What are the benefits of each? 

Both forms of filming have their place. Both will create something that you’ll look back and enjoy in years to come. 

Directed film content is great for when you have slightly older children and you’re wanting to get them involved in the process. It becomes a really lovely family activity that you can do together and enjoy the outcome together. I can easily imagine a future in which me and my daughter are creating our own little films and animations together – but at the minute she’s only 3 and hasn’t got the patience (or maybe I don’t have the patience to deal with her impatience).

The directed pieces work particularly well with little comedy sketches too. So if you’re a funny person then it’s a great outlet. 

Documentary style filming captures the real moments that are happening in daily life. In terms of solidifying your long term memory bank and bottling up your memories – you have a real power to curate the memories you want to keep of your family. One of my goals is to ‘make the mundane memorable’. Take everyday situations and make them fun to watch. Typically with most of the films I make, I look back and have a warm fuzzy feeling rather than a big belly laugh that you might get more often with a directed comedy skit. 

The biggest difference between the two forms of filmmaking is less to do with the outcome at the end of it though – and more to do with the energy that goes into making them. 

For a Directed film – you need to spend time coming up with a concept, you have to put effort into getting people to act and perform the roles, you actually have to be a good director in order to draw out a performance. For most parents, there are times where just getting the kids out their pyjamas in the morning is an uphill battle, let alone finding time in the day to sit down and plan a film project. Making multiple film projects is a big commitment and some kids ‘just aren’t into it’. So while you may start strong with one or two films it’ll often tail off. You run out of ideas or motivation, or your children choose to go to ballet class on a Saturday instead of staying at home and making a movie with dad.

With documentary style filming – there’s very little planning or preparation required. You’re looking for the things that are already happening that you want to bottle up. As a result, the mental energy that is required from you as a parent, is far less (at least once you’ve done a few and have got yourself a formula as to how to make them work). It’s less intrusive to family life – because you’re filming the things that are already happening rather than having the filmmaking AS the family activity. If your child wants to go to the ballet class on a Saturday – then that’s cool – you can just document that and you’ve got a memory made. You’re doing those activities anyway – so you may as well film them and make them into a memory – and in effect your only additional time is the 10 minutes you need to edit it all together. 

As a training ground – the documentary style films are far more forgiving if you’re new to filmmaking. You can get started quicker and see see some lovely results that you can really look back on and be proud of – then you can keep learning as you go on. 

As my own daughter grows older I’m fairly sure that we’ll end up doing more directed films. But at the minute – I’m able to make a film a day. With directed content I’m not sure we’ll ever do more than one a month (unless I’ve got myself a budding actress in the making – in which case she’ll have her on film reel to send out to the networks by the age of 5)