Professional Documentary Scriptwriting Techniques and Structural Formulas

David is a veteran broadcast journalist with a professional career spanning $25$ years.
His diverse roles in the television industry include serving as a television host for documentary programs, a researcher, and a scriptwriter.
He explicitly stated that scriptwriting remains the aspect of the production process he enjoys the most.
Over the course of his career, David has authored and produced over $200$ documentaries for GMA, the majority of which were featured on the program i-Witness.

The first primary recommendation for documentary scriptwriting is the use of a "common thread" or a common theme throughout the entire production.
The purpose of this thread is to weave the various segments into one cohesive work of art rather than a collection of disjointed pieces.
Example: In a documentary focused on the ocean, the scriptwriter should ensure all motifs, imagery, and narrative points are consistently related to the sea to maintain this thematic continuity.

All high-quality stories must incorporate three temporal dimensions: the past, the present, and the future.
While storytelling can be flexible in its delivery—utilizing chronological sequences or stylistic flashback effects—David highlights a specific favorite structure.
The preferred storytelling formula follows the order: Present \rightarrow Past \rightarrow Future.
This structure involves beginning the narrative with the current state of affairs (the present outcome), transitioning into the history or background (the past), and concluding with the outlook or consequences (the future).

David identifies Taylor Swift as his favorite songwriter and cites her song "Champagne Problems" as a perfect example of the Present-Past-Future structural formula.
The Present (Introduction): The song opens with the immediate aftermath of a failed relationship where a guy is heartbroken after his girlfriend rejected his wedding proposal. The lyrics establish the current scene: " $\text{Your mom's ring in your pocket, my picture in your wallet, your heart was glass, I dropped it, champagne problems.}$ "
The Past (Development): The subsequent verses shift the timeline backward to explain the context lead-up to the proposal, including the excitement of the family and the state of the relationship before the rejection.
The Future (Conclusion): The song ends by looking forward. It mirrors the language of the introduction but shifts the context to a future where the protagonist is no longer the central figure in his life. The lyrics conclude: " $\text{her picture in your wallet, you won't remember all my champagne problems.}$ "

The third tip focuses on the relationship between the "intro" and the "extro" (the conclusion).
A script should always come "full circle," meaning the introduction and the conclusion must be explicitly connected to one another.
By ensuring the extro is parallel to the intro, the storyteller creates a narrative that feels solid, cohesive, and sophisticated.
This technique provides the audience with a clear sense of narrative progression and resolution.

David applied the "full circle" storytelling structure to his documentary titled "Udong," which focuses on the subject of child labor.
In this documentary, the intro and the extro are designed to be parallel to each other.
The extro acts as a "leveled up" or evolved version of the intro. While they share the same structural or thematic elements, the conclusion allows the viewer to see the growth, the complexity, and the finality of the story being told.
If the intro and extro are nearly identical or parallel, it highlights the difference in the viewer's understanding from the beginning of the documentary to its end.