Documentaries - and how to do them.
Trip Start
Apr 05, 2009
1
2
Trip End
Apr 21, 2009
Auckland, New Zealand, New Zealand
Friday, March 6, 2009
I've been going to see docos in a documentary film festival this week, and we've seen the good and the bad - an excellent one in China last night - and I'm starting to re-formulate my rules for a good documentary.
- Try and show a narrative arc - a problem that gets resolved/a dream that gets squashed/a beginning that finds an end/a river that reaches the ocean.
- Don't be afraid of silence. Let the details in the pictures tell their own story.
- Talk to people. Saw a very weak doco this week that seemed to look at a foreign country through a pane of glass - it never conversed with locals. Let's hear their voice.
- Assemble facts fairly and let these put a case. Never ever tell the viewer how to interpret those facts. Don't be polemic.
Tonight I talk to Sigi the cameraman about the documentary and what we'll shoot. A week ago this was all very abstract, but now I'm visualising what the documentary will look like and feel like. I'm dreaming about it.
