Documentary filmmaking

Style became more pronounced in the 50s with "direct cinema," in the documentaries of Lindsay Anderson (Everyday Except Christmas) and Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson (Momma Don t Allow). This was even more the case in the "cinema verite" explosion in the documentary filmmakers of the 60s (Leacock, Pennebaker, the Maysles brothers). But no examples of the style sacrificed those original intentions—actuality, education, political goals. Also, the style crossed over into the feature film— Haskell Wexler s Medium Cool and Michael Ritchie s The Candidate. In the... 

The power of documentary films comes from the fact that they are grounded in fact, not fiction. This is not to say that they re "objective." Like any form of communication, whether spoken, written, painted, or photographed, documentary filmmaking involves the communicator in making choices. It s therefore unavoidably subjective, no matter how balanced or neutral the presentation seeks to be. Which stories are being told, why, and by whom What information or material is included or excluded What choices are made concerning style, tone, point of view, and format "To be sure, some documentarists... 

Documentary filmmakers, increasingly, offer a powerful addition to or contradiction of information presented by mainstream media. It is critical that our work be ethical and tmthful, even as it is also creative and innovative. 

Some documentary filmmakers think about structure over the course of production but don t focus on it until the/re editing. Others play with structure from the start, sketching outlines that they return to during production and postproduction, revising them and reshaping them as needed. 

Don t go out and buy a commercial screenwriting software program these are designed specifically for dramatic feature films and serve that function well, but they re of little use for documentaries. Most documentary filmmakers seem to use Word or WordPerfect (files cross these platforms without much difficulty), using them to create scripts that are formatted in either one or two columns. 

VICTORIA If you are an activist, as many documentary filmmakers are, a way to really touch people is by finding a human story. Rather than an issue piece. I watched China Blue [produced and directed by Micha X. Peled], which is about the Chinese garment industry. And they actually got inside one of the sweatshops and lived with a 13-year-old girl who works there, followed her from her hometown. It was extraordinary. 

The illusion that film performs, when it s powerful, is it gets people to confuse the experience of the film with the experience of the past—to get audiences to almost unconsciously confuse the aesthetic experience the/re having as the film unfolds with their imagination of what it must have been like to be there in the past. In a way, I think that for historical documentary filmmakers, that s the way you animate the... 

How important do you think journalism training is for documentary filmmakers ... 

This is the difference from print journalism You ll be told by reporters what the story is about documentary filmmakers are telling you what they see. My background is writing, but 1 write differently now because I ve learned a lot from documentary filmmaking. My writing s become much more visual, and pieces are constructed more like documentaries, with scenes in them. I think it makes them easier to read. 

You and Laurence Klavan have two graphic novels coming out this year, both written for middle school children. They re fiction, but one, for example, is inspired by a real-life story, the discovery of a Nazi spy ring in New York City. For documentary filmmakers whose work is sometimes compared to creative nonfiction, or nonfiction novels, the graphic novel seems like another creative model—certainly as we saw with Ari Folman s Waltz with Bashir, an animated documentary memoir. 

Some of the most successful and effective graphic novels are [grounded in] nonfiction. A lot of them are memoir. I m thinking of Palestine by foe Sacco, and Persepolis obviously has documentary elements, but it s still a memoir. And Stitches, Epileptic, A Drifting Life. They re so strongly drawn and so heightened, it s interesting for documentary filmmakers to take a look at them. They re like storyboards they re so visual. 

That s a very intriguing question I wouldn t know where to begin on that. I grew up in the U.K. and became a documentary filmmaker within the BBC, essentially. Many filmmakers from England have... 

Being documentary filmmakers, I think part of our responsibility is to be able to make people aware of history social history, racial history, economic history. Nine times out of 10, people can only deal with that history when it s in the past, 30 years, 40 years. Sometimes you ve got to jolt people a little. Because if you don t deal with what s happening now, you re just going to repeat the same problems, which we can see now in New Orleans. I think, because of Spike, that this film will have tremendous impact. It will reawaken people s outrage and fhistration at what happened last year in New Orleans. It s present history that needs to be considered, needs to be evaluated. 

Invaluable for documentary filmmakers as well as anyone who uses information and evidence to portray real events. But the value of this book goes beyond its service to storytellers the consumers of documentary films and all journalism can benefit by more fully understanding the narrative structures that we all use to construct order and meaning in the world."... 

Documentary Storytelling. That s what this book is about. It s about the story, how to convey that story eloquendy, effectively, and ethically. This book is absolutely brilliant... packed full of interviews with award-winning documentary filmmakers offering up information, advice, and wisdom you ll find interesting and useful."... 

I ve been making historical documentaries for many years, yet I learned new things from this book. This is the definitive guide for archival research for documentary filmmakers. An invaluable resource."... 

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