Gerry Flahive is a documentary producer at the National Film Board in Toronto. His upcoming productions include Almost Real: Connecting in a Wired World and the series The Next Big Thing.

There are some things they don’t teach in film school. And I don’t mean parallel parking.

And fair enough, since there is plenty to learn there. But once an aspiring director or producer ventures out into the world of documentary production, knowledge of archaic aspect ratios, Bulgarian film theory or the haiku of CTF funding applications, although wonderful in their own right, will only get you so far.

Documentary, said NFB founder John Grierson, is the creative interpretation of reality. Except sometimes that reality isn’t too keen on being creatively interpreted by you. And since it is reality, you never stop learning what makes it tick.

Here, then, are some of the more or less important teachings for anyone embarking on a doc production adventure.

Some years back, while filming a dramatic re-enactment in Japan for the documentary The Man Who Might Have Been with director John Kramer, we found ourselves at a huge and foreboding prison outside Tokyo. The prison guards were not too keen to have us there, and not terribly impressed at our sophisticated production techniques (okay, so we did ask the sound recordist to double as a WWII-era diplomat…). So it seemed to make sense to do things such as moving the camera for various setups, very slowly and deliberately. Thus did I learn a cardinal rule of documentary filmmaking: When filming at a huge and foreboding Japanese prison, make no sudden moves.

You’d be surprised: this actually comes in handy at places other than huge, foreboding Japanese prisons.

Some such maxims, axioms, truisms, adages, old saws, words of wisdom, rules to live by or pieces of documentary folk wisdom are philosophical, such as Shinny director David Battistella’s ‘Enjoy yourself – why are you in the business anyway?’ Some are financially prudent, such as production manager Jeff Sterne’s ‘Avoid approaching all Radio Shack stores when traveling with a sound recordist.’ And some are entrepreneurial in a peculiarly Canadian way, such as (Aftermath producer) Ed Barreveld’s ‘Pick up the tab when lunching with commissioning editors, even if it means macaroni and cheese for the rest of the week.’

You pick these up from experience. For example, ‘Always clean up after yourselves’ comes not just from your mother, but from the experience of having the owner of a location where you want to shoot say no because the last time doc makers were there they didn’t clean up, tainting it for anyone else who followed. You quickly learn to ‘pay it forward.’

You should never assume that the subjects you are filming, or negotiating with about getting access to film, understand the documentary process. Therefore: Inform your subjects about the filmmaking process.

Telling someone that you want to follow him or her for six weeks as part of a ‘cinema verite’ film (what the hell is that?) might lead them to believe that you are going to be with them all the time. And since many folks are familiar with legions of large white film production trucks and kilometers of electrical cables clogging up their neighborhoods, why would they automatically know that a documentary crew, and all of its paraphernalia, can usually fit in a van?

You also pick up these truths from film craftspeople. Think about it: if you are a documentary producer or director, the cinematographer or sound recordist has most probably been on way more shoots than you have.

Which leads to another maxim: Involve the key creative people in the production planning process as early as possible. They are not ‘the help,’ and if you treat them that way, chances are they will count every minute of every coffee break. Why wouldn’t you want to benefit from the ideas and craft knowledge of these folks, even before you start shooting? (See also documentary rule #398, Sterne’s ‘Sleep appears to make a crew work much more efficiently.’)

Quite often, we obsess about picture and neglect sound as we keep thinking, in the midst of all the busy-ness, that we are making ‘pictures.’ But imagine a lovingly composed shot of a beautiful sunset over a northern Canadian lake… with garbled, barely audible testimony from a bush pilot as voiceover. Now imagine a scratchy piece of archival footage of a WWII soldier in a field hospital, slowed down to stretch the 60 seconds you need to fill because you have a piece of perfectly recorded and moving storytelling from that now-aged warrior. Which would you choose to watch? So: Sound is very, very important.

Speaking of storytelling: Don’t forget about story. Galafilm producer Janet Torge (Crime and Punishment): ‘I remember the days when Mr. Story was the producer’s best friend. The trick was to keep him centre stage during development, coax him from the wings when we lost him during a shoot and dig him out from under piles of footage during editing. But Mr. Story’s popularity is waning and he often disappears after funding clicks in. From that point forward, Mr. Budget takes over and we film him, edit him and send him off to the broadcaster.’ (See also documentary production rule #2,809, Battistella’s ‘Use your shoot days widely – they are expensive.’

Reality bites. But sometimes it doesn’t. That’s what can make documentary work so engaging. So, as Battistella advises: Be ready to change direction.

(Finally, see also documentary rule #1,019, Sterne’s ‘If you want to spend your entire per diem all at once, just ask the DOP where he wants to eat.’)

-www.nfb.ca