Following the Story You’re Creating

Posted on May 28, 2024 by Andy Cline

One of the truths of pointing a camera at any (nonfiction) situation is that the presence of the camera changes the situation. Journalists and documentary filmmakers (should) contend with this truth moment by moment as they film. As soon as you point the camera you have become a part of the story as both a live participant and as the one framing what the camera records.

Direct cinema is, therefore, something of a lie (or, perhaps, an exaggeration). It doesn’t have to be a nefarious lie (or a wild exaggeration).

The Overnighters isn’t the best documentary you’ll ever see. It’s in my top three for a very particular reason. The filmmaker became so immersed in the lives of the subjects that he’s able to capture some jaw-dropping moments of vulnerability. And in one shocking moment, I believe the main character used the fact that the camera was pointed at he and his wife to soften her reaction to a significant admission of… well, you’ll just have to watch the film 😉

Following the story you’re creating is a state of mind: The filmmaker or journalist being aware 1) that their presence (with a camera) is changing the subjects and their participation in their own stories, and 2) that the filmmaker/journalist is framing those stories and therefore telling their own story.

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Feature or Short: How to Decide

Posted on May 24, 2024 by Andy Cline

Never trust a clickbait headline like that from me. I never deliver.

Or, rather, I deliver differently and usually over more than one post.

Direct cinema — to at least some extent — is the commonality among my favorite feature documentaries. Let me watch a good story about people. Do that, and I’ll stick with you for however long.

Documentary films about issues are certainly important. I’ve made this kind of film myself. But I find that when the protagonist is the issue itself, these films can begin to drag after about 45 minutes.

Show, don’t tell.

If you can show people in human situations — e.g. overcoming adversity, achieving goals, mastering a skill, fighting the good fight — (instead of just talking about doing these things) then the length of your film doesn’t matter very much. As long as you’re otherwise doing a good job of filmmaking 😉

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Sometimes Stories Happen

Posted on May 22, 2024 by Andy Cline

The story of the story of Honeyland is interesting. The filmmakers were trying to film a documentary about the environment in North Macedonia when they discovered Hatidže Muratova and her mother living alone in a small mountain village. The plot thickened when a nomadic family arrives in the village and upsets Muratova’s wild beekeeping.

Sometimes stories happen. You have to be ready. It means not being so focused on the thing you set out to do that you miss what’s really interesting or important.

Honeyland is another excellent example of direct cinema. I continue to learn its lessons.

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Blogging Then, Blogging Now

Posted on May 21, 2024 by Andy Cline

I know much abPenout then. I don’t know much about now. And I’m not sure I care. I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for me. I’ve just identified what should be the primary audience for all creative acts.

I don’t expect you to do what people used to do: visit their favorite blogs on the web regularly and engage in conversations in the comments. Nor do I expect you to subscribe via RSS. Does anyone under 60 do that anymore?

Newsletters are the thing now… until they aren’t. Remember to tag that onto the end of any statement about what’s hot in social media. So if you’re into newsletters, just fill out the form on the sidebar. Once per week you’ll get a list of what I’ve published.

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Watching and Listening and Letting it Happen

Posted on May 20, 2024 by Andy Cline

I got a video camera in the mid 90s to capture the usual home-movie shenanigans when my child was born. I was nearing the end of my decade as a freelance magazine writer and photographer. Up to that point — including when I first started making photographs in junior high school — I was largely uninterested (much to my mother’s chagrin) in documenting family life.

I rekindled my interest in photography (for my own purposes) at the dawn of the digital age. And I moved from tape to digital video as soon as the technology (and price) allowed. I recorded all kinds of things — much of it event-centered enough to qualify as proto-documentary. On a list of goals I made around that time, I wrote “learn to make documentary films.”

Seven plus years of grad school later in 2004 I got a job teaching journalism (print and internet, including photo, audio, and video) at Missouri State University in a department that included a film program. Ten years after that I began producing my first “real” documentary film — two actually. Shared Spaces was a short that I pulled from act 2 of Downtown: A New American Dream.

Rich Hill — first on my list — struck me like a freight train. I hadn’t actually thought about how I wanted to make documentary films. The sprawling mess that is Downtown: A New American Dream demonstrates clearly what I was thinking: do journalism.

My previous post talks briefly about direct cinema. And I say that I am still on that journey. I have yet to produce my own Rich Hill. But I’m getting there step by step. You can see the progress in Witness at Tornillo and A Vietnam Peace Story.

What struck me about Rich Hill was how the filmmaker watched, listened, and let the story happen (setting aside for a moment how much a/the filmmaker’s choices in filming and editing create a/the story). No formal interviews on camera. Much of the audio is captured as life happens or in unobtrusive asides. Visual sequences are complete and telling without resorting to visual clichés. And the cinematographer does what I love best — she works closely and intimately with the subjects.

My plan is to deal with my list — and some other films — first, and then I will begin a short series of essays in which I work out my own documentary dogma.

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