One night in the historic United Artists Theater in downtown Los Angeles, I had the privilege of watching a live show put on by Ira Glass, host of the radio documentary show This American Life on NPR. Part of the show was a reflection on how he got into a career in documentary radio and learned about storytelling.  Glass has often spoken about how there are two parts to all of his stories. There’s the on-the-ground event or the “anecdote” (usually in the form of interviews) and the reflection on those anecdotes (usually in the form of his own voice over). The idea, thinks Glass, is that the audience wants to know the significance of what they are listening to, or the meaning. When he is investigating a story, and gathering his anecdotes, he always has this notion of significance or meaning in mind. This illustrates the two kinds of value at play in recording and then presenting aspects of the world (whether in radio or film), truth and meaning. As I noted above, the truth can take on various aspects, or focuses, but the task of the documentarian is to frame these events in such a way that meaning […]

A good example of point of view at work in McElwee’s films is in a 1997 film he directed for the PBS Frontline series, Six O’Clock News, wherein he explores what it is like to encounter his subjects verses observe them from afar. In the film, McElwee attempts to understand the people involved in the events he sees on the news and decides to travel to newsworthy events to meet them himself. He seeks out the husband of a woman who was murdered in a salon and the area decimated by Hurricane Hugo. He spends time with a man who was trapped in a parking structure in Los Angeles after the Northridge Earthquake. In each situation, he encounters news crews dutifully gathering their footage for the Six O’clock News, flocking to events like animals at a feeding frenzy, staging their interviews and gathering their b-roll, but then, just as suddenly, vacating the premises in order to return to the news room to get the footage on the air. Meanwhile McElwee stays behind, in an attempt to get to know the subjects. He even stays with them as they return to their living rooms and watch themselves on the Six O’clock […]

To kick off our discussion about the way in which documentaries generate power and meaning, we will be looking at how these genres arose in the history of film. Briefly, they are: actualities (simple, one-shot depictions of reality for the purpose of demonstrating the wonder of moving pictures), poetic (the meditative presentation of images juxtaposed with others in order to create a mood), expository (narrator-driven films organized like an essay, with b-roll images presented as evidence for what the narrator says), participatory (interview-based films where the subject tells the story with the help of the filmmaker), cinema verité (observational, fly-on-the-wall films presented as slices of reality with no narration or stylistic techniques), point of view (a view of the world from the perspective of the filmmaker, supplemented with the thoughts and feelings of the filmmaker through voice over) and performative (a film used as a tool for activism or change performed as an action in the world).[1] As we shall see, each of these techniques arose in part because of a perceived need to build upon or react against the techniques of the past. Filmmakers, in adopting these new techniques were, like McKee advocated, interacting with the traditions in which […]

Documentary films have conventions, styles and techniques that are used over the years and form genres. These genres comprise a set of self-imposed limitations (rules) on the way in which the filmmaker goes about gathering and presenting the material. Prospective documentarians should also be aware of where he or she stands in relationship with the conventions surrounding their filmmaking tradition.

Genres are, by definition, malleable and loosely held together, since the very things that define them, the rules and conventions, are constantly changing. In fiction film, genres can usually be identified by simply analyzing the writing conventions. Typically a screenwriter will begin a story with a certain genre in mind, and make his or herself familiar with these genre conventions before starting. This is essentially a set of self-imposed limits that a filmmaker or writer will place on his or herself. This allows the work to have a harmony as it relates to the tradition, while at the same time, come off as fresh and new. In other words, screenwriters have learned that they are not writing in a vacuum. The stories we tell have a relationship to the stories we told in the past, and the stories we will tell in the future. Recognizing this will only help the filmmaker become more adept at connecting in the desired way with audiences.

Hey all, in the spirit of author and creativity consultant Austin Kleon’s notion of “showing your work,” I thought I’d update you all on what I’m up to here in Paris.   My documentary, The Space of Our Time is about urban planning, or more specifically about how the design of our environment affects quality of life. How does it, for example, affect community, daily habits and overall happiness? Much of my high school and undergrad leisure time for example, was spent in parking lots. The project evolved into a kind of comparison between European living and quality of life relative the design of these older, more compact and organic cities, and the “modern” car−centric design of most American cities.   In the course of my interviews, I encountered a lot of people talking about a French architect named Le Corbusier, who in the 1920’s advocated for his “Plan Voisin” or “Radient City.” For this, he proposed the demolition of two square miles of downtown Paris in favor of this.     That would have been 18 glass towers (full of office space) set up on a uniform, gridlike pattern, with large swatch of grassy park area in between, and […]