While I am in the process of collecting media and interviewing people about Hurricane Irene, I am also studying how people typically put film shorts together.  On delicious.com, I found these Guidelines for producing a short documentary, which should be helpful, as I would like my film to resemble a documentary.  Here are the parts that will be helpful to me:

•  Have a clear focus.
• Watch other documentaries first to learn from their style.
• If a shoot doesn’t look great, make up an excuse to reshoot that doesn’t upset the interviewee.
• Make the shots longer as opposed to shorter.
• Identify bad bits.

I think that I need to clarify my focus before I begin assembling everything.  I should probably write it on my hand whenever filming to make sure that I am not getting pulled in the wrong direction.  I really want to focus on the people affected by Hurricane Irene and their emotions.

Here is an example of the style I plan to follow:

I need to plan extra time for reshooting.  I know a friend who had to wait a year to reshoot something because the seasons changed between the time he shot the film and the time he realized that some scenes needed reshooting.  This makes me think that I should shoot as many scenes indoors as possible.

I like the idea of getting long shots over shorter ones.  What if I decide to add some music and headlines later on?  Having longer bits that I can cut up is a good idea.  I hope I have enough memory on my camera!

I also plan to identify bad bits at the beginning of editing as opposed to at the end.  If I don’t like something, I can reshoot early on.  I don’t want to get stuck with an important piece that’s done poorly.  If it sacrificed the quality of my film in the end, I would be devastated!