Fiction & Documentary
A thirty second spot has to land once. An hour has to land, take off again, and land a dozen more times before the credits. I've worked on feature documentaries and broadcast series, and the trick never changes: go straight for the hoops in the footage and let the script take shape from there.
Go for the hoops
I learned long format where the deadline was an air date. Broadcast teaches structure the hard way: every act has to end on a reason to come back, the clock is exact to the frame, and the network's notes arrive even after the contract said it was done.
On KangaRoddy that meant senior editing all twelve episodes of a PBS season, and training assistant editors until they were cutting episodes in their own right. On Elton John: Live it meant eight cameras and one night in San Francisco for VH1. On Mega Mansions, Law on the Border and Made In America it meant finding an episode in hours of footage that had no script to lean on.
Documentary usually has to be sold before it can be made, and that is a cut too. 1GD is a pitch for a feature documentary, Better Living was cut for a documentary fundraiser, and Blues Express is a sizzle for an episodic series. Each is the whole project in miniature: the argument, the characters and the tone, in the time a funder will give you.
Bring the hours of footage. We'll shape it from there.