Can You Make Money From Documentary Film Making?

According to Wikipedia "documentary has been described as film making practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception that is continually evolving and is without clear boundaries". And base on the Grierson's principles of documentary were "that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited". Then documentary films comprise of vague nonfictional motion pictures which is going to document some features of reality for the main objective of information, probably instruction, or maintaining a historical record.

Making documentary is not a simple task; it needs compassion, dedication, commitment, and above all perseverance. These are qualities which can make the documentary film making go through. Can you make money from it? The answer is YES, though making money from documentaries is not an easy job. Just make sure that you have to learn the steps and tips of making documentaries in order to be successful and earn money.

As beginners, you should start to make some observations like watching documentary films in the TV shows, or you can probably go with the professionals and learn. This is quite important because doing filming of documentaries is quite expensive. Budgeting is to be well planned and wisely used, so it is important to learn about budget costs and budgeting to produce or to make films of documentary nature.

Next, you have to choose the subject that you intended to film, since documentary film making are reality and factual representation of the subject. After you have chosen the subject, make sure of the availability of the resources. It would be frustrating if you have now the subject but your funding cannot survive the entire film making, so be realistic too.

Make sure too, that you have all the needed equipment suitable to the situation of the subject you will be filming. Make some considerations of the weather and locations. There is equipment for indoor, outdoor and underwater location, and you have to make sure you have it to save time and money.

Start with a simple documentary film, and then after you finish the entire documentary film making, you can go ahead with the editing task. Do view the entire film, and make some deleting of portions which you think is not necessary. You can do insert sound and narrations/voice too about the film to make it more appealing and interesting. Once you are done, then you can request some of your friends or better yet invite a professional and take their inputs about the film.

Remember, all we do can not be successful all the time, just don't give up. The important things you have to remember is, love the story, and believe on what you are doing. Be open to constructive and destructive criticisms, because this will be your way to improve your work. As the saying goes "if at first you don't succeed, try and try again". You can realize and feel your success when you start to earn money out of documentary film making.

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Learn more about documentary film making by checking on Filmmaking Mastery.