skills/ai-film-pipeline-master/references/phase-07-image-prompt-engineering/documentary.md

# Documentary, Interview and Reportage

15 cards. These decide a frame: what is in it, how it is lit, and what it is made of.

Every card carries what it is, what it does to the audience, where it works best, what to avoid, and the prompt written out in full.

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### Building Depth Behind the Interview

**Also called:** layered interview background, background separation  
**What it is:** You pull the contributor off the wall and stack layers behind them: an open door, a window, a corridor, a column, a distant light, then use a lens that keeps those layers soft rather than sharp.  
**Effect on the audience:** Depth separates the face and lifts it forward, and the image reads cinematic instead of looking like a staff photo against a wall.  
**Used for and where it works best:** Any interview in a small room or an office, and any video podcast set. In heritage documentary, place the contributor at the edge of a gallery and let the corridor fall off softly behind, so you get depth and context in the same shot.  
**Best in:** formats: Documentary Feature, Documentary Series, Heritage / Historical Documentary, Interview / Video Podcast, Corporate / Training, News Report / Reportage, Vlog / YouTube Long-Form, Video Essay | genres: Verite / Observational, Historical / Biopic, Heritage (civilisation-focused), Science / Educational, Political Thriller, True Crime, Drama  
**Avoid when:** Do not leave a bright source in frame behind them stealing the eye, and watch for a horizontal line such as a shelf or a picture frame growing out of the head, because the eye reads it as part of the face before it reads the room.  
**Prompt:** `interview with deep layered background, subject four metres off the back wall, open doorway and distant practical light soft behind, shallow depth of field`  
**Yields to:** `doc.interview_in_darkness` — When the room offers nothing to layer.  
`doc.interview_background_depth`

### The Walking Interview

**Also called:** walking and talking interview, moving sync  
**What it is:** Interviewer and contributor walk together while the camera travels ahead of them or beside them on a gimbal or Steadicam, and the conversation happens on the move through a real place.  
**Effect on the audience:** Movement loosens people. Walking removes the stiffness of the chair, answers get shorter and more honest, and the changing place behind them gives the viewer a sense of progress.  
**Used for and where it works best:** Introducing a place through a person: the craftsman in his market, the researcher on the site, the farmer in his field. In reportage it is the shot that carries the viewer from one location to the next without an artificial transition.  
**Best in:** formats: Documentary Feature, Documentary Series, Heritage / Historical Documentary, News Report / Reportage, Travel / Real Estate / Hospitality, Vlog / YouTube Long-Form, Corporate / Training, Video Essay | genres: Verite / Observational, Historical / Biopic, Heritage (civilisation-focused), Nature / Wildlife, Science / Educational, Slice of Life, Political Thriller, Adventure  
**Avoid when:** Guard against wind and footsteps; without the right radio mic you lose half the words. And do not walk through an empty space that adds nothing, movement with no place is just effort.  
**Prompt:** `walking interview, gimbal moving backwards ahead of two people talking as they walk through a market street, steady, eye level`  
**Yields to:** `doc.environmental_portrait` — When the walk crosses a space that adds nothing.  
`doc.walking_interview`

### The Visible Jump Cut in an Interview

**Also called:** honest jump cut, exposed edit  
**What it is:** You cut inside an answer at the same size and angle and let the jump show, instead of hiding it under a cutaway. It differs from the Talking Head Jump Cut in the cuts chapter, which strips hesitation and filler to raise density: here the exposed jump is an ethical position stating that the answer was condensed.  
**Effect on the audience:** It tells the viewer this answer was condensed, which reads as honesty rather than concealment. At the same time it lifts the pace and strips the padding.  
**Used for and where it works best:** Reflexive documentary, long-form YouTube and the video essay. Good when you need three lines from one long answer without lying to the viewer with a cutaway that came from another moment.  
**Best in:** formats: Video Essay, Vlog / YouTube Long-Form, Documentary Feature, Documentary Series, News Report / Reportage, Interview / Video Podcast, Vertical Short-Form (Reels, Shorts, TikTok) | genres: Verite / Observational, Political Thriller, Science / Educational, Comedy, Psychological / Arthouse, True Crime, Slice of Life  
**Avoid when:** Do not use it in a classical documentary built on flow, it breaks the dignity of the form. And do not stack so many that the answer loses its sense.  
**Prompt:** `visible jump cut inside the interview answer, identical framing before and after, no cutaway, straight cut on the breath`  
**Yields to:** `doc.two_camera_interview` — In a classical documentary built on flow.  
`doc.interview_jump_cut`

### The Recorded Phone Call Visual

**Also called:** phone call sequence, audio-only call staging  
**What it is:** You hold call audio with no picture, so you build a picture for it: a phone on a table with the screen lighting up, a moving waveform, the caller's building from outside, or the transcript appearing line by line.  
**Effect on the audience:** It turns raw audio into a scene. The viewer concentrates on the tone and the wording while a simple picture keeps boredom away without competing with the ear.  
**Used for and where it works best:** Investigative reporting and true crime: the emergency call, a recorded admission, a refusal from an official body. Strong when the recording is the evidence and must be heard whole with no visual noise.  
**Best in:** formats: Documentary Feature, Documentary Series, News Report / Reportage, Video Essay, Vertical Short-Form (Reels, Shorts, TikTok), Vlog / YouTube Long-Form | genres: True Crime, Political Thriller, Mystery / Whodunit, Verite / Observational, Thriller / Suspense, Psychological / Arthouse  
**Avoid when:** Do not restage the call with actors without a card that says so, it breaks trust. And do not lay a strong image over audio that is itself the subject.  
**Prompt:** `a phone lying on a wooden table with the screen glowing, shallow focus, call audio playing, transcript text appearing line by line`  
**Yields to:** `doc.dramatised_reconstruction` — If the call is restaged, mark it as reconstruction.  
`doc.phone_call_visual`

### The Reveal Walk Into a Site

**Also called:** entering the space, threshold reveal  
**What it is:** The camera walks behind a person or alone from a tight or dark space (a doorway, a corridor, a stair) out into a wide space, so the reveal happens through movement rather than a cut.  
**Effect on the audience:** The viewer experiences the arrival first hand. The contrast between confinement and space produces a genuine intake of breath and makes the place feel bigger than any aerial can.  
**Used for and where it works best:** The first entry into an important location: the temple, the hall, the cave, the museum, the stadium. It delivers scale from human height, which an aerial cannot recover afterwards, and it fits a hidden-face approach since the figure walks away from camera.  
**It is one of two ways to introduce a site, not the rule.** The other is the orbit in
`doc.site_drone_pattern`. This one needs a threshold to cross — a doorway, a corridor, a dark space
opening into a bright one. Where there is no threshold, an open ruin or a plain, the orbit is the
honest choice. Decide per site rather than by habit, and record which you chose.  
**Best in:** formats: Documentary Feature, Documentary Series, Heritage / Historical Documentary, Travel / Real Estate / Hospitality, Trailer / Teaser, Video Essay, Docudrama / Reenactment, News Report / Reportage | genres: Heritage (civilisation-focused), Historical / Biopic, Mythology / Ancient Epic, Adventure, Nature / Wildlife, Verite / Observational, Faith / Biblical Epic, Fantasy / Epic  
**Avoid when:** Do not enter fast, the reveal needs time for the eye to adjust to the light. And do not use it on an ordinary room; a reveal with nothing behind it is a let-down.  
**Prompt:** `gimbal walking from a dark doorway out into a vast sunlit hall behind a figure seen from the back, slow steady pace, exposure settling on the wide`  
**Yields to:** `doc.site_drone_pattern` — Where there is no threshold, the orbit carries it.  
`doc.reveal_walk_into_site`

### The Observational Mode

**Also called:** Nichols observational mode  
**What it is:** A whole-film structure that relies on watching, with no narration and no address to camera. Meaning is built by the order of scenes rather than by words explaining them. One of the documentary modes classified by scholar Bill Nichols.  
**Effect on the audience:** It gives the sense of a window onto reality. The viewer believes because no voice is trying to persuade them, and time feels real because narration is not compressing it.  
**Used for and where it works best:** Choose it when the subject is alive and unfolding now and you can stay with it for a long stretch. It cannot carry a subject that ended centuries ago, except as a section, such as the dig or the workshop scenes inside a heritage film.  
**Best in:** formats: Documentary Feature, Documentary Series, Vlog / YouTube Long-Form, Video Essay, Heritage / Historical Documentary, Travel / Real Estate / Hospitality | genres: Verite / Observational, Slice of Life, Family, Nature / Wildlife, Political Thriller, Science / Educational, Psychological / Arthouse, War  
**Avoid when:** Do not drop expository narration into the middle of it, that breaks the contract. And if the subject needs dates and numbers, this mode will strangle it.  
**Prompt:** `build the sequence from observed scenes with no narration, meaning carried by order and juxtaposition, natural sound throughout`  
**Yields to:** `doc.expository_mode` — When the subject needs dates and numbers.  
`doc.observational_mode`

### The Poetic Mode

**Also called:** lyrical documentary, associative documentary  
**What it is:** A film built from mood, rhythm and association rather than argument or plot: images linked by feeling, a carefully worked soundtrack, and little or no narration.  
**Effect on the audience:** It works on the viewer like music. It does not hand over facts to remember, it hands over a state to stay in, and nothing carries the feeling of a place or an era better.  
**Used for and where it works best:** Openings of heritage documentaries, a whole chapter about a place with no witnesses, and the experimental film. In heritage work: a run of river, dust, carving, light and wind that makes a civilisation feel present without explaining anything.  
**Best in:** formats: Documentary Feature, Heritage / Historical Documentary, Video Essay, Experimental / Art Film, Title Sequence / Opening Credits, Music Video, Travel / Real Estate / Hospitality, Trailer / Teaser | genres: Heritage (civilisation-focused), Historical / Biopic, Mythology / Ancient Epic, Nature / Wildlife, Psychological / Arthouse, Tragedy, Faith / Biblical Epic, Surreal / Absurdist  
**Avoid when:** Do not build a whole film this way if you have essential information to deliver; the audience leaves with a feeling and no understanding. And do not leave it shapeless, the poetic mode still needs a build.  
**Prompt:** `associative sequence of textures, water, dust, carved stone and moving light, no narration, designed ambient sound, slow rhythm`  
**Yields to:** `doc.expository_mode` — When essential information must be delivered.  
`doc.poetic_mode`

### The Timeline Graphic

**Also called:** chronology bar, animated timeline  
**What it is:** A horizontal or vertical line carrying years and events, moving or stopping on a marker for each event the narration names.  
**Effect on the audience:** It organises chronological chaos in the viewer's head. Seeing the distance between two dates conveys the real length of time better than hearing two abstract numbers.  
**Used for and where it works best:** Historical, heritage and long investigative documentary. In heritage work it solves the problem of centuries: a line showing how far the Sumerians sit from the Assyrians, and how much closer the Assyrians are to us. Bring it back each time you move to a new era.  
**Best in:** formats: Documentary Feature, Documentary Series, Heritage / Historical Documentary, Explainer, News Report / Reportage, Video Essay, Corporate / Training, Kids Content | genres: Historical / Biopic, Heritage (civilisation-focused), Science / Educational, War, Political Thriller, Mythology / Ancient Epic, True Crime  
**Avoid when:** Do not load it with too many events in one shot, three markers is the ceiling. And be exact with the dates, and state BC and AD clearly.  
**Prompt:** `clean animated timeline bar, the marker sliding to one date and stopping, year label appearing, minimal design, dark background`  
`doc.timeline_graphic`

### Faceless Reenactment

**Also called:** hidden-face reenactment, silhouette and hands staging  
**What it is:** Restaging the event without showing any performer's face: silhouettes, backs, hands, feet, moving cloth, a shadow on a wall, with costume and prop detail carrying the story.  
**Effect on the audience:** It keeps the scene symbolic rather than a claim. The viewer cannot say this is what the person looked like, so the film stays honest, and the scene gains power because imagination completes it.  
**Used for and where it works best:** The golden rule of heritage documentary about civilisations whose people left no portraits: king, priest, scribe, soldier. Shoot hands on a clay tablet, a silhouette in the temple doorway, a shadow crossing the wall. Every historical element comes from a verified reference image first.  
**Best in:** formats: Heritage / Historical Documentary, Documentary Feature, Documentary Series, Docudrama / Reenactment, Trailer / Teaser, Video Essay, AI-Generated Clip, Music Video | genres: Heritage (civilisation-focused), Historical / Biopic, Mythology / Ancient Epic, Faith / Biblical Epic, War, Tragedy, True Crime, Verite / Observational  
**Avoid when:** Watch for any modern detail entering frame: a thread, a shoe, a fingernail, a watch. And do not let a stray side light find features inside the silhouette, or the whole rule collapses. The rule hides a face nobody can know; it does not conceal a living performer or contributor who must not be identified, because the outline, the build, the gait and the dress still carry them — that brief is handed over per `doc.anonymous_interview`.  
**Prompt:** `faceless reenactment, hands in period dress pressing a stylus into wet clay, silhouette of a figure in a temple doorway behind, low warm lamp light`  
**Yields to:** `doc.dramatised_reconstruction` — When the event is documented and faces may be seen.  
`doc.faceless_reenactment`

### The Dramatised Reconstruction

**Also called:** docudrama scene, dramatic reenactment  
**What it is:** A scene played by actors in costume and set that reconstructs a documented event, shot in the language of drama rather than documentary, usually marked visually by light, slow motion or a colour shift.  
**Effect on the audience:** It delivers an event that has no footage, giving the viewer a scene to live through instead of narration to hear. The visual marking protects it from being mistaken for record.  
**Used for and where it works best:** True crime, historical and heritage films where one moment is pivotal: the night of the fall, the meeting, the journey. Keep it short and anchored to testimony or a source, and mark it with a consistent style so the viewer learns to read it.  
**Best in:** formats: Docudrama / Reenactment, Documentary Feature, Documentary Series, Heritage / Historical Documentary, News Report / Reportage, Trailer / Teaser, AI-Generated Clip | genres: True Crime, Historical / Biopic, Heritage (civilisation-focused), War, Mythology / Ancient Epic, Tragedy, Crime / Procedural, Faith / Biblical Epic  
**Avoid when:** Do not reconstruct anything you have no evidence for, that is invention and not documentary. And do not let it look identical to real material; the viewer must be able to tell record from performance.  
**Prompt:** `dramatised reconstruction, actors in period costume in firelight, slightly slowed motion and a distinct colour treatment marking it as a reconstruction`  
**Yields to:** `doc.faceless_reenactment` — When no portrait exists and a face would be a claim.  
`doc.dramatised_reconstruction`

### Multi-Camera Switching on the Beat

**Also called:** cutting to the beat, live switch on tempo  
**What it is:** The live switch or the later edit cuts between cameras on the musical beat: every cut lands on a beat, and the cutting speeds up as the song does.  
**Effect on the audience:** It makes the picture feel like part of the music rather than coverage of it. The viewer feels the rhythm with their eyes, so the excitement rises without the volume rising.  
**Used for and where it works best:** Concert broadcast, the concert film and any performance sequence. The rule: long cuts in the verse, faster in the chorus, and the longest shot saved for the most important line in the song.  
**Best in:** formats: Concert / Live Event, Music Video, Dance Film, Documentary Feature, Vertical Short-Form (Reels, Shorts, TikTok), Trailer / Teaser, Wedding / Event Film, Kids Content | genres: Musical, Drama, Verite / Observational, Comedy, Family, Romance  
**Avoid when:** Do not cut faster than the eye can follow during quiet sections, it breaks the mood. And do not hit every single beat for a whole song, perfect regularity turns mechanical.  
**Prompt:** `cut between the wide, the stage close and the crowd exactly on the downbeats, holding longer on the key lyric line`  
**Yields to:** `doc.podcast_multicam` — In talk, switch on meaning, not on a metronome.  
`doc.multicam_switch_on_beat`

### The POV Walk

**Also called:** first-person walk, GoPro walk, wearable POV  
**What it is:** The camera is carried in the hand or mounted on the chest or head while walking, so the picture is what the person themselves sees, with the natural motion of the walk.  
**Effect on the audience:** It puts the viewer inside the experience with nothing in between. The body movement creates a genuine sense of being in the place, far stronger than a tripod-steady shot.  
**Used for and where it works best:** Travel vlogs, entering a new place, crowds, markets, the first walk into a site. Keep it short and purposeful: from the door to the courtyard, from the car to the entrance. Run it with full natural sound and no music.  
**Best in:** formats: Vlog / YouTube Long-Form, Vertical Short-Form (Reels, Shorts, TikTok), Travel / Real Estate / Hospitality, Documentary Feature, Video Essay, News Report / Reportage, Game Cinematic / Gameplay, 360 / VR | genres: Verite / Observational, Adventure, Slice of Life, Comedy, Survival, Nature / Wildlife, Heritage (civilisation-focused)  
**Avoid when:** Do not stretch it, continuous walking with no destination is tiring and can cause nausea. And watch the mounting height, too low and the whole clip is ground.  
**Prompt:** `first-person walking point of view entering a crowded market, natural body motion, wide lens, full ambient sound, no music`  
**Yields to:** `doc.selfie_walk` — When your reaction, not the view, is the point.  
`doc.pov_walk`

### The Side-by-Side Comparison

**Also called:** A B comparison, two-up compare, versus frame, competitor comparison  
**What it is:** You present two sources at once, side by side or stacked: two versions of a scene, a claim and its evidence, a before and an after, both running in sync.  
**Effect on the audience:** It lets the difference prove itself with no commentary. The viewer compares with their own eyes and is convinced more deeply than by any explanation, because the conclusion is theirs.  
**Used for and where it works best:** Exposing a contradiction between two statements, comparing an original with a copy, a before and after analysis, two competing translations. In advertising it is the old way on one side and the product on the other, ideal for products whose advantage is speed or result, cleaning, cutting, sticking, charging. Sync the shared moment exactly, keep the lighting and the angle identical on both sides, and in vertical stack them rather than splitting left and right.  
**Best in:** formats: Video Essay, Explainer, News Report / Reportage, Documentary Feature, Vertical Short-Form (Reels, Shorts, TikTok), Sports Broadcast / Sports Film, Vlog / YouTube Long-Form, Corporate / Training, Commercial / TVC, Product Video / Motion Design | genres: Political Thriller, Science / Educational, True Crime, Mystery / Whodunit, Comedy, Sports Drama, Psychological / Arthouse, Family, Slice of Life  
**Avoid when:** Do not compare two sources of wildly different size or quality, the comparison looks rigged, and do not hold it past five seconds. An unfair comparison is spotted fast and damages the brand, so name a competitor only with documented proof behind every claim.  
**Prompt:** `two clips playing side by side in sync, matched size and colour, a thin divider between them, both labelled at the top`  
**Yields to:** `doc.split_screen_archive` — When the two sources are archive and present.  
`doc.side_by_side_comparison`

### The Kinetic Quote

**Also called:** animated quote, typed quote on screen  
**What it is:** The quotation is typed or revealed word by word in time with the spoken reading, with the speaker's name and the date underneath.  
**Effect on the audience:** It makes the words read and heard at once so they lodge in memory. The staged reveal also forces the viewer to read at your pace instead of their own.  
**Used for and where it works best:** The video essay and historical or heritage documentary: a royal inscription, a line of epic, a sentence from an official document. In heritage work it is how a translated ancient text feels alive, especially laid over the original carving.  
**Best in:** formats: Video Essay, Documentary Feature, Documentary Series, Heritage / Historical Documentary, Explainer, Vertical Short-Form (Reels, Shorts, TikTok), Title Sequence / Opening Credits, Music Video | genres: Historical / Biopic, Heritage (civilisation-focused), Mythology / Ancient Epic, Political Thriller, Faith / Biblical Epic, Science / Educational, Tragedy  
**Avoid when:** Do not run a long quotation, more than two lines will not be read. And be exact with the translation and the source, a wrong quotation in a historical film is fatal.  
**Prompt:** `quotation appearing word by word in clean type over a dark image of the original inscription, attribution and date below, paced to the read` Text treatment: the quotation is typeset in the edit (`textimg.text_safe_zone`); the original inscription behind it is described as carved geometry, not as text (`textimg.carved_not_text`).  
**Yields to:** `doc.text_on_archive` — When the original document, not the type, should carry it.  
`doc.kinetic_quote`

### The On-Screen Bullet Build

**Also called:** point build, list animation, progressive reveal  
**What it is:** Points appear one at a time as they are spoken, with the current one bright and the rest dimmed or not yet revealed.  
**Effect on the audience:** It stops the viewer reading ahead so they stay with you. The visible list also gives a sense of order and promises a finite number of ideas.  
**Used for and where it works best:** Explainers, training, corporate video and the video essay. A ceiling of three points on screen, each in three words. Say the number aloud first, three reasons, so the viewer knows the distance.  
**Best in:** formats: Explainer, Corporate / Training, Video Essay, Vlog / YouTube Long-Form, Vertical Short-Form (Reels, Shorts, TikTok), Kids Content, News Report / Reportage, Documentary Feature | genres: Science / Educational, Political Thriller, Comedy, Psychological / Arthouse, Verite / Observational, Historical / Biopic  
**Avoid when:** Do not reveal all the points at once, the viewer reads them and leaves. And do not write full sentences, a list is not a lecture script.  
**Prompt:** `three short points animating in one at a time as they are spoken, the active one bright and the others dimmed, clean sans type`  
**Yields to:** `doc.text_overlay_thesis` — When there is one claim to declare, not a list.  
`doc.bullet_build`