With my award-winning documentary about the Sand Creek Massacre, which was recently cataloged into the Smithsonian, I focused on being as accurate as I could be. Historical stories have a tendency to be somewhat speculative, unless there are eye witnesses who have the capability of helping you tell the story about
Others utilize “poetic license” to show how they think something occurred in the past. To say that so and so, “breathed hard, like an Olympic sprinter who has just finished a race”, is pure speculation, unless someone actually experienced that and it was documented as that. The fine point in making an historical documentary is to focus on facts, to focus on the truth, and to qualify that which is speculation. In this case, the truth always rings true and will seal the viewer to your film.
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
The Zen of Writing
http://michaelc.nextmp.net/wordpress
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