Writing for Wildlife Documentaries

The commentary is crucial to a wildlife film. Beautiful and powerful images can be undercut and damaged by the wrong words at the right time and vice versa. The thread of the narrative can be unravelled by an incongruous choice of phrase. When faced with an empty page, how do you begin? What's more important, the words or the pictures? When does one take precedence over the other? How do you judge which style to employ, what mood to convey, what emotion to elicit? The Writing for Wildlife Documentaries course gives guidance from highly experienced wildlife writers, provides examples across different genres and offers constructive help with not only scripts but also treatments, synopses, TV Billings, DVD covers, websites and articles.

The course is taught by Caroline Brett, who is a highly experienced and award-winning producer/ director, Alan Miller, an accomplished director, writer and editor. and Piers Warren - Principal of Wildeye and author.

The location is Hall Farm House in North Norfolk, UK. No experience or equipment is required, but do bring your laptop if you have one.

Itinerary

Friday: Aim to arrive by 6pm on the Friday the course starts, directions will be sent when you have booked your place.
7pm - Evening meal served (no problem if you arrive later)
8pm - Introductory chat - who we are, who you are, and what we will be doing this weekend.

Saturday:
8am - Breakfast
9am - Demo and discussion of programme styles and relevant scripts e.g. Natural History Blue chip Documentaries, American versions and commissions, Reality Natural History, Library films, Author led shows and films with no script.
11am - Coffee break
11.30am - Demo of presenter led Natural History (working/writing for actors, public and scientists) and children’s natural history.
Demo of lines to make you cringe and effective narrative.
1pm - Lunch
2pm - How to attack writing a script, come up with a good title and structure a story. Matching words to picture versus cutting picture to words.
4pm Tea Break
4.30pm - Practical – write 3 x five minute openings and record a rough 5 minute voice over.
7pm - Evening meal served followed by the showing of wildlife films relevant to the course

Sunday:
8am - Breakfast
9 am - Recording a draft commentary. The pitfalls of script writing, working with a commentator, adapting during post-production and preparing an annotating a script. Writing a synopsis and TV billings.
11am - Coffee break
11.30am - Practical - give writing a synopsis and billing a go.
1pm - Lunch
2pm - Natural History Feature Films, quiz shows, magazine shows, non-broadcast films.
Other writing opportunities e.g. English scripts for foreign films, web sites and articles. The art of writing a one-page proposal and writing for a trailer.
4pm - Course ends

Tutors

Caroline Brett - a highly experienced and award-winning producer/ director. Caroline worked for twenty one years for the prestigious Survival series making programmes in numerous locations including out on the ice in Arctic Canada, in the rainforests of Sierra Leone, high on the tundra in Alaska and on a remote Vietnamese island in the South China Sea. She produced the highly successful ‘Predators with Gaby Roslin' and directed some of the ‘Wild about Essex with Tony Robinson’. She is now employed by the Save Our Seas Foundation as their film director/producer for which she has won several awards including Wildscreen Pandas.

Alan Miller has been directing, writing and editing wildlife documentaries for almost twenty years. BBC trained, Alan started editing wildlife programmes at Partridge Films and worked on many of their Wildscreen Panda award winners. He has worked for many companies, including Granada, BBC, NHK Japan and Nature Conservation Films for whom he edited two wildlife feature films. He has also written and directed many documentaries and is a recent Wildscreen Panda award-winner.

Piers Warren - Principal of Wildeye - Piers is well known throughout the wildlife film-making industry as the editor of Wildlife Film News and producer of wildlife-film.com, which he created in the 1990s. With a strong background in biology, education and conservation, he has had a lifelong passion for wildlife films and has a wide knowledge of natural history. He cut his teeth in the industry as a sound engineer and multi-media producer, running a studio for many years. He is one of the founders of the international organisation Filmmakers for Conservation and was Vice President for the first three years. Piers is the author of many magazine features and several books including Careers in Wildlife Film-making and Go Wild with Your Camcorder - How to Make Wildlife Films.

Booking Information

Costs: £250 per person
This includes tuition and meals. Accommodation: a limited number of shared rooms are available for £15 per night in the farm house (allocated on a first come first served basis), campers are also welcome (free) alternatively there are also B&Bs nearby. There will be excellent home-cooked food.

Dates:
16-18 Nov 2012

To be informed of future courses please add your email address in the column on the right to receive Wildeye Bulletins.

Booking: If the home page shows that there are places available for the course of your choice - please complete the online application form and send in your deposit/fee as detailed.

Recommended reading:
Wild Pages: The Wildlife Film-makers' Resouce Guide
Wildlife Film-making: Looking to the Future

Writing for Wildlife Documentaries - December 2011

Writing for Wildlife Documentaries - January 2011