Background research for documentary: archives, interviews and fact-checking

Research rarely shows on screen, and when it is done well nobody notices it at all. It sits under every date in a caption, every archival shot of a street that has since been torn down, every interviewee who turns out to be exactly who they said they were. When it is done badly, it shows up late: in a broadcaster's legal notes, in an insurer's questions, or in a letter from someone who recognized their grandmother's photograph in a film that never asked.

This guide is for directors and researchers working on Canadian documentaries, from one-hour broadcast films to features. It covers how to build a research bible, where to look in Canadian archives, how to run pre-interviews, how to vet sources, how to keep a clean chain of title for archival material, and what happens in the fact-check and legal review before a film goes to air.

Build the research bible first

A research bible is the single place where everything the production knows lives, along with how it knows it. On a small film it might be one shared document and a spreadsheet. On a series it grows into a folder structure with its own rules and one person responsible for keeping it straight. The form matters less than the habit: if a fact is in the film, the bible says where it came from.

A workable bible has six parts:

• A timeline of the story, with every date sourced.
• A cast list: people who appear, people mentioned, people interviewed off camera, with contact details and the state of their consent.
• A claims log: every factual statement likely to end up in narration, captions or interviews, with its source and a note on how strong that source is.
• An archive log: each photograph, clip, document or recording, with where it was found, its reference number, who owns it and what licence it needs.
• A permissions log: releases, location agreements, licences and the correspondence behind each.
• Open questions: what is still unconfirmed, and who might confirm it.

Start it on the first day of research, not when the edit begins. Rebuilding sources from memory six months later is miserable, and it is where errors creep in.

Archives in Canada, and what each is good for

Canada's archives are spread across federal, provincial, municipal, university and community institutions, and the right one depends on the question. Library and Archives Canada holds federal government records alongside private papers, photographs, film and sound recordings. The National Film Board keeps its own collection, much of which can be watched through the online screening room at nfb.ca, and it licenses footage from that collection. CBC and Radio-Canada keep archives of broadcast material that can be licensed for use in other productions.

The best tool in any archive is the archivist. A short, specific email (what the film is about, which years, which places, what format you hope to find) gets a far better answer than a general request to see everything. Ask for finding aids, the guides that describe what is in each collection, and write down every reference number as you go. A photograph you cannot trace back to its box and file is a photograph you probably cannot use.

Pre-interviews: listening before the camera

Pre-interviews usually happen by phone or video call, before anyone sets up a light. Their job is to learn what a person knows, how they tell it and whether they want to be in the film at all. Take notes rather than recording, unless the person agrees to a recording and there is a reason to need one.

Resist the urge to hear everything. If someone tells their best story in full on the phone, the version on camera can come out flat, because it is now a retelling. Ask enough to know the shape of the story, mark the moments to return to, and stop. Note what the person saw firsthand and what they heard from others, since the two carry very different weight later.

Ask about paper too. Letters, diaries, family photographs and home movies often surface in a pre-interview, and they can lead straight into the archive log. Be plain about what the film is, who is making it and where it might be shown, and avoid promises the edit may not keep. The craft of the interview itself, from the chair to the microphone, is covered in Shooting documentary interviews.

Finding and vetting sources

Start with the published record: books, academic work, court decisions, government reports and the newspaper coverage of the time. Those lead to names, and the names lead to people. At the end of every conversation, ask two questions: who else should be heard, and who would disagree with what was just said.

Range matters. A film built only on officials and experts sounds like a briefing; a film built only on personal testimony can drift away from what can be checked. Look for people with direct experience, people from different regions, generations and languages, and at least one well-informed person who sees the story differently. Their presence makes the film fairer, and it also makes the research better, because disagreement tells a researcher exactly where to dig.

Vetting is slower and less glamorous. Confirm that people are who they say they are and were where they say they were. Look for documents that support memories, especially dates, which memory handles badly. For any contested or damaging claim, find a second source that does not depend on the first. Note any interest a source might have in the outcome. All of it goes in the claims log, so that months later anyone can see why a line was trusted.

Chain of title for archival material

Chain of title is the paper trail that proves the production has the right to use everything in the film. For archival material, the first step is separating the holder from the owner. An archive may hold a photograph whose copyright belongs to a photographer's estate, or a clip whose rights sit with a broadcaster that no longer exists in its original form.

Each licence should cover the uses the film actually needs: broadcast, festivals, educational sales, online platforms, trailers and promotion, for the territories and the term in the distribution plan. Then check the rights inside the material. Music playing in a newsreel, a performance captured in a clip, artwork on a wall in a home movie: each can carry rights of its own. Keep the licence, the invoice and the correspondence attached to the archive log entry for that item.

Canada's Copyright Act allows fair dealing for research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism, review and news reporting, and some of those purposes come with conditions, such as naming the source. Whether a particular use in a documentary qualifies depends on the facts. Broadcasters and insurers will want a lawyer's opinion, so get legal advice before relying on fair dealing. When a copyright owner truly cannot be found, the Copyright Board of Canada has a process for licensing some works in that situation; it takes time, so begin early. For a fuller guide to licensing footage, see Archive footage and rights.

Fact-checking and legal review before broadcast

The core document here is the annotated script: a version of the final transcript in which every factual statement in narration, captions, graphics and interviews is matched to its source in the bible. Interview claims count. If someone on camera says something factual, or something damaging about another person, the film is publishing it. Check names and their spelling, titles, dates, place names and the accuracy of subtitles and translations.

A media lawyer then watches the cut with the annotated script in hand, looking at defamation, privacy, copyright, consent and anything touching court proceedings, including publication bans. Broadcasters often run their own standards review as well. The notes come back as requests: blur a face, add a caption, trim a line, give a person who is criticized a chance to respond. The E&O insurer relies on this review, which is why the research and the delivery paperwork are so closely tied, as the guide to how a small documentary company works sets out.

Schedule the review before picture lock. Changes made after the lock are slower and costlier, and a late note can ripple through music, mix and captions. The edit has enough to carry already; for how it comes together, see the piece on editing a documentary.

Keeping it organized

A few rules prevent most research chaos. Give every archive item a unique ID and carry that ID into the edit, so a clip in a bin can be traced to its licence in seconds. Name files the same way every time, for example by date, source and a short description. Keep transcripts searchable and timecoded. Back up the bible and the scans in three places, one of them off site.

Some material needs more care than others. Contact details, consent forms and anything that identifies vulnerable contributors should be stored securely, with access limited to the people who need it. One person should own the bible, and a short weekly review keeps it honest.

A research checklist

• Research bible started, with timeline, cast list, claims log, archive log, permissions log and open questions.
• Every date in the timeline linked to a source.
• Pre-interviews logged, separating what each person saw from what they heard.
• Contested or damaging claims confirmed by a second, independent source.
• Every archive item has an ID, a holder, an owner and a licence status.
• Music, performances and artwork inside archival clips checked separately.
• Licences cover every platform, territory and term in the distribution plan.
• Any reliance on fair dealing reviewed by a lawyer.
• Releases and consent forms filed, secured and backed up.
• Annotated script finished before picture lock.
• Legal notes answered, with each change recorded.
• Clearances log and chain of title ready for the insurer and the broadcaster.

The last item is where research turns into delivery. It starts long before anyone thinks about insurance: with a researcher on a slow afternoon in a reading room, copying a reference number into the archive log before closing the box.