How to Do Online Docs

Notes from a Hot Docs industry session about the Poetics of Online Documentary. Watch the session.

You can tell stories in a non-linear way. You don't have to make a single path.

Think of your doc website in this way – there is a subject and a space to work in, to tell stories.

The structure of your site should be story-driven.

Just use the tools you know. You don't have to use everything that's out there. (Florian)

Know your audience and talk to them. Bring users in on your project early to test it and get feedback.

Choose the appropriate amount of interactivity for your project and your audience and no more. Innovate just enough.

Think about how navigation can be content. (Katarina)

Give ways to engage. Link or collaborate with other organizations.

There are growing expectations to experience things on different platforms (web, smartphone) in different ways, not the same way on every platform. (David)

Education market – kids want to discover it for themselves, not be told. (Annette)

---

Florian Thalhofer, Interactive and web producer
Katarina Cizek, National Film Board of Canada
David Oppenheim, Kensington Communications
Annette Bradford, CBC Documentary Unit