Documentary

You may recognise yourself in one of these:

Documentary is storytelling where the subject is bigger than the organisation telling it.

Where a flagship narrative says this is who we are and an impact film says this is what we did, a documentary says here is something worth understanding, and we are the reason you get to see it.

It runs longer than anything else we make, usually between five and twenty-five minutes. It is built from real contributors speaking in their own words, archive material, and a narrative spine that carries an audience through time. It is educational rather than promotional, and that is precisely where its power comes from.

The organisation is the publisher, not the protagonist. That distinction is the whole format.

Because people have learned to discount films that organisations make about themselves.

A brand film is heard. A documentary is believed. The difference is not production value, it is who is speaking and what they have to gain, and audiences read that instinctively even when they could not explain it.

This matters most when what you need is credibility rather than awareness. Funders, government, sector peers, researchers, journalists and boards all apply a heavier discount to marketing than the general public does. A documentary passes through that filter because it was not built to.

It also reaches people who would never watch a film about your organisation. Someone will watch twenty minutes about the founding of the Scottish rape crisis movement, or about a researcher who changed cardiac care, who would not give ninety seconds to a charity brand film.

And it lasts. Documentaries are watched years later, cited, screened at events, and used in teaching. Most content has a shelf life measured in weeks.

Every documentary engagement delivers:

• The documentary. Between five and twenty-five minutes, finished to broadcast standard, built for a premiere and for a long life afterwards.

• A short-form version. Two to five minutes, drawn from the same material, for audiences and channels that will not sit through the full film.

• The trailer. Up to sixty seconds, sequenced for campaign use ahead of launch.

• Social cutdowns. Vertical and square, formatted for the platforms you publish on.

• Accessibility as standard. Captions and subtitled masters on every delivery.

Depending on the shape of the story, engagements often also include archive research, integration and licensing support, professional narration with casting, remote capture for international contributors, music and performance recorded as part of the film rather than as a separate job, photography captured alongside filming, and a premiere-ready delivery package for event screening.

Final deliverables are confirmed once scope, contributors and archive access are clear.

A note on how the range works:

The lower figure is the working budget. It is what the project is scoped against and what is delivered for certain. The upper figure is the approved ceiling, the level you have authorised the project to reach if scope grows or new opportunities emerge during delivery.

Nothing is drawn down above the working budget without a written Change Request from us and written approval from you. That gives you confidence the project lands on budget, and the flexibility to expand if something worth investing in appears during development.

Worth adding while we are here:

Most of the cost in any production is getting the right people, kit and access into one place. Once that is done, capturing more costs considerably less than commissioning it separately. When added to a production, these typically cost 30 to 50 per cent less than commissioning them separately.

Most documentaries run sixteen to twenty-four weeks from signed engagement to final delivery. It is the longest of our formats, and the timeline is driven by contributor availability rather than by production capacity.

Working to a premiere, an anniversary or an event date? Say so on the first call. We plan backwards from your date, and documentary needs more runway than anything else we make.

We separate thinking from making. In documentary the development phase carries more weight than in any other format, because the story is discovered rather than written.

One: Development

We turn intent into a narrative spine and a practical plan. A single named contact with authority to approve. A creative outline with the structure the film will follow, the contributor map, the archive access route, the narration approach, and the consent framework. Scope boundaries and success criteria agreed.

Two: Pre-production

We turn the plan into a confirmed schedule. Filming schedule and production plan, location planning and access confirmation, production logistics covering crew, kit and travel, risk assessment and permissions, interview or voiceover approach and contributor preparation, and the asset list, archive list and brand guidelines check.

Three: Production

Filming spread across a window rather than compressed. Interviews, observational coverage, location and archive photography, and remote capture where contributors are international. Lean crew where a larger presence would change how someone speaks.

Four: Post-production

Assembly and narrative edit, archive integration and licensing, narration record, sound design, music, colour grade, captioning, then short-form versions and trailer built once the main film is approved.

Five: Review, Approval & Delivery

A polished first draft through our online review system, consolidated feedback, a named approver, optional contributor preview where appropriate, and delivery through secure download. Three review rounds included in every tier.

A documentary that reads as marketing has failed at the only thing documentary is for.

A documentary is not journalism and we do not pretend otherwise. You are commissioning it, and it will carry a message. Ours have carried a call to action for a charity’s next fifty years, a case for why research funding matters, and a record of a career the public never saw. That intent is decided in development, with you, before anything is filmed.

What we protect is not the absence of a message. It is the way it gets delivered.

Documentary works because real people say things in their own words. When a contributor’s phrasing is replaced with the approved line, an audience feels it immediately, and the film stops doing the one thing it was commissioned to do. So the line we hold is about voice rather than about content.

Editing is selection. Most of what we capture never appears in the film. That is normal rather than a compromise. Something can be entirely true and still not earn a place, because it belongs to a different story, or it doesn’t serve the audience, or it would land badly on someone who is not there to answer. Those calls get made constantly and we make them with you.

Where it gets expensive is timing. Agreeing what the film says in development costs nothing. Changing what it says once the edit is built usually means the material to say it might not have been captured, and that is a reshoot rather than a review note.

So we push hard for the difficult conversations early, and for everyone who will have an opinion to have it before we film rather than on production or in the edit. Three review rounds are enough when the story was agreed at the start. They are never enough when it was not.

On sensitive subjects. Where contributors are survivors, patients, bereaved families, or people telling something difficult, trauma informed practice sits inside development from week one rather than being added as a polish at the end. That covers how people are approached, what informed consent means in their situation, whether they appear at all or contribute in another form, who is in the room, and whether they see the film before anyone else does. Contributors can withdraw, and if someone changes their mind after filming, we recut.

Documentary films we have made for organisations across science and innovation, education, consumer brands, tourism and hospitality, and the public sector.

For a documentary to work, a few things need to be true on your side:

• A single point of contact with authority to approve and consolidate feedback
• Introductions to contributors, with you leading first contact and the consent conversation
• Archive material made available at the start of development rather than during the edit
• A named person for accuracy review, particularly where the subject is clinical, scientific or historical
• Where the subject is sensitive, a clear view of safeguarding requirements and any survivor or participant advisory input you want involved
• Realistic review windows, and a decision early about who sits in the approval chain

On archive. It is almost always more work than it looks. Photographs without dates, documents without context, and material held by people who are the only ones who can explain it. Getting it to us in week one, rather than week twelve, is the single biggest thing you can do to protect the timeline.

On contributors. Introductions from you carry far more weight than an approach from us. People say yes to their own organisation and go quiet on a production company they have never heard of.