Research & the Paper Edit
Before a camera rolls, you write the film on paper. Deep research plus a "paper edit" turns a promising subject into a plan you can actually shoot, fund, and follow when reality gets messy.
Amateurs grab a camera and start shooting. Professionals research first — often for weeks or months — because in documentary, knowing your subject cold is what lets you catch the real story when it happens. Research is the first true writing pass: it's how you learn what your film could be, who to film, what questions to ask, and where the story is likely to turn. Skip it and you'll shoot blind, miss the crucial moment, and drown in footage you don't understand. This chapter covers how to research a documentary and how to turn that research into a written plan — the paper edit.
The layers of documentary research
- Background research. Everything already published — books, articles, records, prior films. Become the most informed person in the room about your subject. It builds credibility and reveals what's not yet been told.
- Pre-interviews. Talking to potential subjects and experts before filming — usually off-camera. You learn who's articulate, who has the story, what they'll actually say, and you build the trust that gets you access later.
- Archive and materials. What photos, footage, documents, and records exist? Knowing early shapes what's possible and what rights you'll need to clear.
- Location and logistics scouting. Where does this story physically happen, and can you film there? Practical reality is part of research.
Research never fully stops — it continues through the shoot — but this front-loaded phase is what lets you write an informed plan instead of a hopeful guess.
Pre-interviews: the writer's secret weapon
The pre-interview is one of the most valuable tools in documentary. Sitting down with someone before the camera does three things at once: it tells you whether they're a compelling on-screen presence, it surfaces their best stories so you know what to draw out later, and it starts the relationship of trust that real access requires. Take notes on the phrases that give you chills — those are the moments you'll build the filmed interview around. Just remember people often say a thing most freshly the first time, so don't over-rehearse them into flatness.
The paper edit
Once you've researched, you write a paper edit: a document that lays out the film's likely structure on paper, before (and later, during) shooting. It's your best-guess blueprint — the story you think you'll tell, scene by scene or beat by beat, based on everything you now know.
- It guides the shoot. A shot list of the scenes, interviews, and moments you need to capture to tell that story.
- It's the basis of your treatment and proposal. Funders want to see you have a plan (that's the next module).
- It stays flexible. As reality unfolds, you revise the paper edit — it's a living document, rewritten in the field and again in the edit room.
My paper edit is the most-revised document on any doc I make. Version one is written from research, full of confidence and half wrong. Then I shoot, and reality hands me a better scene than I imagined and quietly kills two I loved — so I rewrite it. Then in the edit I rewrite it again from what the footage actually gave me. People think the paper edit is a failure if it changes. It's the opposite: a paper edit that never changed means you weren't paying attention to your own film.
With research done and a paper edit drafted, you have a plan — but how you tell the story is still open. Will it be observational, narrated, interview-driven? That choice, the documentary's mode and voice, shapes everything else. It's next, and it closes out the foundations.
Organize your research, log interviews, and build a paper edit in one place. The Toolbox turns hours of footage and notes into a structure you can actually write from — the backbone of every documentary.