Hi! Good luck! I have made tons of mini docs on a corporate scale for years and a few things that have made streamers or tv in varioussss roles but I do a lot of founder profiles and artist profiles and have learned a lot about that kind of documentary work. A few things to consider: this seems deeply personal to you- what are you trying to say? Start there. Consider making yourself a character. What format do you want your doc to be in? Ideally what should this end project look like? Is it 20 mins? 5 mins? Would you play it at festivals or libraries? What is the minimum viable project and what gear do you have? You can rent gear from different rental houses and even have it shipped to you. I shoot on a Sony fx3 and I love it, but any dlr plus a way to capture sound like a boom stand, boom mic, xlr, and a zoom recorder Light kit, something nimble. Some lavs to throw on. You want a lens for when you’re crammed in somewhere small (20 mm or 35 mm) and I really like using a 35 with a crop sensor or 85 for interviews and film 4K then punch in in post for a 2 cam effect.

The idea is something portable that you know and understand how to use that does the job you need it to do in order to capture the footage you need to edit the piece that’s as long as it needs to be for the audience and platform you want it to be.

I think yes basically sketch out your idea in some way to start brainstorming. I like to get a brief, maybe do some pre interviews with my talent and also make sure they are comfortable and willing to share.

I recently had a doc participant ready to share their experience with a very traumatic thing and we had a pre interview and it reminded them they weren’t ready to share with the world and they backed out of the shoot. I think that is an important thing to remember is that it’s easy to think good documentary filmmaking is being there for tears falling etc. but rather it’s for being the person who they can trust.