Hello all,
I'm taking a project management course. As part of it, we have to do a project plan for something of our choice. Our group has chosen 'Documentary film making' as the project. None of us in our group has any direct experience in film/documentary making and we were wondering if any of you could help us by providing the following information:

1. The general steps involved in making a documentary at a higher level. Some things that came to our mind were pre-production, production and post-production. But if any of you could explain what goes on in each of these stages, that would be great. Our premise is that our team is part of a production company (is that the correct term?) who has been hired by a television channel to make a 45 minute to one hour documentary film about the evolution of reality TV shows. The project requires that we come up with at least 75-100 tasks at the end. The actual storyline doesn't matter as we are not going to make a film but just going to come up with a plan from conception to the delivery.

2. The key players in making a documentary and what their roles are. The obvious ones that come to our mind are the producers, directors etc... but it would be great to have more information.

3. What is involved in making a documentary: time, resources, etc. Does something of this scope need third-party service providers? I mean, should our company have to 'hire' third-party providers to off-load some of our work?

4. I'm sure that after seeing some of the answers, more questions might pop up. So, your continued help will go a long way in our understanding of the subject.

Thanks in advance from all our team members.
-conceal76