Finding a Story: What Makes a Strong Story

I think this is an interesting question.

Let's stick with the Paramedic theme.

Say we set about answering some of the questions from our basic Research Plan.

Say we found out, from the web, that there is a governing body who represents them.

Say we phone this body and maybe speak to someone who deals with the media.  They tell us an event is coming up, a fundraising thing were some paramedics will be demonstrating what they do.  And the media person says, "I think you should come and cover this, it's a great story".

Is it?

It might make something, and I say might, for a news piece, if its a slow news day. 

But it's very manufactured.  It's not 'real', in the sense that, its a staged event.  Not an everyday occurrence.

Plus, is it a strong story?

Well, we might measure our ideas as stories, once we've got them by comparing them to something.

Here's a link to a piece of research carried out by charities.  It looked at what journalists thought made good stories. (scroll down to the section that says: What make a good story)

You can use this as a list to compare your story against, asking yourself, does your story at least make a couple of these catagories?

http://www.volunteergenie.org.uk/making-a-story-plan

Finding a Story: Under Your Noses. Anvil

The Story of Anvil, a now quite famous documentary made a couple of years ago had quite an interesting genesis.

I don't imagine the chap who made the film, Sasha Gervasi, thought he was going to make a film about Anvil.  He certainly wasn't looking for the story.

He must have, however, been in explorer mode.

Sasha used to be their roadie.  Or tech crew.  I'm not exactly sure.  Anyway, he met the band and heard they were doing a reunion gig since they'd fallen on hard times. 

Still, he didn't recognise it as a story at this point. 

You can pick up the story of how the story happened on this Youtube clip.  It's worth a watch through because it also shows how important it can be to have your subject on board for what your are going to do.  At least that way, you might not have as many access issues.  And the information you collect will be closer to reality and less manufactured.

The use of this I think is this.  Look around you.  There are good stories happening under your nose all the time.  Think about your family, your friends.  Think about what they do for their work, their leisure. 

I'm pretty certain there are tonnes of stories you could document in your daily lives.

Maybe never even go near the Paramedics...

Finding a Story: First Steps

Okay, so how do you go about finding your story, once you have thought about a theme area like e.g. modellling, or paramedics?

Well, the best starting point is making a research plan.

I always start on the web, in a library, and on a phone.

Both primary and secondary research are invaluable and have different advantages and disadvantages.

First up though, the plan.

The point of making a research plan is just to answer questions.  Forget about the story for a while.  It's not important at this stage.  It'll make itself known when it's good and ready.

Well, let's take our Paramedic theme.

For secondary research, I'd make a list of questions, stuff that interests me:

Could be:

How many paramedics are there in Northern Ireland?
What problems do they face?
What's the job actually like to do?
How much training do you need?
Is it well paid?
How do they cope with the stress?
What sort of people are they?
Does it take a lot of courage?
Is there anything coming up that they are doing which might be interesting?
Could I get a hold of anyone who would talk to me?
What are the access issues about getting into ambulances?

You'll notice some of these are vague questions.  They certainly aren't stories.  We are still in the land of school project.  But that's fine.  It's gets us started.

However, some of the questions at the bottom are more practical. 

Thinking of who you can talk to, or at least film, is always of paramount importance and if you can't answer it, then most likely, you don't have a documentary.

Remember, the cool thing is, you're not married to this idea.  If you're initial bit of digging doesn't show you much then the chances are there isn't much in it for you.  At least, not at the moment.

Make the same list of questions yourself.

Finding a Story: Avoiding the School Project

It's difficult when you first start to work on your documentary ideas to avoid a couple of common mistakes.

I've stuck a few of them down here, maybe it'll make things easier or allow you to spot problems.

When you're asked for a documentary idea, what someone wants to read is a 'story'.

In documentary terms this means having a subject, having something interesting about that subject that you want to present to us the audience.

The problem is, like most simple things, you can't to the idea without going on a journey of EXPLORATION first. 

What tends to happen with most students in the beginning is they think of a THEME, say for example, NURSES.  And then tend to jump straight away to something like:

'My documentary will be a day in the life of a nurse.'

Unfortunatley this isn't a documentary.  At least not in my book.  It is more of a school project.  Or maybe even something like Factual Entertainment.

A documentary, a story, is much harder to find. 

And ironically, you have to stop looking for it in a way, to find it.  Yoda would be proud.  But what do I mean.

Well, if, for instance, you're interesting in Nurses, or Models, or Zoos, or Paramedics, you need to go and find out about them, talk to a few of them, and then, during that, usually a story will present itself.

A Nurse might tell you about a story in which she saved someone's life, and that becomes your documentary.

Because it is an actual real thing that happened. 

You see I'm sure the difference between this and the 'Day in the life of' type of story.

Think of yourself as an explorer.  Go explore the area you're interested in and wait until a story emerges.  There are thousands upon thousands of them.