Find the story.
Plan the shoot around it.

Story map, interview prep, background-footage list. One canvas that reaches the edit ready to cut.

The story

volunteers hand-count migrating hawks from one ridge every autumn. same families, three generations. the numbers are quietly collapsing.

Access

i’ve sat the count two seasons. they trust the camera because i kept coming back. ruth, 71, the lead counter, is ready to talk.

Why now

this might be the last decade the count means anything. we have one autumn to start.

✦ Documentary Proposal

The Counts

Every autumn for fifty years a handful of volunteers have hand-counted the hawks crossing one mountain ridge, and this is the season they admit the sky is emptying.

The engine

One ridge, one season, a falling number. The count is the clock and the stakes at once.

Approach

Observational, shot only in autumn. Long lenses on the sky, close on the hands and the tally.

Three steps. Then you are ready to shoot.

Map the story

Build the arc on the canvas: people, beats, threads, a folder per subject. The map updates as the story changes.

The Counts — field doc

ref_01The ridge, dawn

ref_02Empty sky, thermals

Subject

Ruth, 71. Counting since 1974.

Thread

The falling number. The clock of the film.

✦ Proposal

Prep the interviews

A folder per subject holds the research, your questions, and consent notes. Print the prep or share a read-only link, and walk in.

✦ Interview Prep

Ruth — interview

Background

Questions

Consent

List the background footage

Tag the shots the story needs and group them by location and day. The list the camera operator gets is the one the editor looks for.

Shot list4 must-get · 12 total

WS ×5CU ×5INSERT ×2

01WS

EXT. Ridge — the empty sky, dawn

The stakes in one frame. Shoot it cold.

02CU

CU — Ruth’s hands on the tally

The count, by hand. Hold on the pencil.

03WS

EXT. A single hawk crossing

Long lens. We may wait all day for it.

A story map, interview prep, and a shot list that survive the shoot.

The documents change as the story does. The edit starts with a canvas the director already lived in for months.

Documentary Proposal

The Counts

Every autumn for fifty years a handful of volunteers have hand-counted the hawks crossing one mountain ridge, and this is the season they admit the sky is emptying.

The story

For fifty autumns, a few people have driven up to one bald ridge before dawn, set out folding chairs, and counted the hawks that ride the thermals south. They mark each one by hand on a clipboard. Ruth has done it since she was twenty-one.

The film is one season on the ridge, structured by the migration itself: the early trickle, the big days, the tapering end. The central question is quiet and large. What does it mean to keep counting something that is disappearing?

Why now

The numbers on Ruth’s clipboards go back five decades, and read together they show a sky emptying out. The counters know it better than anyone, because they are the ones holding the pencil. This is not a film about a statistic. It is about the people who have to write it down.

Connection

I have sat the count two seasons now, in the cold, mostly in silence. They let me film because I kept coming back, not because I asked. Ruth is ready to talk this autumn. I want to be on the ridge when she does.

Approach

Observational, shot only in autumn. The film never leaves the season.

Subjects

Ruth, 71, lead counter since 1974. Two younger volunteers who may carry it on, or not.

Stage

Development. One season shot on spec. Production funding secures the next two autumns.

Audience

Festival premiere, then public broadcast. Independent Lens is the intended home.

What we’re after