The Detail That Tells Me Someone Has a Story Worth Filming

Two versions of the same story

Let me give you an example. Say someone is telling me about a hard exam at university.

Version one: "It was super hard. I almost didn't make it, but in the end I did."

Version two: "I still remember sitting outside the professor's door. There were always about ten people ahead of me in the queue. And they all came out crying, because the last six years of studying had just gone to waste. They failed and lost their final attempt. And then it was my turn. I felt my hands sweating. My heart was beating."

Same story. Same outcome. Completely different experience for the person listening.

The first version tells you what happened. The second version puts you in the room.

That shift from general to specific is the single clearest signal I know that someone can carry a documentary story.

What I'm actually listening for

When I'm sitting across from someone in a discovery interview, I'm not looking for the most articulate person in the room. I'm not looking for the most confident speaker, or the person with the most impressive credentials.

I'm listening for sensory memory.

Can this person recall the texture of a moment? Not just that it happened, but what it felt like to be inside it? The sweating hands. The queue. The sound of the door. The faces of the people who came before them.

When someone can do that, something shifts in the room. I feel it. And I know that an audience watching a film about this person is going to feel it too.

That's the whole reason we make these films. Not to inform people about a mission in the abstract. But to let them feel it through a real human experience.

The other things that matter

Sensory memory is the biggest signal, but it's not the only one.

I also need to know that the story fits the goal. That there's something this person wants, and that there's a real struggle or hurdle standing between them and that thing. Without that, there's no forward motion in the story.

I need to understand the deeper motivation. Something in their past that put them on this path. That backstory is what makes the present moment feel earned rather than random.

And the person needs to be able to show up on camera. Not perform. Not present. Show up. There's a real difference. If someone cannot find any vulnerability or genuine feeling in front of a lens, it becomes very hard for an audience to connect with them, no matter how remarkable their story actually is.

What happens to the conversations that don't make the cut

In every project I work on, I talk to a lot of people before we settle on who the film will follow. Some of them have all the elements. Others have pieces of something real but the story doesn't quite fit the goal, or the camera relationship isn't there.

But here's the thing. Even the conversations that don't lead to a film still hold something valuable.

Every one of those discovery interviews is a real human being sharing their lived experience. And organizations that sit on that material and never use it are missing a real opportunity. A specific detail from one of those conversations can open a newsletter in a way that no statistic ever could. It can anchor a fundraising campaign. It can give a presentation an emotional center that actually lands.

The film is the centerpiece. But the raw material of getting there is worth something too.

Why specificity is the thing

We live in a world full of general claims. Three hundred thousand children at risk. Forty million people affected. A mission to create a better future.

None of that is untrue. But none of it gives you anywhere to put your feelings.

One child. One mine. One family. One door with sweating hands outside it.

That's where care actually starts. And that's what I'm looking for every time I sit down across from someone and ask them to tell me about their work.

If you want to talk about what stories might be sitting inside your organization right now, I'm always happy to have that conversation. Thirty minutes is usually enough to find something worth exploring.