Recording reality is a "fundamental urge," writes Anthony Friedmann (2006). In the 19th century, he continues, photography was the popular medium for documenting events. With the invention of motion pictures, realistic scenes came alive onscreen. And with television and video technology, documenting reality became a staple for news and public service programs.

The term "documentary" was first used by John Grierson in his review of Robert Flaherty's Moana (1926). Grierson defined the documentary film as the "creative treatment of reality," an oxymoron of a definition that raises questions about the truthfulness of representation in such films. Flaherty also directed the first full-length documentary, Nanook of the North (1922) -- see the YouTube clip below -- and he was criticized for "staging several sequences and thereby distorting the reality of his subjects' lives."

Dziga Vertov, the "father" of cinema verite, proposed another way of defining documentary film: "life as it is," and "life caught unawares." The quotes point to two approaches in documenting actual events: one with a covert camera showing how life is really like, and the other with the obtrusive presence of the camera "provoking" or "confronting" how we perceive reality and its representations.

These definitions bring to the foreground questions about how reality can be truthfully documented. And we are not just talking here about staging some scenes. Even the idea of framing and editing footage for a news report already presupposes an editorial perspective, a way of looking or an opinion of events. As Friedmann points out: "Documentary scholars and theorists argue about the relationship between truth and reality.... It is easy to confuse actuality with reality, and actuality in behavioral documentary is not necessarily reality because of the presence of the camera or because of the cultural differences between the observer and the observed" (138).

With this antagonism underlining the genre, Friedmann thus presents his definition of the documentary as suggesting "an action of documenting a factual story in moving and still pictures. It can be a story of a person, an historical period, an historical event, an animal species, a work of art, or any other topic of investigation. The essence of the documentary form is that it attempts to tell or show the truth in its totality" (138).

The truthfulness in the telling or showing varies according to what is required among different types of documentary techniques:

Reportage, observations, and interviews are documentary techniques commonly used in television news or commentary programs. Sometimes all three are used with another technique, investigative documentary, that seeks to uncover the truth or falsity of certain controversial issues or events.

The CNN's "Kid Behind Bars" (2006) reportage "brings back" (the literal meaning for the French term) an account of children in Philippine jails. The reporter crafts a story from what he has witnessed and researched in the field. His report culls information from various sources as well as from quotes gathered through on-cam interviews (and edited into the reportage as SOTs). Of course, his report wouldn't be as effective without the camera serving as the second eye -- recording the appalling condition of juveniles imprisoned along with older inmates in Philippine jails.

The reporter relies on footage of jail cells for the veracity of his account. Since visuals alone will not tell the true picture, he also writes (in postproduction) a script that puts together the footage with information he has gathered in his background research and interviews. His two-part reportage is his attempt to tell the real story of the Philippine juvenile justice system, and what is being done by the government and civic organizations to solve the problem.

There is also the narrative documentary, often used in filmed biographies but also in other nonfiction narratives. The video above is a clip from Ramona Diaz's Imelda: Power, Myth, Illusion (2003), and combines the interview technique with archival and other footage. Some narrative documentaries also use dramatizations of real events, especially when there are no available archival footage.

While the narrative documentary tells a story about a person or place, the expository documentary technique explains something -- an idea or theory, a process, an event, etc. -- in a nondramatic fashion. We often associate expository documentaries with those science films we were forced to watch during our elementary grades. Sometimes, an expository documentary can also be one kind of propaganda documentary -- that is, a nonfiction film that advocates a certain idea or belief. The short video Under the Chitenje (2010) above uses the interview and observation techniques in explaining the Women of Malawi project.

Other types of documentary techniques include:

• Expedition documentary -- a record of a journey or quest
• Travel documentary -- nonfiction films featuring travel destinations or exotic places
• "Making of - " or "Behind the Scenes" documentaries -- films about the making of feature films
• Wildlife documentary -- nonfiction films about animals in the wild
• Current affairs features -- usually investigative documentaries featuring events currently in the news

These techniques are often combined in one documentary. Also, some of these techniques are used as a way of classifying a documentary film or video.

So how do we use these documentary techniques in writing scripts? Or do we even write scripts for documentaries?

Unlike other visual media formats, writers are often involved in both the preproduction and postproduction phases of documentary filmmaking. Writers are called in to prepare the proposal and treatment in the preproduction stage, and are called back to write the commentary during the postproduction. And yes, sometimes they do some scriptwriting for dramatizations of real events.

Most of the writing we will do happens during and after research. We usually start off with an idea that we turn into a concept for our proposal. We do background, location, pictorial research and we do interviews to gather as much information that may go into the documentary. The research can be done by others, but most of us involve ourselves in this task to gain some insight into the subject. Our knowledge of the documentary subject will help us decide whether to follow an objective or point-of-view approach to writing the treatment, script, or commentary.

Once we get the green light for our proposal, we proceed to write the treatment. Unless we need to write a dramatized narrative of real events, the treatment is the final document that guides our production. The treatment organizes the data into some sort of structure or lays out the argument for the documentary. The treatment also identifies what visuals will go into our narrative.

Once production is completed, we are called back in to write the commentary that will go with the rough/final cut. This may be the closest we get into writing a script. Of course, we can also do this during preproduction, especially if early on we decided to have anchors to do the commentary and on-cam interviews.

Writing narrative voice-over or commentary can be a tricky business. If we're not extra careful, we can commit the biggest mistake -- bore our viewers. We do this when we write wall-to-wall commentary or when we write cliches. We usually avoid this by letting the visuals do the "talking" and with our commentary serving, according to Friedmann, the musical counterpoint. We can check out and learn how this is done by watching award-winning documentaries of all types. Here's one of my favorites:

Everything I learned about writing for TV I learned in a community television station. At least the practical side of it. A classmate and I interned then later worked for (a year or so) the local television station back home. There we learned how to cover and shoot events, interview sources, write copy for the late afternoon newscast in the local language, edit video, sequence the news program, and even direct the live broadcast of several episodes.

Everyday it seemed was an exhilarating adventure that would begin with doing the rounds of government offices, the police station and military camps (this was in the late '80s), and other events we were requested to cover. We would be back at the TV station early afternoon, just in time for a late lunch and a quick conference of what stories to include for the early evening news.

The rest of the afternoon would be spent previewing and editing video footages (including some sent from the main station in Metro Manila) that would go with the news reports. This was really practical application of what I learned in class about visual thinking. 

Then we would soon be literally pounding on the sturdy typewriters the stories our news readers (we had two to write for) would deliver on air. Everyday we would always be rushing to beat the clock as air time neared. And to think that was only for a 30 minute news program -- actually less if you counted the "intro," "outro," "tosses," and the breaks for commercials.

It helped that we previously interned in a local newspaper and got used to writing news articles. We knew more or less what stories to explore, how to look for an angle that would grab our readers' interest, how to structure the information we got from our sources, etc.

But we soon realized that writing copy for TV news broadcast differed from what we wrote for print media. For one, we knew our copy should always come with some visuals -- and we don't mean just the "talking heads" reading the news.

At first I thought the visuals would do it. But my editor told me that visuals are only as good as the copy we write. And that's how I got into the habit of analyzing news stories broadcast on major TV networks and began to emulate how professionals would write their reports. My editor thought I was getting the hang of it, saying that my copy was beginning to "sound good" like the best of them.

For that's how copy should be composed -- it should sound good to the ear. Like writing for radio, copy always is directed at the listener's ear. For TV viewers usually treat television as background noise. They only turn their gaze at the screen once they hear something interesting. And so I learned that the first sentence should grab the viewer's attention, should literally "hook" them, so they'd watch and listen to the visuals and copy you've written.

It helped that our news program used the local language. Our audience, used to AM radio, wanted their news reported to them in a familiar language. While we would show footage of national news that was a day old (sent through courier), the feedback we got was that our viewers "understood" events better because our copy was written in their first language.

As W. Richard Whitaker and his co-authors say, in their MediaWriting: Print, Broadcast and Public Relations (2nd ed.; New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004), copy for news broadcasts should be written in a simple, direct, and more conversational style. They suggest writers (in English) follow the "Rule of 20" syllables per sentence, with about 15 words or less per sentence, with variations in sentence length throughout, and with one thought or idea per sentence. They also caution writers from using too many s, th, and ing sounds as these would create some hiss or other annoying sounds over the air. It also makes reading the copy difficult for your news readers. Try reading aloud what you've written and listen to how your words and sentences flow, then rewrite the part that made you stumble over your words or where your tongue got twisted.

Yes, even for stories like the one below from GMA's 24 Oras:

More of a news feature than a report, the two-minute story packs quite a lot of information -- the so-called jejemon, their texting style, fashion, and their converts. It does with graphics, VOs (voice-overs), SOTs (sound on tape) and sound bites the more complicated info. But the copy sounds conversational enough. Of course, the polysyllabic words of Tagalog doesn't allow the reporter to follow the Rule of 20. But then, he makes up for it by structuring his copy into easily comprehensible parts.

But what if we have to tell our news story in a limited amount of time (like 30 seconds)? What to do? Whitaker et al. suggests we condense our data by deciding what's important about the story. Here's a link from NewsLab to help us find our focus. Once we know what news peg and angle to hang our story from, we sort out the info we can use and toss out the rest. Then we write our story, using lesser words than we would if writing for print. We also tighten our sentences, and make it more interesting by using the active voice and with vivid descriptive verbs.

We don't forget to have a short but attention-grabbing lead that will hook our viewers, of course. Whitaker et al. classifies three basic broadcast leads:

• Single-act lead – what happened, who did what, etc.
• Umbrella and comprehensive lead – related stories or several items in one story
• Chronological narrative lead – events over time

Whatever we choose to tell our story, we begin with a soft or delayed lead (also called warm-up or tune-in) but we make it work like how the headline works for a story in print.

We also need to decide how to package our story. And as NewsLab suggests, remember that stories don't come with a prefab format. We can always choose the format we think will tell the story best. News reports come in basically four formats:

• Reader copy with onscreen graphic insert behind anchor
• Voice-overs (V-O)
• SOT (sound on tape) and sound bites
• Standuppers, usually with B-rolls (and with lead-in)

But that should not stop us from innovating, or doing some mix-and-match. We just make sure we have the footage or the graphics to go with it.

Let's read Chapters 10 and 11 of MediaWriting: Print, Broadcast, and Public Relations for more tips on how to write copy for news broadcasts. Especially since our assignment this time will require a bit of production. We'll cover and shoot a news event in school, then sequence shots and write news copy for the story (using the dual-column format), and put together the news stories into a news program. Are we ready?

Here are two of the students' works (one in English and the other in Bisaya; still trying to upload another written in Tagalog):