An idea may begin with a place you have never been, a profession you want to understand, or a past you are trying to enter.
Authentic Kahaniyan does historical and subject research for writers, directors and producers. We also review scripts and gather references for production.
New portraits, made for this site from photographs credited on the sources page.
The questions change as the story takes shape.
Story development
You may start with an event, a profession or a place. We follow the records, speak to people who know the subject and look for the circumstances a story might grow out of.
The work might turn up the daily routine of a profession or the pressures inside an institution. We hand it over as a chronology or a research brief, and a larger investigation can become a research bible.
Historical research
To a character, a “period setting” is just the world they know: the roads and borders a journey depends on, and the work, institutions and customs that shape an ordinary day.
We research military, business and political histories through archives, contemporary accounts and later scholarship. We set events in order on a timeline and check for details that belong to another time.
Script research and review
A signature can open a door, hold someone in a room or pass responsibility to somebody else.
We work through a draft’s factual claims, chronology and setting, and look at how it portrays people and communities. Notes sit beside the relevant passages, with sources and questions that need more investigation.
Production references
The papers on a desk, the clothes in a photograph: details like these help a production work out how a place was used and how people lived in it. We gather written records, images, footage and recordings for the art, props and costume departments.
Every reference comes with its source and any known limits on its use.
1 · Starting a brief
Bring an idea, a draft or the material you have gathered. We discuss what you are making, where research could help and when you need it. Together, we agree the questions to pursue and the form the work should take.
2 · Sources, interviews and field research
We work through written accounts, interview people who know the subject and, where useful, visit the places connected to it. We compare what each source can establish and keep the differences between accounts visible.
We plan interviews and visits around access and consent, and what someone is willing to share decides how it can be used.
3 · The handover
It might be a short brief, a timeline, notes on a script or a research bible. Every finding keeps its source, so a writer or a department can go back to it and take a question further.
Reproducing or adapting what we find needs its own permissions and legal review.
Founder
A lawyer, writer and research consultant. His work includes published writing and research for filmmakers and non-profits.
His writing and other workCo-founder and lead researcher
A multidisciplinary artist who works across the visual and performing arts.
Some briefs need another kind of knowledge: a journalist who knows a subject, a lawyer who can explain a procedure, an art director working through a period setting. We discuss those needs as part of the brief and agree who should be involved.
Start with the part you are still finding out.
Say what you are making, how far along it is and what you need to find out. You do not need a finished brief or a full script.