The majority of commercial short docos that I’ve created have been for businesses seeking to share their story, and they generally range from 5 to 15 minutes in length.
I typically work independently for videography and post-production/editing and I’m a multiple hats director, cinematographer, gaffer and sound operator on set when budgets are low. Budget permitting, I will rent additional gear where required and bring in collaborators to fulfil various roles to increase production value.
For the most part, the process includes understanding the story and context, then capturing sit-down interviews with key characters and filming overlaying footage of the relevant action, locations, events or services. From there, the next craft begins; bringing the story together in the edit and balancing humour with substance, information with context and all that with the right music, colour and pacing to create a tone and feeling.
For short docos, I’m happy to negotiate on price and fit into a budget (within reason) as they generally take between 7 - 25 days to complete, depending on content requirements and run time.