Documentary Film

Documentary Film SPELLBOUND

What is a Documentary? • Films that tell stories about real events and real people using, for the most part, actual images and objects.

What is a Documentary? • They record what is currently happening in the world or explore what has taken place. • They introduce viewers to ideas, people, and experiences that otherwise might not have encountered or challenge them to question what they already know.

What is a Documentary? • Like fiction films, documentaries can be funny, moving, disturbing, thought-provoking, or entertaining.

1st Documentaries • 1895 – French Inventor Louis Lumiere developed a lightweight, hand-cranked camera that allowed him to tape daily occurrences. • Lumiere brothers • Ex: Feeding the Baby, Leaving the Factory, and Arrival of a Train at the Station. • These filmings are known as “actualities.” • Lumiere’s early works lad to modern cinema.

1st Documentaries • Actualities were extremely popular, new, and thrilling to audiences in the 1890’s. • Watching Arrival of a Train at the Station made spectators scream and dodge as the film train moved from long shot to close-up, looking as if it would burst through the screen.

Distinguishing a Documentary’s Approach • Objective Documentaries - Known as “Direct Cinema” - Attempt to record events objectively w/o manipulation or direction. - Camera records life as it unfolds in real time. - Questions are not posed on screen, usually there is no narration, and often subjects do not know of the filmmaker’s presence

Distinguishing a Documentary’s Approach • Subjective Documentaries - Also known as opinionated documentaries - A distinct point of view is presented by the filmmaker. - Often the filmmaker narrates and participates either as a voice behind the camera or appearing as a character in front of the camera.

Distinguishing a Documentary’s Approach • Some documentaries use a combination of both objective and subjective approaches.

Propaganda • Why and how do people communicate? • Inform • Persuade • Entertain • Deceive • Manipulate • And…?

Culture • Man-made patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving • American cultural values • Conservative / moderate / liberal / progressive • Self-responsibility, hard work / work ethic, family values, society preservation, religion • And…? • No ‘absence of ideology’

Fiction and non-fiction • Every act of communication has cultural elements embedded • Creator / presenter may or may not realize his / her biases • Creator / presenter may or may not be trying to reinforce a particular ‘moral of the story’ • No ‘absence of ideology’

Structure of a Documentary • A documentary can be arranged chronologically OR it can move back and forth in time, if doing so is the best way to make a point or illustrate a theme. • Sometimes there are A/B stories, also called parallel structure

REAL vs. STAGED • Though documentaries are intended to be “real,” filmmakers have been known to fake (stage) scenes when real footage was not compelling or did not exist. • Ex: Documentary – Nanook of the North – was the first full length documentary about a group of Inuits living on the coast of the Hudson Bay near the Arctic Circle. • Much of the documentary was restaged traditional activities of the Inuit people, like whale hunting.

Documentary Categories • Political • Dramatize issues and their implications for society; contribute to political debate • Political documentaries walk a fine line between advocacy and propaganda • Ex: Fahrenheit 9/11; Critics Consensus: Extremely one-sided in its indictment of the Bush administration, but worth watching for the humor and the debates it will stir.

Documentary Categories • Historical • Explore a past event or period of time or the life of someone who lived in the past • Archival photos, letters, and face-to-face interviews with historians and scholars are some of the sources historical documentarians draw on. • Ex: 4 Little Girls (integration battles) • Again, note point of view (ideology)

Documentary Category • Situational/Cultural/Natural World • Help audience understand the world they live in. • Our approach this semester • Ex: Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, Spellbound • What categories do the documentaries you’ve seen fit?

Making a Documentary • Documentaries employ many of the same devices as fiction films to hold attention. • Story • Point of view • Structure • Cinematography • Editing • Music

Making a Documentary • All documentaries require a strong story and must have structure. • Beginning • Middle • End • Compelling characters • Emotional impact • Not always a happy ending

Chapter One says • Like Hollywood fiction, these films may emphasize • Character • Conflict • Rising stakes • A dramatic arc • Resolution

Making a Documentary • Narration – off-camera commentary- is used to voice written material • To join together visual images and interviews • To provide transitions between scenes or to set the stage for a scene • To indicate re-enactments • Narration is often completed after the film is in final stage to ensure the words and pictures work together.

credit Some of previous information from YMI – Young Minds Inspired – in cooperation with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Documentary Storytelling – our text Chapters 1 and 2: Research & Writing Overview

A surprisingly large number of people, including documentary filmmakers, will strive to differentiate the nonfiction films they enjoy (and make) from something they've stereotyped as “documentaries.” • Documentaries, from the reputation they seem to hold, are the films some of us had to watch during fifth grade history or eighth grade science. Sometimes derided as “chalk and talk,” they tended to be dry, heavily narrated, filled with facts, and painful to sit through. Perception…

So ingrained is this model, it seems, that inexperienced filmmakers still imitate it, creating films that are little more than illustrated research papers created to “show” or “prove” something through a steady recitation of data. • So, nonfiction films that work—that grab and hold audiences through creative, innovative methods— are set apart by their makers and audiences as being somehow more than documentaries: they're movies. Perception…

We are doing some topics that are relatively easy to gather material about – as an introductory class, we’re not trying to create a masterpiece • BUT, our text will guide us toward learning good, effective storytelling, that uses techniques of narrative filmmaking to tell compelling nonfiction stories Starting Point…

Like Hollywood fiction , these films may emphasize character, conflict, rising stakes, a dramatic arc, resolution. • They bring viewers on a journey, immerse them in new worlds, explore universal themes. • They compel viewers to consider and even care about topics and subjects they might previously have overlooked. Like Hollywood…

They are based on a single and powerful premise: These stories, and the elements with which they are told, are true. • In other words, they're documentaries. Unlike Hollywood…

Michael Moore has an agenda. • CNN may have a bias. • The History Channel may be interested in ratings and profits. ‘Pseudo-documentaries’

An Apparent Subject and a Deeper Subject • Released from the Journalistic Requirement of Timeliness • Tells a Good Story • Contains a Sense of Reflection on the Part of the Author • Shows Serious Attention to the Craft of Film Storytelling Five characteristics that make nonfiction writing creative

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? Subjectivity

Story Basics Chapter Two

At its most basic, a story has a beginning, middle, and end. • It has compelling characters (or questions), rising tension, and conflict that reaches some sort of resolution. • It engages the audience on an emotional and intellectual level, motivating viewers to want to know what happens next. • Not necessarily distinguished from the commonly used term narrative to describe only works of dramatic fiction. • Most documentaries are also narrative, which simply means that they tell stories.

Exposition -- the information that grounds you in a story: who, what, where, when, and why. It gives audience members the tools they need to follow the story that's unfolding and, more importantly, it allows them inside the story. Storytelling

Theme -- In literary terms, the general underlying subject of a specific story, a recurring idea that often illuminates an aspect of the human condition • News ‘story focus’ Storytelling

Arc -- refers to the way or ways in which the events of the story transform your characters--in documentary films, they can be hard to find Storytelling

Plot and Character – A character-driven film is one in which the action of the film emerges from the wants and needs of the characters, while in a plot-driven film, the characters are secondary to the events that make up the plot. • Good stories have good character development. • Plot refers to ‘the things that happen in the story.’ Storytelling

Point of View -- the perspective, or position, from which a story is told, but can also be used to describe the perspective of the camera, including who's operating it and from what vantage point. • Objective, Presentational, Subjective / POV shot Storytelling

This story is about somebody with whom we have some empathy. • This somebody wants something very badly. • This something is difficult, but possible, to do, get, or achieve. • The story is told for maximum emotional impact and audience participation in the proceedings. • The story must come to a satisfactory ending (which does not necessarily mean a happy ending). A Good Story Well Told

Who (or What) the Story Is About • The somebody is your protagonist, your hero, the entity whose story is being told. • Your hero can, in fact, be very “unheroic,” and the audience might struggle to empathize with him or her. • But the character and/ or character's mission should be compelling enough that the audience cares about the outcome. • The central character doesn't necessarily need to be a person.

Documentary Film