From investigation to documentary: storytelling for the screen

What makes certain documentaries as compelling as a Hollywood film, while others feel like hard work? How do you get a story moving quickly? Where does narrative tension come from? How do you build characters that audiences genuinely want to follow? What is "actuality," and why does it matter in documentary filmmaking? In this workshop, Daniel Adamson and Alberto Nerazzini will tackle the challenge of turning investigative stories into documentaries, focusing on the more elusive and demanding art of telling long-form stories for the screen. Daniel Adamson—one of the co-founding executive producers of BBC Eye Investigations, the award-winning BBC documentary unit renowned worldwide for blending visual storytelling with OSINT and open-source techniques—will lead the session, drawing on the methodologies and practices used by his team. The workshop will examine the "two engines" that drive documentary storytelling—character and plot—exploring why these elements matter and how they work in both reporter-led and observational films. It will also reflect on the difference between the kind of story that works for social media video and what is needed to sustain a feature-length film. What are the essential elements required to hold a story together for an hour or more? Participants will learn how to develop their ideas into proposals ready to be commissioned as documentaries. Using examples of films that succeeded and others that fell short, the session will show why, in documentary filmmaking, you need to identify your story before it happens. Special attention will be paid to the technical concept of "actuality," contrasting films that possess this magic ingredient with those that lack it. This will help attendees rethink their investigative process, aiming to plan stories through the lens of a filmmaker rather than a print journalist.