The Storytelling behind Netflix's hits F1:Drive to Survive and Meerkats with Sir David Attenborough - a Masterclass

What happens when your documentary feels flat and unengaging, despite all your hard work? This was the main question behind a Masterclass I gave at  the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers.

We look at  why a lack of storytelling craft and mentorship in the industry often leads to issues with storytelling, and debunk the myth that extensive planning compromises authenticity. Also I  contrasts the techniques used in drama and documentary, highlighting the crucial need for structural organization to create compelling narratives.

As case studies I look at  both the Natural History documentary about Meerkats, with commentary read by Sir David Attenborough, and the storytelling techniques behind the hugely popular Netflix series "F1: Drive to Survive." 

I explain how the Netflix  series we used commentators and scripted lines to clarify the intricate dynamics of Formula One racing, weaving multiple narrative layers to offer a richer and more engaging story. I also look at  methods for balancing external and internal conflicts in documentaries, using examples from both racing and science documentaries. 

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Incidental music composed by Birger Clausen

Chapters

• 0:00 Documentary storytelling faces challenges due to lack of craft and structure, and the difference between drama and documentary.
• 0:00 Collaborate with DocFix for case studies, support the podcast, and contact Nigel at thedocfix.com for more information.
• 13:52 Separating narratives and understanding context can enhance storytelling in documentary filmmaking without being constrained by chronology.
• 26:44 Behind-the-scenes look at storytelling techniques in "F1: Drive to Survive," including use of commentators and multiple narrative layers.
• 33:10 Craft compelling documentaries by balancing conflicts, structuring narratives, and using "The Doc Fix" program.

Transcript

How to Fix Your Doc, with Nigel Levy 
 

[00:00:00] Nigel: Hi, Nigel levy here. And this is the doc fixed documentary storytelling podcast. This episode is from an interview with me. That was part of the world, Congress of Science and Factual Producers called How to fix your Doc. As it was for a professional audience has some pretty solid information in it. And not too much about me.  

[00:00:18] Nigel: The interviewer Cray [00:00:20] Colby. And I went through in quite a bit of detail, my approach to documentary storytelling. Why it's become such an issue in the industry. Some common mistakes people make and examples of my approach in Formula One drive to survive. And in a documentary presented by Sir David Attenborough. 

[00:00:35] Nigel: I hope you enjoy it. And please do subscribe.  

[00:00:38] Nigel: If he wants to know when the next episode is [00:00:40] coming. And if you'd like to work with me yourself, or find out more about me, or indeed get your hands on. Some more useful information. Go to apply dot the doc. fix.com. That's apply doc, the doc fix.com. And, of course, there are more details in the show notes. Now, here’s my conversation called How to Fix your doc.  

[00:00:59] Craig Colby: [00:01:00] so, you're in an edit suite, and you just can't get your show to work. 

[00:01:04] Craig Colby: You've moved around sections, you've tried a few editing tricks, but the show is still flat. And we've all been there. That's often when Nigel Levy gets the call. He's worked on the stage, on Hollywood movies, he directed Sharon Stone, and in documentary, and he is an expert on [00:01:20] storytelling. Nigel, how do we end up at that point in the edit suite? 

[00:01:25] Nigel: Uh, well, it's incredibly common. I think it's happened to everyone. It's certainly happened to me. And, um, part of the thing is normal in that it's really tough to tell a story. Um, you've got a complex, um, amount of material, huge amount of material, lots of different meaning in it. Lots [00:01:40] of reasons you filmed it, that it meant something to you. 

[00:01:42] Nigel: And you're relying on your talent and gifts and everything that you have to try and make it work but for the reasons why it doesn't work in an absolute sense, I think there's um, People don't have the craft element of storytelling much anymore And there is [00:02:00] a real skill to it too. And part of that is probably there's less mentorship Uh, certainly it's the case I think in the freelance world You work on something, you make it work and then you move on. 

[00:02:11] Nigel: So there isn't the constant feedback. You're not learning from people who've been through, uh, the problem so many times before, and you learn all the tips and tricks and things. [00:02:20] Uh, another more subtle reason is probably, I think this is the case from certainly the people I've worked with, some people think it's inauthentic in a way to plan too much. 

[00:02:32] Nigel: So they like, uh, the spontaneity of going out. If you're making a certain type of documentary, you want to go out and cover it and discover the truth of it and [00:02:40] experience it and, and it will reveal itself to you as you shoot it, you shoot a lot of material. And, uh, you bring it back and then you try and find the film. 

[00:02:50] Nigel: And, uh, yeah, they might do it because they're feeling it's more honest that way. What you often end up doing is just putting in a timeline and the poor editor, and I know a lot [00:03:00] of editors who've been through this, they just, it's their job to kind of solve it with you. And you have the struggle. You end up with things like a list. 

[00:03:07] Nigel: If it's not working, you Cut it faster, use music a different way, um, you know, you try to manufacture dramatic moments. It's kind of superficial, and people know it's [00:03:20] superficial, but they can't get to the bottom of the problem. They can't see, is there a way of really understanding what's going on and fixing it at a kind of fundamental level. 

[00:03:30] Craig Colby: Yeah, when I, uh, took scuba diving, there's a phrase in there that I borrowed, which is plan the dive and dive the plant. You can never really plan enough beforehand. So it sounds like even with [00:03:40] the best producers and directors, um, if you haven't planned it out enough to really understand what your story is, it's going to, it's going to catch up to you at some point, usually when you're under the hood, uh, trying to get this engine running. 

[00:03:53] Craig Colby: So, uh, yeah. With that in mind, you know, what can people do about this?  

[00:03:57] Nigel: Well, traditionally, I mean, people are interested [00:04:00] in story. There's certainly a lot of people out there who want to know more. And I was the same. And you go to drama, really? You think, oh, the truth is there in drama. That's where we can find the answers. 

[00:04:10] Nigel: And that's why I worked in drama to kind of see if the truth was there. My background is as a, as a factual filmmaker, but I, you know, I worked in the theater. Directed, uh, you know, uh, [00:04:20] feature films and, um, what I found after all the seminars and courses I went on with people is there is a fundamental difference between drama and documentary and in drama. 

[00:04:31] Nigel: The difference I found is that the people are writing or creating drama often have an idea. Something that really means something to them and they're trying to create [00:04:40] Um reality out of that they're trying to create scenes that are real scenes that represent this idea Ultimately, that's they're judging everything on the meaning and on the value and does it does it show? 

[00:04:51] Nigel: Does is it a meaningful way of representing what my concept is what I want this film to do in documentary? You can get fooled by Uh the [00:05:00] reality So you think, Oh, that's, that's exciting to me. That's subject matter matters to me. And you don't do the actual work of making sure the structure. Of your film delivers the meaning you want you assume it's going to be delivered So there's a fundamental difference, you know drama, uh drama [00:05:20] takes an idea and creates scenes from it and documentary you've got reality and then you have to have the skills to make it meaningful and failure 90 percent of the failure of films or documentaries when they're not working is that kind of organization. 

[00:05:35] Nigel: It's structural It's you haven't taken that material and created [00:05:40] something meaningful out of it. You haven't done that work and that's, uh, that's a craft as it were. That's a skill. There are techniques.  

[00:05:47] Craig Colby: And, you know, you talked about dramatic structure. A lot of us have been trained in the direct dramatic three act narrative. 

[00:05:54] Craig Colby: How applicable is that?  

[00:05:58] Nigel: Uh, I [00:06:00] don't, I don't actually think I think it's four acts. Well, I, that's what I teach is four acts. I'm absolutely certain it's four acts and there's a lot of stuff going on.  

[00:06:06] Craig Colby: Yeah. I took English lit. There were three act, four act, five act. And I've seen the article recently that was really pushing for four act, but still, even with the act structure, how much does that apply to, to. 

[00:06:16] Nigel: Well, a huge amount. If you look at it a different way, I think, I think the difference is [00:06:20] when you're when you're dealing with a documentary, you have to look at it in a different way than you would if you were producing a piece of drawing. That's the key thing. So, um, uh, like I said, part of the problems occur when people assume that it's put on the timeline. 

[00:06:35] Nigel: This is roughly the chronology of, of the event that I'm [00:06:40] talking with and I will talk about, I'll use my techniques and skill to make this work and make it just sing the, there's another way of looking at a story, which is much more fundamental. And that's about the argument. It really comes down to this, the argument that you're making. 

[00:06:57] Nigel: So, uh, the best analogy I've heard is, is [00:07:00] if you can imagine people are sitting around a pub and they're talking about a problem, cause stories are a way of seeing whether a solution to a problem works or not, you know, this is the problem, how do we solve it? So the truth is, if you've got a number of people around the table in a pub and they're talking about a problem, everyone's going to have a different. 

[00:07:17] Nigel: Approach to that problem. [00:07:20] So some are going to I mean In football and i've done some sports sports documentaries So that's a kind of valid one in football if a team isn't winning some will look at the tactics The fitness the training all the physical stuff all the external stuff and other people are going to be talking about Uh, the state of mind of the players and how you [00:07:40] coach them how you manipulate them So there's a kind of a physical realm of the problem And uh and a psychological one it if you're talking about, um You know, the COVID pandemic again, you'll have this richness of opinion. 

[00:07:54] Nigel: I'll have some people were talking about how do you, how do you create a vaccine? How do you [00:08:00] physically create it and get it to where you want to go? Other people can say, no, no, the real issue is. How do you persuade people to take it? Or how do you make them think about it a particular way or how do you deal psychologically? 

[00:08:11] Nigel: So they're all valid, but you're dealing with a problem in, in, in kind of a, uh, uh, multiple contexts that can be external, physical world and [00:08:20] the way people think. And that's what we're When you use that understanding what you can do, you can apply it to a story to make sure it feels rich and complete. 

[00:08:32] Nigel: You're not leaving gaps in your storytelling. And another level of sophistication in that is that you actually end up with [00:08:40] Acts themselves because when you're looking at the psychology, there's kind of a series of steps you go through psychologically or when you're doing, um In the physical world when you're trying to act on something There's a series of steps and what an act is is taking your audience Through the [00:09:00] necessary steps to work through that argument and that's that kind of feeling of movement you get Um and inevitability and then you have to kind of design things about The inciting incident, you have to design your climax. 

[00:09:14] Nigel: You can design what you want your audience to feel. You know, what's meaningful? [00:09:20] What are the themes? What's the thematic argument? Now that's kind of a lot of stuff you're dealing with, but it feels, you know, in the end there's only about 15, 20 things you're kind of working on giving people the tools to use. 

[00:09:32] Nigel: Take all those, take a step back from your material and really be objective and really look at it and see [00:09:40] what am I trying to do with this story? And that's kind of the approach that I take that when I'm fixing and when I'm teaching people how to fix it, and it works. Like when you're developing your idea right from the beginning when you've had an idea It tells you what kind of idea you've had How you write you go [00:10:00] from a log line to one page to five pages to pitching it the pitch document How you arrange your shoot, of course the edit but even to the publicity at the end It's like what you say if you've got a poster the language that you use on the poster all those things Reflect the meaning of your documentary and it [00:10:20] works for any subject because it's such a fundamental approach. 

[00:10:24] Nigel: It's what you're talking  

[00:10:25] Craig Colby: about. I've heard you say this before. Uh, you're talking about authoring. You should really think about what you're doing is authoring something. Uh, let's take and let's get into some of the nuts and bolts of that in just a sec right now. Let's take a look at a clip of a show that you were brought in to help with.[00:10:40]  

[00:10:40] Craig Colby: And, you know, people will recognize the voice. It's a high profile, profile, profile show. Let's take a look at a little clip from meerkats.  

[00:10:50] Sir David Attenborough: The 30 strong members of the Kung Fu are made up of clinkers and Ningaloo sons and daughters. And there are more on [00:11:00] the way. Kinky is pregnant. Her next litter of pups is due in just six weeks. 

[00:11:14] Sir David Attenborough: She'll need plenty of help to raise her youngsters in the unforgiving dry season.[00:11:20]  

[00:11:33] Sir David Attenborough: But needs must. And the group will soon set out and see what they can dig out of the sand.[00:11:40]  

[00:11:52] Sir David Attenborough: At the Meerkat project base, the core team of graduate volunteers are getting ready to [00:12:00] They are at the heart of what has grown into one of the most comprehensive studies of animal behavior ever undertaken. 

[00:12:09] Sir David Attenborough: It's a highly organized operation with PhD students and visiting professors and a core team of 12 volunteer researchers.[00:12:20]  

[00:12:31] Sir David Attenborough: They're setting out into the desert to find, record and weigh members of the 18 meerkat groups, which are dispersed [00:12:40] over 39 square miles. The researchers are careful that any interaction they have with the meerkats affects their behaviour as little as possible.  

[00:12:51] Craig Colby: All right. Here's what I like about that example is it's a high profile show with clearly experienced producers and storytellers [00:13:00] and yet they still ran into problems with the story because as you said early, it happens to all of us. 

[00:13:05] Craig Colby: You know, what problems did you experience with meerkats?  

[00:13:09] Nigel: Well, that was a, that was a really interesting one because obviously they're hugely skilled in that area. Uh, and I was brought in because they'd edited, they'd been editing for a few months and had got a few minutes working, maybe 10 minutes [00:13:20] working out of an hour film and the rest of the film really wasn't going any, that's not the classic thing, you know, the, the, uh, uh, the commissioning editor's notes were saying, well, the first 10 minutes is working, then it's not working, and there'd be a list of suggestions going down, it's not happening, and it just seems like a list, and I can't see the point of it, and we end up End up somewhere, don't know why. 

[00:13:38] Nigel: So absolutely [00:13:40] classic, um, classic problem and that was a really interesting story because. On one level, it was a really complicated problem that you had to identify and what was actually going on. That story was about, uh, a classic Meercat story, a classic meercat, um, drama [00:14:00] about this bunch of Meercat and how they survive in the world. 

[00:14:02] Nigel: And the story of the scientists who did the research in the on, in the Kalahari. And how they, uh, how they learned about, uh, meerkat behavior. The problem was, and what people didn't realize, and it was very clear to me, was that there were actually two completely different stories in [00:14:20] there. Because a program, or a film, or a piece of work, In itself, it's a container for something, and in this case, there were two completely separate narratives. 

[00:14:29] Nigel: The problem was that they'd been editing it as one narrative, so they're trying to connect the two all the way through. They knew they had to connect the two, and they had to go from one to the other, [00:14:40] otherwise the reason for making the film had failed. They can't just show one film and then another. But they hadn't realized that there were two completely different kinds of story. 

[00:14:49] Nigel: So in the cut that we've just seen, What you'll see is that the meerkat story, the language in there, in the version that I created is very much about the [00:15:00] circumstances that those meerkats are in. So, you know, uh, Clinky is pregnant, there was a dry season, there's more coming on the way, there's predators. 

[00:15:09] Nigel: That's about the circumstance. That's a particular type of, you know, physical problem and what was going on with the scientists It was a completely different kind of overall story, which was about the activities what they [00:15:20] did, you know, that they're studying behavior Students are setting out to weigh and record and measure and all those things so completely different kinds of narratives now when you've clarified But you're dealing with two stories and then you can work out, okay, in the meerkat one, these are our four acts. 

[00:15:39] Nigel: This is what the [00:15:40] climax is, this is how we set it up. In the scientist thing, this is their narrative. Suddenly, well not suddenly, but it's quite fast, everything slots into place and all the material they've shot, all this beautiful material, can be made to make absolute sense. And even The great thing about having this kind [00:16:00] of understanding of the fundamentals is it affects Everything you do as a director So if you'll remember in that sequence you had the meerkats We're getting up in the morning and you had all this very atmospheric music tonally the choice of music We changed to kind of give a sense of the situation in the circumstance and then it transitioned over that lovely alarm clock [00:16:20] And the mayor kept popping up so you can get a transition working into something that was very different. 

[00:16:23] Nigel: The music was faster. It was more about activities. It was cut differently. Tonally, it was differently done differently. And it's done that to support those two different arguments. And then you just work through it. You work through the two, the two narratives. You make sure that you're going through each act [00:16:40] and the editor who'd before then been struggling and trying to connect. 

[00:16:44] Nigel: One story or one element of the same story to the next element of the same story, you know, building this kind of jigsaw railway line thing was free just to kind of make those two story work at stories work and it became what's strange and what always [00:17:00] happens is when you get it right, you start finding connections that just work that that transition that edit wasn't in the original cut. 

[00:17:08] Nigel: I imagined it was and I went back and checked and it wasn't. But. It works beautifully and suddenly you find connections between the material because the story works. Everything is like, every moment is like [00:17:20] anchored into something meaningful at the bottom. Every choice you make has a subtext to it. And it's a hugely satisfying feeling when it all works. 

[00:17:31] Craig Colby: And not only do you have two stories, but you, you know, suddenly you have two chronologies you have to manage in that too. What role does chronology play in the story? Our [00:17:40] documentary storytelling.  

[00:17:41] Nigel: I think chronology should be the last thing you worry about. I think people get fooled by chronology because chronology is inherently meaningless chronology. 

[00:17:51] Nigel: Um, it seems like when you're doing a chronology, you are, you are following a sequence of events as it happened. That's [00:18:00] all that chronology does on the surface, but there's no meaning to that. That's the problem when you lay out your edit. In the edit suite and you look at the timeline, you put it all on the timeline thinking that's just a list. 

[00:18:14] Nigel: I know it all happened in that order. How can we make it work dynamically? If you can step back from chronology [00:18:20] and say, what's the meaning of this? We're trying to do. You have this huge freedom of moving whole sequence and sections to a different part and it just, it just frees you up completely, not to get tied to chronology. 

[00:18:35] Nigel: Ultimately, there is a chronology, but [00:18:40] don't think that the order that things happened or you imagine things happened. Tells you the story is is meaningful in itself. I hope that makes sense It's a little bit complicated. But  

[00:18:50] Craig Colby: well, what do you mean by the order things happened and the order you imagined things happen? 

[00:18:54] Nigel: Well when you have a chronology you think things happened chronologically, but they don't you know, [00:19:00] people are making decisions over Before they choose to do something they are A lot of things happen parallel all at the same time, you know, a lot of events happen simultaneously and they reveal themselves to have occurred one thing after another, after another, and you're making choices, um, but they're uninformed choices about [00:19:20] when you lay out chronology, you're making a choice about how you think things are going to happen. 

[00:19:24] Nigel: Uh, the order in which things happened, but you're doing that without any meaning attached to it. So you can just have a sequence of events, you know, someone decides to do something, then this thing happens. But also, you know, you've got a situation that's bubbling away that forces someone to make a [00:19:40] choice that causes the thing to happen. 

[00:19:41] Nigel: There are different ways of representing a chronology. And the problem with chronology is, if you do that at the beginning, there's no meaning inherent in one thing following another. And that's a problem for our lives. Have one thing following another. If you're telling someone a story about your day and you want to make it a great [00:20:00] story, you don't start by saying, I arrived at 9 a. 

[00:20:03] Nigel: m. at this dinner. And I remember at quarter past nine, we ordered, you know, we went to the menu and this happened. And then, you know, at quarter to 10, this amazing thing happened and this happened and then over dessert, you don't, you jump straight into the dessert story. If that is the, if that is how you want to start your story, then you jump to later in the evening, then [00:20:20] you go back to the main course, you know, you are making in real life where you don't use chronology to tell stories, you, you kind of find a way of giving meaning and good raconteurs do that all the time, they kind of move time around because. 

[00:20:33] Nigel: It's, it's not the time you're telling, it's, it's the, it's, it's the impact of the narrative that you're trying to get, get working. And [00:20:40] I think we can just get fooled by chronology sometimes.  

[00:20:42] Craig Colby: And we've, you know, obviously we've seen that in a ton of classic films from Pulp Fiction to Citizen Kane, where they jump around, uh, they use chronology as a tool to tell their story. 

[00:20:54] Nigel: Yeah. I mean, you can, it's a very interesting thing with that because there's a plot. So when [00:21:00] you've worked out your, the meaningful narrative that you've created. There is obviously a sequence of events, one thing has, you've chosen what goes after the next, chosen after the next, chosen after the next, so that is one thing you've done, the plot, how you deliver that plot to the audience, you can play with it, because at the end of the film, the audience will [00:21:20] have pieced it together in the right plot order. 

[00:21:23] Nigel: But the impact of that material it's like, uh is different so there are Again, it's you know memento, uh, the christopher nolan film Uh, there is a plot to that in that someone is is I believe a second because a complicated film Is brought into a crime and [00:21:40] commits a crime and can't remember what he did and and so on But obviously it's played backwards But I am absolutely certain that nolan when he wrote it wrote the plot in the right order And that made absolute sense and then thought wouldn't it be really interesting and he did it and you know I think harold pinter did it as well and something you do the whole thing [00:22:00] in reverse Because at the end, the audience, if you ask the audience what the story is about, they'll tell you exactly the correct meaningful order of the story. 

[00:22:08] Nigel: How you deliver it is, is the fun you can have manipulating your material. So  

[00:22:13] Craig Colby: Christopher Nolan's a great one to look at for that because he's done it several times and it doesn't have to be, you know, you've [00:22:20] talked about people feeling honest. You can still be very transparent about moving chronology and still tell your story. 

[00:22:27] Craig Colby: You can serve both masters there easily.  

[00:22:29] Nigel: Yeah, absolutely, because the audience know that they are being delivered it, they are being delivered a meaningful piece of work and they enjoy it. And at the end of your film, everything comes together, you have a climax that is [00:22:40] delivering the, the meaning, the kind of tone, the statement you're making about what matters to you about all this material, that's delivered to you. 

[00:22:48] Nigel: If you know what you're doing really neatly at the end of the film, you can design how you want your audience to feel. You can look, you can create, you know, uh, you can create a wonderful optimistic, [00:23:00] uh, triumphant ending. You can, you can create a tragedy. You can create, you know, a personal tragedy. There are various, again, it's a skill. 

[00:23:07] Nigel: The wonderful thing is it's learnable. It's not, it's got nothing to do with your talent per se. There's a, there's a kind of hierarchy. And I tend to teach, the way I teach is, [00:23:20] these are the fundamental skills that you can learn. If you just do the work, concentrate, practice them, you will learn those skills of techniques, of identifying, you'll instinctively begin to identify what your story is about, you can design the ending. 

[00:23:34] Nigel: This is what an inciting incident is. This is how you transition between acts and so on. As you build up this hierarchy, you [00:23:40] get to the end, and a lot of people confuse, and the language is confusing, but I call it kind of story decoration. It's like the stuff you do to make what you're saying fun and exciting. 

[00:23:53] Nigel: It's like turning a scene so there's a great, there's great suspense or shock or horror or comedy. [00:24:00] You have to layer on to something that's foundationally correct. It's like um, architects. It's like this. You know, Frank Gehry, with his extraordinary buildings that lean in all sorts of directions. The most important person there is the structural engineer. 

[00:24:15] Nigel: Because, if they haven't got the foundations deep enough, or they don't know the kind of, the weight that the steel will [00:24:20] hold, you have a very expensive pile of rubble. When, and, and the other thing about engineers is they don't argue about. The structural integrity of concrete or steel. It's like our job is to get the calculator out and make it sustain, make it stand up because that is what we need to support [00:24:40] all this astonishing choice of materials and reflections and moves and shapes. 

[00:24:44] Nigel: And, and that's kind of This, this level of storytelling you're at, it is, it is, it's fundamental, it's learnable, it's skillful, and you never really argue. That's the pleasure when you're in a, an edit and you are doing this stuff with someone else. [00:25:00] It's so much more relaxing because when you're really clear about what you want this story to be about, um, You know, there's a bit of discussion, but yes, of course, that's what we want it to be about. 

[00:25:12] Nigel: And that's what we want people to feel at the end. And this is the problem of the story, and this is what matters. It's the unarguable statements when you're [00:25:20] clear. How you do it, it's like, I hate that music, or, you know, cut it faster, or, you know, oh, you know. People argue about lots of things, but, you know, uh, the great joy of these techniques is the calmness. 

[00:25:33] Nigel: It brings to the whole process and everyone, everyone deserves a bit of calmness because you know, [00:25:40] filmmaking is hard enough as it is. And if you have a commissioning editor and you can explain to them clearly what you're doing, why you're doing it. And how you want to achieve it. Everyone is just so much more relaxed and more creative. 

[00:25:53] Nigel: Just everything is more fun. You know,  

[00:25:55] Nigel: We'll be back in a moment, but I just wanted to jump in and remind you [00:26:00] about the doc fix storytelling program. Which is the reason why I'm releasing these podcasts about the process behind creating meaningful documentary stories. If you want to. If you want to find out more about the program, which is here to help anyone, who's struggling to turn an idea into a great story.  

[00:26:17] Nigel: You can go to apply.thedoc.fix.com. I'll send you a case study where I go over. I'll send you a case study where I go over. Exactly the process I use. We're working on stories, such as the Netflix series Formula One Drive to Survive and Sunderland Til I Die. Script writing for Sir David Attenborough and the various feature documentaries I've made throughout my career. Of [00:26:40] course. If you have any questions at all, I'd be glad to help. Now, back to the interview, where we go into the storytelling behind F1 Drive to Survive and where you’ll hear but not see, a trailer for the series.  

[00:26:52] Nigel: I hope you can imagine the screeching cars. 

[00:26:56] Craig Colby: Let's take a look at a really fun trailer for a Formula One [00:27:00] program that you worked on. Let's take a look at that now. 

[00:27:02] Drivers: These guys have an almost fighter pilot mentality [00:27:20] and that's what separates them from mere mortals. 

[00:27:27] Drivers: All I ever do is pray for a safe race. I never thought. That I'd be there one day watching my son. 

[00:27:39] Drivers: For me, [00:27:40] it's heart attack after heart attack. Are you okay, Nico? Yeah, yeah, there's fire. There's fire. I love the danger. That adrenaline and that excitement.  

[00:27:54] Nigel: They have crashed! They've gone into  

[00:27:57] Drivers: each  
 

[00:27:57] Nigel: other!  

[00:27:58] Drivers: Where the f I'll do [00:28:00] anything I can to get the best results possible. I'm not worried about dying. 

[00:28:06] Craig Colby: [00:28:20] So this seems like a natural. You have the Formula One race. You have, uh, you know, all the drama of the racers and everybody trying to win. What problems do they experience on this show?  

[00:28:38] Nigel: Um, well, it was, you know, [00:28:40] I came in fairly late there. They were still shooting and it was kind of a spectacular, uh, The material was amazing, you know, and it was, it was kind of in some of the edits, they were still putting the stories together. 

[00:28:51] Nigel: Some of the working, some of them weren't. So it was really about, um, getting clarity to the process and, and just [00:29:00] really delivering and just helping the edits deliver and, The example is, I mean, it's interesting because I just come off, um, Sunderland till I die, which was a, a, a soccer show. And I'd realized in making that for the same, uh, for, for Netflix, for this, you know, the same department, how clarity was incredibly important. 

[00:29:18] Nigel: So one of the things we really [00:29:20] had to do was kind of sort out the clarity. And I did bring along a few tricks and, you know, one of my tricks that I came up with something until I die. And I stand by it as being completely ethical is you get the, the great thing about sport is you have commentators. And there were no voiceover in any of these documentaries. 

[00:29:36] Nigel: I said, okay, we're going to use the commentary to help [00:29:40] move the exposition on. So we wrote commentary for the, um, the racing commentators to explain little moments to move the story on. F1 is incredibly complicated. So you'd have a commentator, you'd write a line saying, you know, if he doesn't, if it, if his, if his tires don't hold out, he's going to drop from You know, third to fifth by pitting [00:30:00] now, um, stuff like that, that they wouldn't normally say over a very long race, but we needed that moment. 

[00:30:05] Nigel: So I brought into it the tools of clarity, the things to help the exposition where they were kind of struggling to kind of find a way to express the complexity of formula one and some other bits and pieces like how you use journalists and how you use interviews. [00:30:20] But what I also liked to look for was the multiple layers of narrative. 

[00:30:27] Nigel: That you can have in a single story, you might want to sit around the pub and they say, you know, uh, the reason he's not winning is because he's not very good at overtaking and his tires are giving out and they're changing wheels really badly. And there's a whole kind of, um, [00:30:40] whole series of kind of events and activities and things. 

[00:30:42] Nigel: But there's also the, the emotional narrative. Or let's say the mental narrative, uh, that's really an important part of the story. And what you can find is often in pitches, you kind of list the kind of things that you want that are going to be in your film. You'll say, [00:31:00] and we'll have really emotional moments and we'll get to the heart of who these people really are, you know, and we'll see them struggle. 

[00:31:06] Nigel: And that's a statement, but what you actually do have to design that into a working narrative. And in a funny way, uh, Attenborough, when it was fixed, was more straightforward. Because you had a 50 [00:31:20] minute film, but you had two narratives there. So they're 25 minutes each. So I can only look at make sure the overall story was making sense. 

[00:31:27] Nigel: In F1, we could go deeper and richer because over a kind of similar ish amount of time, you've got the the physical narrative, you define what the overall story is. And then when you get into the emotional narrative, [00:31:40] It was about really bringing that rigor of creating acts and sequences and scenes and proper resolution for the emotional narrative as well, or the kind of the different narrative. 

[00:31:53] Nigel: So if you're doing the physical thing over one area, you have the psychological realm that you're dealing with a couple of different narratives. [00:32:00] And it's about really making sure that that was a full narrative with beginning, middle, and end. And what that means is when you have those layers you're working with, you can. 

[00:32:10] Nigel: Emphasize one layer above another layer. So you can make a film about a race, for example, and you, you, you don't [00:32:20] emphasize the winning position, like where they ended up, you're actually saying, no, the story is about, uh, the approach or, or, or the approach that this person took mentally to try and get to a position where they could or could not win. 

[00:32:34] Nigel: And you're resolving the mental state of the driver through the story. So. What [00:32:40] that allows you to do by being able to manipulate those layers is you have a completely different feel. So the problem always with those kind of documentaries and the sports documentaries is if you're not, if you don't know how to work with material, you tie yourself to the event. 

[00:32:57] Nigel: It's always about where do they come? Who [00:33:00] wins? Who loses? Do they win the match? Do they win the race? And over 10 episodes, it's like you're telling the same story and you think there's not enough going on here, there's not enough variety, but actually, if you can delve in, if you can find the other argument, like I said, people around the pub and some are saying it's like, oh, the reason they're not winning [00:33:20] is because they've got a dysfunctional management team or something. 

[00:33:22] Nigel: So let's tell the dysfunctional management team story. You still got the same elements, you're still dealing with, you know, it kicks off, the race begins, they are herring around the, you know, the track and all that kind of stuff. That's all, all those things that people love about Formula One in this case are there, [00:33:40] but you're actually telling a different story. 

[00:33:42] Nigel: You're emphasizing a different narrative.  

[00:33:45] Craig Colby: So you're talking about two problems here, right? You've got, uh, you're talking about the external problems in sports, which is, are they going to win and things they have to go through to win, but the internal problems as well. So you have to identify your, your [00:34:00] potential for drama is in a couple of different places, both the external and the internal, correct? 

[00:34:04] Nigel: Absolutely. And that's the case with every problem. And the reason why this is universal is like any problem that you talk about. Uh, there's pretty much, uh, actually, it's interesting, not every, I can explain why, but most documentaries you deal with on a fundamental level are dealing with a [00:34:20] physical issue and kind of the internal problems as well, the human issues and the external ones. 

[00:34:24] Nigel: What's really interesting is you can use it Because it's so fundamental, you can use it for subjects that seem to have no, uh, character, no inherent drama by the dramatic definition. If you're making a science documentary about [00:34:40] an abstract concept, you can organize the nature of the argument in how you deliver that material. 

[00:34:49] Nigel: So you can talk about the physical circumstances of the universe or something, and there are stages of that discussion that you can follow. So the audience are being taken through. An [00:35:00] argument, so you're giving order to something that that if you don't have that, it feels unordered. It feels not meaningful. 

[00:35:08] Nigel: So subjects that have no apparent character. You don't have to kind of find people and shove them into a certain kind of documentary to give it meaning you can [00:35:20] actually step back even further and say, OK, if this is an argument purely about the state of things. Is there a sequence of, is there a way of moving through that argument logically and um, inevitably? 

[00:35:34] Nigel: And in a way that the audience find necessary and like satisfying? See, absolutely there is. I mean, [00:35:40] everything's got its own, you know, everything's got its own nuance and tweak. And some, some shows are like, you know, um, funfair rides or, you know, some are just about the experience. But I think having the knowledge to create a complete story, a really rich that has everything. 

[00:35:56] Nigel: In it that you could possibly want four through lines [00:36:00] inciting incident. It resolves with the right climax. Every act works. The themes are really strong. You look at your material and say, okay, I haven't got all of that in this, but I can manipulate what we've got. I know what I'm trying to do and, uh, you kind of get it to the best it can be. 

[00:36:18] Nigel: That's the [00:36:20] reality of being in an edit, but it's also the reality of being a documentary maker. You have a limited. Budget and resources and access and there's a thousand other things that are going on if you know that you're making it the best It could possibly be Then that's all you can do. You can't make it perfect I think that's where the [00:36:40] calmness Right, I call it the most boring process in the world because it's just about bringing calm It's literally if you had a pocket calculator, it would be that Unstressful. 

[00:36:49] Nigel: It isn't, but you know, you try and like remove the stress from everyone. So everyone just, you know, this is the best it can be.  

[00:36:56] Craig Colby: Right. And I think with the science stuff, having done a lot of science stuff, it's, it [00:37:00] seems like a lot of scheduling surprises, like where are you revealed? So you have your aha moments and that can be every act. 

[00:37:07] Craig Colby: But that's me putting it in and those are my words not yours  

[00:37:10] Nigel: My background is science as well I began at the science and features department the bbc years ago And I think I think that was always the conflict. It's like where is the where's the drama in this? I [00:37:20] don't like puzzles I like magic, you know, I I sat across At my desk in the bbc was across across from a guy very smart guy who loved puzzles And I'm saying no no, it's about magic. 

[00:37:31] Nigel: It's about how you tell the story And he said, no, it's about being fascinated in the thing itself. And I, I was always trying to kind of work out where's the meaning. I mean, I was [00:37:40] obsessed by trying to make something meaningful and it took me decades really to kind of look at everything. I think, where is the source of meaning and how can we really make it work? 

[00:37:52] Nigel: You know?  

[00:37:53] Craig Colby: And so, I mean, you've had decades of this, um, and you're talking about building that skill set so you can do these things [00:38:00] confidently. Um, that's something that you offered. What do you offer people to help them build that skill set?  

[00:38:05] Nigel: Well, it's just, it's a course, really, a program. It's like 12 weeks long. 

[00:38:10] Nigel: And we just take them through that skill set that you can use. You basically, it's about taking any idea that you've got and turning it into a fully [00:38:20] structured, beautifully told, meaningful narrative, factual narrative. Um, every skill you need. Really to do that job in about 12 weeks. There's kind of like I do seminars over this system here. 

[00:38:33] Nigel: There's an online element. There's a community we've built up and it's kind of trying to the [00:38:40] realization that it's a skill that can absolutely be taught and how to how to teach that skill. Uh, as quickly and as efficiently and as, as, uh, in as fun way as possible. So that's, that's kind of what we do. You know, we've got this, this, this company called the doc fix, and that's what the doc fix does. 

[00:38:58] Nigel: It kind of takes [00:39:00] people through, and we've had, it's amazing. You have people. You've never made a film before and you've got people who are exhibited at Sundance, but everyone realizes there's something that they could know, something more that they could know about the process. So we take people through it and then they can use it [00:39:20] then and hopefully they'll, it'll save them, you know, decades of work to try to work it out for themselves. 

[00:39:25] Craig Colby: It saves them that moment in the edit suite where I don't know what I'm doing.  

[00:39:30] Nigel: Or I don't know  

[00:39:30] Craig Colby: how the story is going to work, rather.  

[00:39:32] Nigel: It gives you all the tools you need to kind of be so much better at solving that problem in every story you tell. And I think, I think, uh, they're [00:39:40] certainly enjoying it. 

[00:39:40] Nigel: And it's kind of, uh, people who've been through it are kind of solving their story problems.  

[00:39:45] Craig Colby: And the storytelling is a mountain that you never reach the top of. Like, there's always something to learn.  

[00:39:50] Nigel: Well, the problem is You are part of it. It's like you are dealing usually when you tackle a subject. 

[00:39:57] Nigel: It's because you're they always say in drama Like [00:40:00] write about things that upset you or you don't understand because you explore it in things So you're part of the process. So the best thing you can do I think is learn to be objective Really learn to stand back and really the language the more objective you can be It means you don't have to come back to something after three weeks to be clear about what you need [00:40:20] to do is actually, you can look at it and see it objectively. 

[00:40:25] Nigel: You know to have the tools to be objective in the moment because I've got the tools of objectivity It's not a mystery. It's like ah, these are the techniques.  

[00:40:33] Craig Colby: Yeah that i've always found that the toughest thing in storytelling is to be uh, so completely [00:40:40] Subjectively, passionately involved, and then have to step back and be dispassionate. 

[00:40:45] Craig Colby: That's always a challenge for everybody, I think.  

[00:40:48] Nigel: I know, and that's kind of what you have to teach. And that's, uh, look, it's tough. It's always tough. Storytelling is challenging and fun and engaging. And you do it because you're exploring new things. But, you know, it needn't be [00:41:00] as painful and expensive and time consuming as it can get. 

[00:41:05] Nigel: You know, there's ways of kind of calming the process down and then allowing you to be as crazy and creative as you want to be.  

[00:41:13] Craig Colby: Nigel, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed talking to you about this. Uh, people can find you at the DocFix and, uh, we'll [00:41:20] definitely see you around Congress. Thanks so much, Nigel. 

[00:41:22] Nigel: My pleasure. 

[00:41:25] Nigel: I hope you enjoyed that conversation. If you're interested in working with me at the doc fix. All the links you need are in the notes below. There's a case study you could sign up for at apply.thedocfix.com that goes into some detail on how the [00:41:40] system has been used in some of the TV shows and documentaries have been involved with. There's a lot of information there you should find useful. And if you want to get in touch, you can send me an email to nigel@thedocfix.com and I'd be happy to hear from you. And as a last thing, if you're enjoying this podcast and want to support the show and help keep the podcast free [00:42:00] and the conversation's coming.  

[00:42:01] Nigel: You could do a number of things. One is just to share it with someone you think would benefit from it. Uh, number two. Take some time to leave a review. If you leave a review for the show on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to the podcast, it just helps the algorithm to get it in front of people who could benefit from it.  

[00:42:17] Nigel: The most. So that's all I've got for you today. [00:42:20] Have a good rest of the day and I'll talk to you soon.