real footage. Do them with whatever camera you have — every one works on a phone — and take the starred items seriously, because they build directly toward your Project 2 documentary short. Where an exercise involves a real person, remember §21.5: get their genuine consent, and represent them fairly.

Exercises are graded by effort and depth:

• ⭐ Warm-up — a few minutes; locks in a concept.
• ⭐⭐ Core — the real practice; do as many as you can.
• ⭐⭐⭐ Stretch — deeper or more ambitious; where the biggest gains are.

Model solutions and critiques for the starred and odd-numbered exercises are in Answers to Selected Exercises at the back of the book. Attempt each one before you read its answer — a wrong attempt teaches more than a right answer you only read.

A. Seeing the genre (Eye & Ear Training)

No camera needed — just your attention and your Frame Log.

1. ⭐ Name the mode. Watch the first two minutes of any three documentaries. For each, name the dominant mode (observational/vérité, participatory, expository, essay) and the one clue that told you — narration? interviews? the maker on camera? argument or observation? Self-review: which clue was the most reliable tell? (Answer provided.)

2. ⭐ Count the narration. Pick a documentary you like. For a five-minute stretch, tally roughly what carries the story: the subject's own voice, a narrator, or pictures and sound alone. Which does the heaviest lifting, and does the film feel more guided or more observed as a result? (Answer discusses what to notice.)

3. ⭐⭐ Spot the shaping. In any documentary scene, find one moment where you can see the maker's hand — a cut that compresses time, a music cue that tells you how to feel, a piece of B-roll chosen to make a point. Write one line on what the choice does, and one line on whether it reveals something true or manufactures a feeling. (Answer provided.)

4. ⭐⭐ The archival audit. Watch a history documentary and, for five uses of archival stills or footage, note whether each move across a still felt motivated (going toward something) or reflexive (a zoom for its own sake). What proportion were motivated? Self-review: did the reflexive ones start to feel monotonous?

5. ⭐⭐⭐ Find the arc. Take a short documentary (under ten minutes) and reverse-engineer its reality arc: write its hook, its spine question, its turn, and its resolution in one sentence each. If you can't find a turn, that tells you something too — name what the film has instead. (Model answer provided.)

B. Reading Described Shots (Read the Sequence)

6. ⭐ Read the vérité shot. Re-read FIGURE 21.2 (the Primary following shot). Name the two things — one about the camera, one about the sound — that make it read as unmediated rather than staged. Then name one thing you would lose if you re-shot it on a locked tripod. (Answer provided.)

7. ⭐⭐ Diagnose the still. In FIGURE 21.5 (bringing a still to life), THE MOVE drifts from the child's face to the father's hands. Rewrite THE MOVE and THE EFFECT for a version that instead pulls out from a single face to reveal the whole crowd around them. How does the meaning change? (Answer provided.)

8. ⭐⭐ Critique a mode mismatch. A described scene: a filmmaker wants a "raw, fly-on-the-wall" feel, but the shot is on a tripod, perfectly lit with three lights, and the subject is clearly waiting for a cue. Name every way the execution betrays the intended mode, and prescribe the fix for each. (Answer provided.)

9. ⭐⭐⭐ Write a vérité Described Shot. Watch a real, unscripted moment (a market, a kitchen, a street performer) and write a full seven-field Described Shot of it in the vérité mode. Then write one line on what you'd have lost if you had stopped the action to "set it up." Constraint: available light only, no direction of the subject. (Model answer provided.)

C. Building the story (Shoot This & Cut This)

The heart of the chapter. Make things.

10. ⭐⭐ Shoot a two-question arc. Interview a real person (Chapter 19 skills) with just two questions: "What are you trying to do?" and "What's in the way?" Then film three B-roll shots of them doing the thing. Constraint: after each answer, stay silent for three seconds before speaking again. Self-review: did the silence pull a deeper answer? You now have the raw ingredients of a reality arc. (Guidance provided.)

11. ⭐⭐ Cut the spine. From the interview in Exercise 10, pull the two or three sentences that could carry the whole story if you heard nothing else. Lay them in order on a timeline with the picture off. Self-review: does an arc appear? Name the hook, and where a turn could go. If no arc appears, what was missing on the shoot?

12. ⭐⭐ Cut it two ways. Take the same interview selects and B-roll and build two 45-second edits: one that makes the subject feel triumphant, one that makes them feel uncertain — using only honest selection and order (no words they didn't say, no manufactured causation). Self-review: mark the single cut in each that gets closest to the deception line. (Answer discusses the ethics.)

13. ⭐⭐⭐ Find the turn. Watch your full interview footage from Exercise 10 and hunt for the single most surprising or emotional sentence — the turn. Build a 60-second cut that structures the whole piece toward that line: everything before sets it up, everything after pays it off. This is the paper-edit instinct (Chapter 30) practiced early. (Guidance provided.)

14. ⭐⭐⭐ Shoot a cold open. Film a 15–20 second cold open for a real subject: a vérité moment or a gripping soundbite, with no context given. Constraint: no titles, no explanation, start mid-action or mid-sentence. Self-review: show it to someone and ask, "Do you want to know what happens next?" If not, reshoot until they do. (Answer provided.)

D. Narration (Shoot This & Settings Drill)

15. ⭐ The closet test. Record the same three sentences twice: once in the middle of a bare room, once standing in a closet full of clothes. Listen on headphones. Describe the difference in one line, and name which one you'd put in a film. (Answer provided.)

16. ⭐⭐ Write to picture. Take 30 seconds of B-roll you already have and write narration for it twice: a "bad" version that describes what we see, and a "good" version that adds only what the picture can't say. Record both, lay each over the B-roll. Self-review: which line disappears, and which adds? (Model answer provided.)

17. ⭐⭐ Cut the third. Take any narration you've written and delete a third of the words without losing the meaning. Read the before and after aloud. What did the trimming do to the pacing, and to the room the pictures have to breathe? (Answer provided.)

18. ⭐⭐⭐ Three voices. Record the same 20-second narration three ways: as an external "voice of God" narrator, as your own personal first-person voice, and lifted from an interviewee's real words used as VO. Lay each over the same B-roll. Self-review: how does each change the film's relationship to the viewer — about the subject, with the subject, or the subject's own? (Answer provided.)

19. ⭐⭐ Settings drill: the VO session. You're recording narration tomorrow with only a phone. Write your full setup: space, mic distance, level target, and the two "insurance" things you'll record beyond the script. Justify each choice in a phrase. (Model answer provided.)

E. Archival and stills (Shoot This & Recreate It)

20. ⭐ Motivate the move. Take one old family photograph (or any photo with people in it). Write down where in the frame a move should end and why — what is the emotional point? Then, in any editor, animate a slow push toward it. Self-review: does the move now feel like it means something?

21. ⭐⭐ Recreate the Ken Burns shot. Using a single high-resolution photo, build the shot in FIGURE 21.5: start on one detail, move to another with motivation, and lay a line of real or imagined voiceover over it. Constraint: the move must be slow enough to feel deliberate and must end on a specific point. (Guidance provided.)

22. ⭐⭐ Five Ways: one photo, five moves. Take one photograph and make five versions: (a) slow push in, (b) slow pull out, (c) drift across, (d) hold dead still, (e) a fast move. Watch back-to-back. Which serves a reflective mood, and which fights it? (Answer provided.)

23. ⭐⭐⭐ The rights map. Pick a real story that would need archival (a local history, a family story, an event). List every piece of archival you'd want, and for each, write who likely owns it and how you might legally use it (public domain, license, permission, or "can't"). Self-review: which piece is your film secretly depending on — and can you actually clear it? This is the pre-production that prevents heartbreak. (Answer discusses the categories.)

F. Ethics (Fix the Shot & Synthesis)

Treat these as the most important in the set.

24. ⭐⭐ Spot the Frankenbite. A described edit: an interviewee said, "I was angry at first, but honestly, looking back, they made the right call." The cut keeps only "I was angry… they made the right call." What meaning was manufactured, and where is the line between trimming and lying? (Answer provided.)

25. ⭐⭐ Fix the lying cutaway. A filmmaker films an interviewer nodding sympathetically after the subject has left, then inserts it to imply the interviewer was moved by a specific painful answer. Diagnose the ethical problem, then give an honest alternative use for that exact same shot. (Answer provided.)

26. ⭐⭐ The music test. Describe a neutral 10-second B-roll shot (someone walking to their car). Then describe how three different music choices could make a viewer read the same shot as hopeful, sinister, or melancholy. Where does scoring cross from craft into manipulation? (Model answer provided.)

27. ⭐⭐⭐ The consent conversation. Write, in five or six lines, the informed-consent conversation you'd have with a vulnerable subject before filming — what you'd make sure they understand about where the film goes and how they might be shown. Go beyond "sign here." Self-review: would you feel safe agreeing to what you just described? (Model answer provided.)

28. ⭐⭐⭐ The honesty audit. Take any edit you've made (or Exercise 12) and run it against FIGURE 21.6 line by line. Find the one choice closest to the deception line and either defend it or fix it. Being able to find your own closest call is the skill this exercise trains. (Guidance provided.)

G. Structure (Cut This)

29. ⭐⭐ Paper-edit the arc. On one page, write your Project 2 as a beat list per FIGURE 21.7: cold open, orient, question, three development beats (one idea each), turn, resolution, button. For each beat, note the soundbite that carries it and the B-roll that shows it. Self-review: can a stranger read it and feel the arc — especially the turn? (Model answer provided.)

30. ⭐⭐⭐ Build the 3-minute cut. Using your Project 2 material, assemble a rough 3-minute cut following your paper edit: soundbite spine, B-roll over every cut, narration only in the gaps. Don't polish — just prove the arc holds. Self-review: where does it drag, and is that beat trying to make more than one point? (Guidance provided.)

31. ⭐⭐ With and without. Take one section of your short and build it twice — narrated and un-narrated — as in the Production Checkpoint. Show both to one person and ask which they trust more and which they follow more easily. Report the split, and say which your story needs. (Answer discusses the trade-off.)

H. Interleaved (mixing prior chapters)

32. ⭐⭐ Interview + doc (Ch. 19). Re-run one interview question from a documentary angle: instead of a fact, hunt for the want and the obstacle — the arc ingredients. Compare the answer to a fact-seeking version of the same question. Which gives you material you could build a story on? (Answer provided.)

33. ⭐⭐ B-roll for beats (Ch. 20). For three soundbites from your interview, shoot one B-roll shot each that shows what the bite says rather than literally illustrating the words. (Over "it's lonely work," shoot the empty shop, not a picture captioned "lonely.") Self-review: does the image deepen the line or just repeat it? (Answer provided.)

34. ⭐⭐ Light the interview (Ch. 11, 13). Set up your documentary interview with a single motivated key (a window, Chapter 13) and check that the eyeline is off-axis (Chapter 19). Shoot 20 seconds. Self-review: does it look intentional or accidental — and if accidental, was the window behind them or the eyeline down the lens? (Answer provided.)

35. ⭐⭐⭐ Pre-pro the shoot (Ch. 16). Write a one-paragraph treatment, a shot list, and a one-line reality-arc hypothesis for a documentary you could actually shoot this month. Bring the arc thinking from this chapter into the planning from Chapter 16. Self-review: what's the one thing reality is most likely to change? (Model answer provided.)

36. ⭐⭐⭐ Teach it back (Ch. 1). In about 200 words, explain to a beginner the difference between shaping a documentary and falsifying one, using one honest and one deceptive example from FIGURE 21.6. Teaching it is the strongest test that you own it. (Model answer provided.)

I. Recreate and synthesize (Recreate It & Synthesis)

37. ⭐⭐ Recreate a vérité approach. Choose a real, unstaged activity and film three minutes of it in strict vérité: available light, handheld or minimal, no direction, one unbroken 60-second take, and get close. Then watch it and find the one real moment you'd never have gotten if you'd staged it. Constraint: not one word of direction to your subject. (Answer provided.)

38. ⭐⭐ Fix the failed narration. A described piece: the narration runs wall-to-wall, describing every shot as it appears ("now he opens the door… now he sits… now he sighs"), and there is never a second of silence. Diagnose why it feels amateur, then rewrite one 20-second stretch so the narration adds instead of describes — and mark where you'd cut it out entirely. (Answer provided.)

39. ⭐⭐⭐ The four-mode challenge. Take one subject you've filmed and cut a 30-second version in each of two different modes — say, a cold observational cut (no narration, let it play) and an expository cut (a guiding narration over the same footage). Watch both. Self-review: which felt more true, which felt more clear, and what does that tension tell you about your subject? (Model answer provided.)

40. ⭐⭐⭐ The dignity pass. Watch your Project 2 rough cut (or Exercise 30) as if you were the subject seeing it for the first time. Note every moment where you'd feel misrepresented, exposed, or used. Then decide, for each, whether to keep it (it's true and fair) or fix it (it's a cheap shot). This "watch it as the subject" pass is the single most important habit in nonfiction — build it now. (Guidance provided.)

When you've done these — especially the shooting and cutting ones — you have the documentary maker's core moves: find the arc, honor the truth, and let real voices carry the story. Take them straight into Project 2. Then move to Chapter 22, where the same craft goes to work for a paying client.