We made a documentary series that streamed on HBO. 🎉
And get this: we made it without a narrator, which yielded a uniquely challenging exercise in storytelling.
How do we tell a complex sociopolitical story around sports WITHOUT a narrator to guide us along?
The answer: kick-ass archival research, deeply-researched questions to ask carefully-selected interview subjects , and awe-inspiring animation.
It's easy to rely on animation/archival as decorative elements, but a great documentary employs these visuals as indispensable elements that make the script difficult to understand without them.
If you don't hold your visual elements to this standard, then what you're producing could double as a podcast. The point of visuals is to constantly justify WHY you need to SEE what's onscreen.
We ran with this approach, and what resulted is a compelling docu-series that'll make you rethink sports' relationship to politics. ⚖️
And get this: we made it without a narrator, which yielded a uniquely challenging exercise in storytelling.
How do we tell a complex sociopolitical story around sports WITHOUT a narrator to guide us along?
The answer: kick-ass archival research, deeply-researched questions to ask carefully-selected interview subjects , and awe-inspiring animation.
It's easy to rely on animation/archival as decorative elements, but a great documentary employs these visuals as indispensable elements that make the script difficult to understand without them.
If you don't hold your visual elements to this standard, then what you're producing could double as a podcast. The point of visuals is to constantly justify WHY you need to SEE what's onscreen.
We ran with this approach, and what resulted is a compelling docu-series that'll make you rethink sports' relationship to politics. ⚖️
