Introduction
Documentary filmmaking is a practice that encompasses many different objectives, ways of working, and philosophies about media-making and even about reality itself. It is a bit of an octopus, with one foot in television, another in art practice, and another in journalism, not to mention social sciences such as anthropology. It certainly has a lot in common with its cousin, fiction filmmaking—the border that separates them is sometimes fiercely defended, while at other times it seems to disappear completely.
The debate about what constitutes documentary is as old as the form itself. We believe that it is often a useful debate, and have devoted some time in this text to the history and evolution of the form. A key concept is that documentary films are stories, but they draw their material from an encounter with reality. The desire to explore the real world, attend to real events, draw on history in the form of images old and new, sit with people and ask them questions about their lives, use tools like graphics, maps, and sound, all in the interest of telling a story about the world—all of this and more goes into any definition of documentary. As varied as their relationships to the real world are, documentary films— whether a call to action, a look at a way of life that deserves recognition, an account of an event, or a portrait of a community—can get to the heart of an issue and an audience in a way that is both passionate and cogent. Documentaries engage the heart and the intellect in a way that perhaps no other form can.
We believe the book you are holding is as thorough an introduction to the making of documentaries as you will find. In its pages, you will find discussions of everything from a CMOS sensor to tools for creating a social justice outreach plan for your film, from suggestions for ways to interact with your subjects to ideas about postproduction workflows. While this is an eminently practical book, it is not a technical manual. It is, rather, a book that believes creativity can reach its highest potential when informed by a thorough understanding of media-making techniques. It is also based on the idea that any new technology is only as significant as the new storytelling approaches it has to offer.
Speaking of technology, we have chosen to use the word “film” to refer to a documentary produced in any type of media, whether electronic, chemical, or digital. In this text, we have decided not to include film as an acquisition medium. We are aware that some documentarians are working with film because of its aesthetic possibilities, but it seems that for documentary, digital video in one form or another is the primary production medium.
Documentary Voice & Vision is based on our own pedagogical philosophy, developed over decades of teaching—often together—at Hunter College in New York City. It also draws on decades of documentary filmmaking experience, in contexts ranging from the most mainstream to the highly alternative. Our belief is that the best documentary filmmaker is one who is informed by a broad range of theoretical approaches drawn from critical theory, documentary studies, and the study of visual culture, as well as by a thorough knowledge of the history and practice of the form. Our impetus for the book was our desire to see the kind of book we would like to teach with ourselves, one we didn’t find elsewhere. We have, however, found inspiration for various parts of this book in other very insightful sources, and we have referenced them so you can consult them yourselves.
For people who are passionate about documentary film, as we are, these are heady times. When we started to write this book, we realized quickly that we were not simply putting what we knew, the content of our lectures, down on paper. Instead we were at times on a breakneck journey through a rapidly changing terrain. On the one hand, tools for making documentary films are becoming more available by the day, and new technologies are making it possible to capture images and sounds in ways that were unimaginable even five years ago. On the other hand, there is a flourishing of interest in the documentary form, as evidenced by the explosion of documentary film festivals, collectives, online communities, and more. A key reason for this explosion, we believe, is the rise of a new digital citizenship in the age of the Internet and a healthy belief in questioning the authority of traditional sources of information. More than ever, people are finding in documentary filmmaking a tool for a rich range of social expressions whether artistic, entertaining, informative, personally expressive, activist, or investigative. It is precisely in this proliferation of methods, approaches, platforms, and audiences that complex choices, as well as opportunities, lie.
The book tracks the production process closely, offering chapters on each step of making a documentary. We have devoted the first five chapters of the book to various aspects of preproduction: how to find and develop ideas in Chapter 1, and how to think about the advantages and drawbacks of different stylistic approaches in Chapter 2. Then we move on to thinking about how to structure a documentary story in Chapter 3, and how to present your ideas to others in Chapter 4. As we note, documentary practice is an engagement with real people in ways that have very real consequences, so in Chapter 5 we take a look at the ethical and legal considerations involved.
The next group of chapters looks at the production phase, from planning in Chapter 6 to the visual language of the cinema, and documentary coverage specifically, in Chapter 7. In Chapters 8 and 9, we cover the nuts and bolts of cameras and digital imaging, as well as lens optics, and the expressive capabilities of these technologies. Audio equipment and recording practices are addressed in Chapters 13 and 14. We follow with an overview of postproduction in the digital era in Chapters 17 through 22, looking at workflow, editing techniques, ways of working with archival material, and sound and picture finishing. We end with a chapter on distribution that we believe is unique in its emphasis on social impact as well as financial return.
We don’t believe there is one kind of successful documentary. Some films seek a broad audience, others a specific one. Some aim to interrogate the language of documentary, or its relation to the real; others use the immediacy of the form to expose situations around the world that need calling attention to. Still others are lyrical expressions of individual experience. But in all cases there are practices and principles makers try to adhere to. There is equipment, and ways of using it, and the people you encounter, and ways of working with them.
Documentary filmmaking is a practice with a shared culture. For the making of this book, we’ve reached out to many people. Some are friends and colleagues, others experts in the field previously unknown to us. The result is, we believe, a very up-to-date account of how documentaries are made, and of how you can make the best use of the tools available to express your creative vision.
We’re strongly aware that documentary filmmaking is a collaborative art form. We hope this book will be useful not just to people who aspire to direct films, but to those who hope to become cinematographers, sound recordists, editors, colorists, distributors, or educators. For others, making a documentary may be something they are hoping to teach themselves outside of school or the workplace. We hope this book will be a useful companion for them as well.
As of its publication date, this book is up-to-date in terms of technology and practices. However, as we note throughout the text, the methods of making documentaries, the forms that they take, the platforms they appear on, and the ways they will engage their audiences are all changing rapidly. Our companion website (www.routledge.com/cw/Anderson) will contain the book’s appendices, including examples and interactive features, and will be updated regularly.
Despite recent developments, however, we believe that many of the issues that makers engage with today are inherent to the form. With that in mind, we’ve chosen to examine a cross section of documentaries, some historically significant films that represented major paradigm shifts in the way documentaries were made and received, others because they illustrate specific points, and others simply because we like them. We’ve also used examples from our own work, not to blow our own horns but because we know why we’ve made the choices we’ve made, and can illustrate subtle ideas fairly readily. At the end of the book, you will find a listing of all the documentaries referenced, with links that will help you find them either for individual viewing or institutional purchase.
One significant area that we have not addressed is the explosion of Internet-based documentary forms. Under the banners of “expanded documentary,” “interactive documentary,” “cyberdocs,” “docmedia,” and more, the Internet and the computer have offered a range of tools that are creating rich and exciting new forms. While we firmly believe that the utopian possibilities offered by this new cyber-terrain are worth exploring, we have decided that an investigation of techniques and approaches in this area is beyond the scope of our book, except in a modest way in the area of distribution.
Documentary is a universal language, and this is something we’ve tried to keep in mind. We both live and teach in the United States, so in many ways the book is based on that experience. On the other hand, documentary making is a global practice, with exciting work and valuable traditions on every continent. From the shores of Hudson Bay to Patagonia, from the Cape of Good Hope to Lapland, documentary stories are conceived, filmed, edited, and shown. No one group or region has a monopoly on documentary filmmaking. While making and showing documentary films can present challenges everywhere, the nature of those challenges varies widely from region to region and country to country. In some places, the biggest problem is standing out from the crowd; in other areas, the problems are with offering points of view that challenge reigning authority or wisdom, while in other areas, the basic infrastructure of digital distribution and screening is lacking. But these are all obstacles worth overcoming and goals worth fighting for. The rewards of this work can be great. They include the possibility of presenting a picture of the world, or at least part of it, to an audience that wants not just to be entertained but to be informed. They also include an engagement with people about things you feel are critically important. We hope you will join us on a journey into the vibrant, challenging, and rewarding arena of documentary filmmaking.