I tend to see the world on a timeline. How one moment leads to the next, how events connect and build a story. When I'm shooting documentary, I'm always thinking about the timeline — what happened before this shot, what needs to happen after, what could happen that doesn't need to connect but somehow still works.
The thing about documentary is that the story is already there. You don't create it. You discover it. And the only honest way to discover it is to stop trying to control it and start listening to it. The camera is just a way of paying attention.
The footage doesn't lie. The edit might, but the footage never does.
On being present
Most of what makes a documentary shot work isn't technique — it's presence. Being in the right place at the right time, not because you predicted it, but because you put yourself where things were likely to happen and stayed patient. A lot of what I've shot that ended up being the best moments was footage I almost didn't roll on.
The timeline tells you what matters. Watch the edit back without sound. If the story still tracks, you've got it. If it only makes sense because of the narration, you went back to the drawing board at some point and patched it with words. That's fine sometimes. But the goal is always for the images to carry it.
On the edit
Editing documentary is fundamentally different from narrative because you're not building something — you're finding it. You have more material than you can use, and the job is to figure out what the story is actually about, often long after you thought you knew. The cut reveals the story. The story doesn't reveal itself in the field.
That's what I mean when I say the timeline never lies. You can argue with a shot in the moment. But when you put it in the cut and watch it play, it either works or it doesn't. The timeline is the most honest collaborator you'll have.