When it comes to filming, each reality can be approached from a different strategy. And each film can approach reality in a more or less literal way. The filmmaker’s preparation for the shooting, including planning, staging or possible interviews, may be exhaustive or flexible, calculated or leaving an almost unavoidable margin for improvisation. Thinking about the shooting from the director’s point of view is not simply an individual exercise, but always involves a continuous conversation with the team, which will turn the film into a collective exercise. In this chapter, directors such as Alejandro Alonso, Nicolas Philibert, and Lucija Stojevic share their approaches to directing. They discuss strategies for capturing action, dialogues, and unexpected moments, as well as the importance of their team. The conversation explores how filmmakers balance spontaneity with planning and staging, using a script as a creative tool. How do they rightfully portray characters through the camera, and how much agency do they give to the people appearing in their films?

The design of photography in documentary filmmaking is sometimes conditioned by the unpredictability of working with reality. Capturing the image requires proposing a practice that is coherent with the film we want to make. The work of the cinematographer and camera operator involves making a series of decisions prior to shooting, both aesthetic and technical, that are in line with this, formally enhance the film and, perhaps, discover new unforeseen paths in previous phases.

In this chapter, cinematographers Mauro Herce, Jessica Sarah Rinland, and Lara Vilanova talk about their craft in documentary filmmaking. They explore how they use light and camera to tell stories, how they collaborate with directors, and the decisions they make about equipment and technique based on various budgets. Through examples from their own films, they reveal what goes into their cinematographic choices.

A documentary film’s sound design must be suggested early on in the writing process, with some support from the script. The work is expressively enhanced by the various aesthetic possibilities of sound, such as music, sound ambience, words, or silence. However, as with the rest of the technical contributions to the cinema of reality, shooting is primarily a space for creation and discovery.

In this chapter, directors Nicolas Philibert, Emilio Fonseca, and Messaline Revardy talk about the role of sound in documentary filmmaking. They explore how they build a film’s sound universe, from choosing microphones and recording techniques to working with sound designers and collaborating during the creative process, as well as navigating the challenges of recording sound when working solo.