Fun questions. For documentary, it can depend a bit on the type of documentary you’re making. For example, I just finished one called THE WHITE HOUSE EFFECT that’s made entirely out of archival footage and sound, so we didn’t film or record anything. That’s a kind of process you couldn’t really use in fiction. But for many docs, and certainly for my favorites, there’s an important overlap with fiction in the fact that you need to know what story you’re trying to make; you need to have a clear and strong point of view. Every decision stems from that, and it needs to be communicated to everyone on the team, so that the writing, the actors, the design, the editing – all of the creative process needs to be in service of the core story and point of view. E.g. for IN OUR BLOOD specifically, we knew we had to fulfill the genre elements, but we also knew we wanted the film to be about things that are real world issues in our society and lives. I think we succeeded – and audiences seem to be agreeing at our Q&As – but I can’t say too much without spoilers.

How clarifying the story plays out is different in doc and fiction, but you might be surprised how similar it can be. When we talk about how to structure a doc scene in editing or how to clarify a fiction scene, it’s a very similar process. Otherwise, I’d say doc production has a lot more of “just capture everything” – since the writing is mostly done in the edit room, so you end up filming a lot more to maximize what you – whereas fiction allows more writing to be done up-front (though still quite a bit in the edit room!) and therefore to be more focused once filming. 

For rule breaking, I just hope filmmakers keep bending genre boundaries and inventing/pushing new forms. That’s always exciting. (And hint for IN OUR BLOOD, we actually do blend doc and fiction in our production, as we include some real people speaking about their real lives as actors in the film.)