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Documentaries: Then and Now

by Mark Steensland

Whether you're recording your daughter's wedding or shooting tape of your mule ride to the
bottom of the Grand Canyon -- if the aim of your video is to say "This is what happened," it's
part of a tradition as old as the invention of the motion picture itself: the documentary. But in
the century since the first films flickered across the screen, the idea of what documentaries are
has changed and evolved, often becoming the result of intense artistic and political debate.
With the invention of the camcorder, documentaries have not only become even easier to
make, but -- as shown by both the Rodney King tape and such films as Roger & Me -- even more
controversial. The question for videomakers today is not so much whether or not to make a
documentary but what kind of documentary to make.

In The Beginning
Although the term "documentary" wasn't coined until 1926 by British film-maker John Grierson
in an anonymous review of Robert Flaherty's second film, Moana, the idea of capturing reality
with the movie camera was synonymous with its birth. The first films, most barely more than a
minute in length, were documentaries in the strictest sense of the term. Record of a Sneeze and
Workers Leaving A Factory, both made in 1894, were as simple and straightforward as their
titles suggest. Their goal -- to show reality as the eye perceives it: in one continuous, albeit short,
stream.

During their first six years, motion pictures did little more than lengthen. Although their running
times increased to two or three minutes, their purpose remained the same: to show audiences
events they might not be seeing otherwise.

Then, in 1903, with the invention of editing, the first major change in film-making occurred.
Editing allowed the film-maker to alter what audiences saw, to change events on the screen for
any reason -- to shorten or lengthen the running time, to offer different views, to rearrange the
chronological order. This gave birth to the fictional story film and, after eight years of presenting
mostly real events, motion pictures now sought to entertain. The so-called "nickelodeon era"
sprang to life; factual films were left behind in the rush to fill nickelodeons with new, more
clever stories. Those influenced by Thomas Edison and George Melies, the inventors of editing
to create special effects (such as people disappearing) used their imaginations to help them. The
novelty of the original "living pictures" had been overshadowed by the presentation of the
fantastic.

Then, in 1910, Charles Pathe, a Frenchman, revived interest in the factual film when he created
Pathe News. Employing photographers around the globe, major events were filmed and
distributed regularly. The newsreel was born. Competition with fictional films once again
became intense. So popular were these first newsreels that four other companies leaped into the
fray: newspaper giant William Hearst, as well as several of the first motion picture studios in
Hollywood -- Universal, Paramount and Fox. Newsreels suddenly rivaled newspapers.

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A Landmark and a Milestone

For the next eleven years, films again lengthened. The term "feature" was born to distinguish the
film of four or more reels from the "short" films of only one or two reels. Then, in 1921, the
development of the non-fiction film took another giant leap forward with the release of
Mannahatta.

Called "a kind of camera poem," Mannahatta, named after a Walt Whitman poem, was a portrait
of New York City on film. Using editing and camera angles, the goal of Mannahatta was not to
provide a record of reality, but to create an artistic impression of a city. Although largely unseen
in the United States, Mannahatta had a major impact in Europe and influenced a number of film-
makers to attempt similar productions.

Just one year later, in 1922, what many consider the first true documentary appeared: Nanook of
the North. Made by Robert Flaherty, an American explorer, Nanook took one year to shoot and
six months to edit. Appearing at a time when Hollywood films were obsessed with low-brow
subjects, Nanook offered a window into a distant and opposite reality. Around the globe, Nanook
affected almost everyone who saw it.

After Nanook
So impressed were so many people with his film that Paramount Pictures hired Flaherty to make
a second, this time in the South Seas. The result was Moana, released in 1926. But at the same
time that Flaherty was working on Moana, a second group of film-makers were developing
projects influenced by Mannahatta. Their goal was to be more artistic. Russian film-makers such
as Dziga Vertov combined elements from the early Edison and Melies films with those of the
newsreels to create still more artistic representations of reality. Films such as Vertov's own The
Man With the Movie Camera and Walter Ruttman's Berlin, The Symphony of a Great City, used
laboratory techniques such as dissolves and multiple-layer printing to create such images as giant
men with cameras towering over teeming, doll-sized crowds. Thus the twin impulses of the
documentary were established.

To Stage or Not To Stage

The first type of documentary is called "Direct Cinema." This is when you and your camera are
simply present, recording the events as they happen as unobtrusively as possible. The idea
behind direct cinema involves shooting miles of footage in the hope of capturing significant
events. Direct cinema involves being in the right place at the right time and later going through
your footage to find those golden moments to piece together into a complete film.

If, on the other hand, you make your presence known, if you interview your subjects or ask them
to show you (and your camcorder) some event of importance, you are making what's known as
"Cinema Verite." The idea behind cinema verite is that you can create significant events and
therefore be sure to capture them on tape.

Today
Most documentaries today employ not only a combination of these elements and techniques, but
still others that have been developed over the past seventy years. Documentary techniques can be
seen almost everywhere you look. Switch on your cable box and channel-surf -- you'll see what I

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mean. Infomercials, the evening news, docudramas. Feature films employ "hand-held" cameras
in order to heighten the sense of reality and "reality-based" shows such as Cops attract millions
of viewers. Films such as Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line which set an innocent man free and
Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisquatsi which offers a view of our lives unseen before. Clearly, in
spite of what was once perhaps a "high-brow" connotation, documentaries are more exciting and
more interesting to people now than ever before.

Pick a Subject -- Well, Almost Any Subject

The first step in making a documentary is to choose your subject. This can be as simple as
recording a family trip or as complex as investigating wrong-doing by a giant corporation. Of
course, such projects as the latter are often too difficult to pursue as a first project, so it's best to
look for something simple. Usually, this means keeping it short. When looking for subjects, look
for something that can be treated effectively in no more than ten minutes.

Perhaps the easiest subject is your own family. The reasons are obvious: they are easily
accessible and you probably know quite a bit about them, saving the need for research. Perhaps
you have a relative who fought at the Battle of the Bulge or maybe your great-grandmother is the
oldest woman in the state. If you hope to have an audience outside your family for the finished
product, make sure you look for unique stories that will interest people.

If you want a subject outside your immediate family, think of friends, people at work. You can
go further still by looking through the newspaper for subjects. These could be portraits of people
or places. Whatever your subject is, however, pick something for which you have passion. Not
only will you be spending a lot of time with your subject, chances are, if it interests you, it will
probably interest a wide audience. (See sidebar)

Treatment and Technique

Next, decide what kind of documentary you are going to make. Very often, the subject itself
suggests a treatment. For instance, the renovation of an historic building suggests employing a
direct cinema technique. After securing appropriate permission, visit the construction site with
your camcorder and simply tape -- as unobtrusively as possible -- the actions of the workers as
they occur. If, on the other hand, your subject is a man who saved a girl from drowning, you may
want to employ a more obtrusive, verite approach -- restaging the main event for the camera or
interviewing those who participated at the site where it happened.

Once you've decided on your subject and what kind of documentary you are going to make, you
should next decide what it will look like. Will you use interviews? Will you use a narrator? Will
you use archival footage or stills? Again, the subject matter often suggests the need for which
elements. In the case of the building renovation, you may want to have a narrator explaining
what the workers are doing, or you may want to interview the workers and have them tell you. In
the case of the World War II veteran, you may want to have still photographs of what he looked
like back then or you may want to show actual footage of the battle. Each of these scenarios
offers unique challenges and requires special preparation and planning. By spending plenty of
time in pre-production, carefully planning for each element you will need, you can go a long way
toward ensuring the success of your video. If you plan to use archival footage and then find out

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after you've shot everything that it's unavailable or you need to pay a lot of money for permission
to use it, you could be left with a gaping hole and no way to fill it.

Shoot Now, Not Later

Only if you know all the elements you'll need should you begin shooting. Some things are
relatively easy to complete. The shooting of stills, for instance, can be done in your home on
your own time under your complete control. Using a lightstand and your camcorder, lay the stills
flat and light them carefully to avoid glare spots. Shoot them in a variety of ways: try shooting
small sections of the photos which you can edit together later; try zooming in slowly on one part
of a photo (such as the family member's face in a large group shot) -- combined with a dissolve,
these effects add interest to sequences built from stills. Try to avoid shooting every still as
someone might see them in a photo album.

Archival footage (such as old Super-8 reels of the family at Disneyland) is even easier to use.
Many outfits offer inexpensive transfer of such footage to videotape, making it even easier for
you to select the best moments for inclusion in your final video.

When shooting on location, such as the building renovation, be sure to get a variety of shots as
well. Long shots combined with close-ups can be cut together in the editing room to speed up
processes and reveal interesting details. The same holds true even when staging events for your
camcorder. If you have only one shot of events, you will be committed to it whether you like it
or not.

Although they may seem difficult, interviews are actually easy if you follow the same rules as
above. If your subject is only shot in medium close-up, any edit will appear as a jump cut.
However, if you change the angle frequently -- after each question, say -- you can edit two parts
of answers together later into one. If you do this and still find yourself in a situation with a jump
cut, don't forget your other footage. Keep the audio from your interview but simply cover the
jump cut with a cutaway to a still or to footage shot on location.

When planning for the interview, remember to come up with questions that cannot be answered
with a simple "yes" or "no." Encourage the person you're interviewing to tell stories or explain
things. Remember -- anything you don't like can be edited out later.

Put It All Together

Once you've shot all your footage, the real challenge begins: choosing only those best elements
from everything you've gathered. In most cases, the "best" is anything crucial to telling your
story. Remember to keep the pace moving. Cut frequently between people talking and your other
elements. This helps prevent the boredom of "talking head" syndrome. When choosing non-
interview footage to show, search for only those shots with the most visual interest. This
increases the chance your audience will be glued to the screen.

Finally, hold a screening of your rough-cut and get opinions. Can your test audience hear
everything okay? Is there anything they didn't understand? Were there any shots they didn't like?
What was their favorite moment? Chances are, you've been so wrapped up in your project that
you'll need the clarity of someone else's eyes and ears to help make your video that much better.

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You, Documentary Maker

Whether making something as simple as a video of your daughter's birthday or a feature-length
project about a year in the life of a high-school, the other sure way to prepare is to watch a lot of
documentaries. Almost every video store nowadays has a documentary section where you can
find such classics as Nanook of the North and such modern films as Hearts of Darkness, about
the making of Apocalypse Now. By examining these films, you can become more adept at
learning the techniques they employ and why you find them successful or not. Then, you can try
what you've seen. Next time someone asks what you're making, you can not only tell them you're
making a documentary, you can tell them what kind of documentary you are making.

SIDEBAR

A Man and a Video Camera

According to Mark Steensland, a producer/director with Double Vision Studios in Sacramento,
California, the three most important ingredients in making documentaries are "Flexibility,
flexibility and flexibility."

"You can start with an idea of what you want to make," says Steensland, "but you must be
prepared to allow the project to become something else." As a prime example of this, Steensland
cites the Errol Morris film The Thin Blue Line. Morris started making a film about a psychiatrist
nick-named "Doctor Death," whose testimony had resulted in the prosecution of a number of
criminals. While interviewing some of those who had been convicted -- in part, at least -- by
Doctor Death's testimony, Morris encountered a man who claimed innocence for the crime he
had committed. On closer examination, Morris believed the man's story and made a film about
him instead. The result was the man's release from prison. "True, that's an extreme example,"
says Steensland, "but it makes the point well. One of the great things about making a
documentary is the chance to have something like that happen -- to learn something new."

As an example of this from his own experience, Steensland cites a recent project, a ten minute
video about the 50th anniversary of a local concrete company.

"I had no knowledge of concrete whatsoever when I went into making this project." Because of
that, says Steensland, the program offered a unique challenge and a unique outcome.

"It was a real investigation for me. Going out to the plant and following the trucks on jobs,
taping each phase as I learned about it. I think it helped in the final edit of the program because
I'm showing all this stuff about concrete that a lot of the audience probably doesn't know as
well." The end result? A much more interesting video.

Asked to name the fourth most important ingredient in documentary videomaking, Steensland is
quick to respond: "Simple. Your interest in the subject. How you feel about a subject will come
through, whether it's good or bad. If you don't like it, that's probably the way your audience will
feel, too."

-- E.L.

Documentaries: Then and Now