Documentary storytelling techniques: mapping strategies among film students / Wan Aida Wan Yahaya and Shamila Mohamed Shuhidan

Documentaries are a unique form of filmmaking. It allows for the common man/woman to address large, important issues that are able to shake society. It involves a small portion of power as it addresses a wide range of subject matters such as history, anthropology, trends, as well as, social and political constructs, ethical issues and moral responsibilities. However, even though documentaries have evolved continuously, its approaches and methods remain ambiguous, and its parameters keep enlarging and changing. As students start out to understand the process of documentary filmmaking, many struggle in terms of identifying appropriate content suited for that of a documentary. Students are unable to develop appropriate strategies towards identifying the type of stories to tell. This research seeks out exploring an idea and story identification technique, specifically through the use of strategic mapping, as a means of helping students to understand the layers required in planning and constructing a documentary story. Action research is applied to guide and observe students’ responses through a number of mapping techniques that allows for the identification of the core focus/theme of the documentary. The research discovers that through a repetitive process, students’ are able to develop, change and extend their first impression responses as they begin to understand the process of documentary story and content identification.