When are documentaries not movies?

[Peter Copestake]

It appears that the great David Attenborough, among others, wishes to redefine 'documentary' when he said that the inclusion of what, in another context, might have been called a 'library' shot or even a 'laboratory sequence', was justified because he was making a 'movie'. His supporters are right in saying documentaries have often included such shots in the past but I think they used to be accompanied by a phrase such as "in the laboratory we can see...".

Does a documentary have to be 'entertaining'? Can it not be just 'instructive' or 'interesting'?
Or do we need a new word for this sort of film? Or is the word 'reportage' the one to use? Or is that only for events?

I have tried to make films about people and occupations that could not cope with a hoard of visitors who could not anyway see as much detail as the camera can give, but that, when they have watched the film, the audience knows more about the person or technique than they did before in the hope that they found it as interesting as I did when I saw the real thing. On more than one occasion this has meant several visits when the pros have wanted a process that takes days or weeks to be shown to them in a few hours, which is why we get such superficial treatment of serious things on TV, perhaps.

I hope the 'entertainment' comes from it being a pleasure to watch, but evidently one person's pleasure is another one's boredom.

[Dave Watterson]

Hitchcock said: "In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director."
That is a neat summing up of the notion that documentary films should attempt to tell the truth in as plain and unvarnished a way as possible.

John Grierson noted: "We believe that the materials and the stories taken from the raw can be finer (more real in the philosophic sense) than the acted article." But he also recognised that the film maker had to be selective ...

Robert Flaherty said "Sometimes you have to lie to tell the truth. "

The reports that some footage shot in a zoo was included in the latest BBC wildlife series touched a nerve. (It was never a secret ... the "investigative journalist" who reported it had seen it on the DVD Extras!) The public want to believe that everything in a documentary is absolutely true.

Most wildlife films have to cheat. Take cameras to the Amazonian basin and look for life in the brackish water ... it is there but you cannot see it through the murk. So companies fly in large glass tanks, set them in the swamps, fill them with clean water and add earth, plants, rocks, insects and fish to match the surroundings. Voila: the cameras can record the aquatic life.

As he says, Peter's own fine documentaries are sometimes assembled from views which no one person on a single visit could see. (I call that the here's one I prepared earlier trick - a device beloved of old tv cooking shows.)

What I am unsure about is how we handle documentaries which adopt a position on something. Was Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth showing truth or was it propaganda? Thanks to decades of BBC policy of trying to be balanced in all reporting, Britons are sometimes surprised by films which do not always show the other side/s of a question. Yet even the BBC really only tries hard at balance when covering politics at elections.

Dave

[TimStannard]

Does a documentary have to be 'entertaining'? Can it not be just 'instructive' or 'interesting'?

Peter, are you implying that the use of the library or specially constructed shots made the film less instructive or interesting? If so I disagree - in fact I believe the reverse is true.

I also don't agree that this makes the film any less of a documentary - indeed seeing the mother caring for her cub close up gives far more insight than a long shot of the bear's "nest" and a voice-over simply describing what we cannot see (how many amateur documentaries have we sat through where that's exactly what happens?)

When we see documentaries about the cosmos, the ancient planet or quantum mechanics, do we feel cheated that the fantastic graphics we get shown are no more than an artistic interpretation based on in some cases real photography and in others no more than our current best guess of what things might look like? Of course not. The line between genuine and artificial becomes blurred as we become further from the subject in scale, distance, or time. At least with the Frozen Planet we were seeing real animals.

I happily admit when I first heard about this I felt badly cheated. I felt Sir David should have stated the footage was not from the same event as we'd been watching.

However, I can see that this would have broken the flow of the film.

Subsequently I have reached the opinion that it was entirely justified. The series is about how plants and animals cope with life in freezing conditions which is what it portrayed, presumably accurately. Had the series been a documentary about Sir David Attenborough's visit to the locations then this most definitely would have been cheating. Subtle difference, but a difference none the less.

In summary, I feel the inclusion of such shots made the film more informative, not less. If it happened to make it more entertaining as well, then so be it.

On the broader issue, I think it is the duty of every filmmaker making for a general audience to make a documentary "entertaining", though not, I hasten to add, at the expense of accuracy.

You've opened up a fascinating topic Peter - and Dave's "how should we handle documentaries that adopt a position" broadens it even more. Great subject!

[ned c]

There are the documentaries that inform and educate like the David Attenborough productions and they are great but in my opinion the best documentaries are those that take a position and push a point of view. The Errol Morris documentaries for example where "The Thin Blue Line" got an innocent man released from prison; "Mr Death" where Fred Leuchter was allowed to expose himself as a fool and monster on camera; and then there is Frederick Wiseman; the deadpan documentaries that are allowed to say everything about a place and time letting the images tell the story to the extent that "Titicutt Follies" was banned and then caused changes in a hospital system.

The problem with the Al Gore film is that it is really a PowerPoint presentation, an ego trip for Mr Gore and it has not generated a counter argument; don't misunderstand me I agree that something is happening to the climate but there is almost no real debate about the cause and what; if anything; to do. In 1977 we made a short "Last Lines" that addressed the crumbling of the environment and suggested a drastic solution; the film caused a fist fight at a festival in Canada. That's what documentaries should be!!

Ned C

[Peter Copestake]

Peter, are you implying that the use of the library or specially constructed shots made the film less instructive or interesting? If so I disagree - in fact I believe the reverse is true.

Absolutely not; just that the justification for the use of a specially constructed shot was that it made a documentary more of a 'movie', whatever exactly that means. I think it meant that to make us believe we were 'really there' the sound effects and music (which certainly wasn't there!) had to flow over the inserted footage and that this was done not to make it more instructive but to make it more entertaining. Newborns are always good for an 'Aah'

One of the first documentaries we ever made was on the life cycle of a couple of varieties of butterflies. Though the caterpillars were in our living room I did put a bit of bird-song on over them, so I have cheated as well. DA would have had music, I think. I don't know which is worse! I could, if I'd had time, have built a stone wall to make it look as if the stinging nettles were growing where we'd first seen the caterpillars, instead using a fawn curtain as a back-cloth. A judge criticised it for not using time-lapse, though my point was - what an effort the caterpillar made to shed its last skin before pupating and the butterfly used to struggle out of its pupal case. Neither of these scenes have I ever seen on TV so I don't know how the pros do them., but I suspect they'd either have speeded them up (without saying by how much,) or slowed them down (ditto) to make them look more ... what? Entertaining?

No, my point is that the gaining of knowledge from watching a documentary is sufficient. They do not have to pretend that it's the same polar bear, elk or whatever all the way through.

re Hitchcock, David, with respect to you and him, I think
"In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director." should have a lower case g in the first instance to make the point. Certainly I have never had much control over my subjects - I've had to fit in with them, even the caterpillars!

As for documentaries as propaganda, I'm not happy with that. Investigative journalism is a different thing. I don't know where or when one draws a line, though. By making a film we imply willy-nilly that the subject is of importance, but I would like to feel that my audiences can make up their own mind how important. We made a film recently about the 'Panopticon' project near here. (Google it for more info. if you haven't seen the film). We started from the position that it was a waste of time and money and in one case at least, a blot on the landscape, but decided that without the cooperation of the people behind the project we wouldn't make much of a film so we left it to audiences to see and decide for themselves, but this too met with criticism from a judge.

Thanks for input. I've gone on a lot about my opinion but I may be mistaken and value all opinions.

[ned c]

The problem faced by all documentary makers is that of selectivity; when you cut a shot and select the juxtaposition in the edit the result is not the truth but a version of it created by the film maker. There is also the impact of those documentarians who "direct" their productions; Flaherty famously recreated activities for "Nanook of the North" and "Man of Arran". Film is essentially a story telling medium and we expect a story; we see animals on our terms, often with the messy bits left out. I shudder as I write but perhaps the most honest documentaries are those unblinking TV reality shows where we are relentlessly exposed to people behaving badly; mostly I suspect for their 15 minutes of fame.

What makes a "good" documentary? I think the answer is "people"! Nature films benefit from the presence of a person on camera to inform us; e.g. David Attenborough. Those huge BBC nature documentaries with a voice over are captivating; we gasp at the photographic achievements, but there is a sterility about them; a distance. Let's move nearer home; I hope you have seen Michael Slowe's documentaries, why are they so successful? Apart from Michael's technical skill they are about people and their lives; for a moment we enter their worlds, we share their experiences. Perhaps it's me but I find the human condition the most interesting of all and here the n-c (amateur) film maker has an advantage; there are thousands of fascinating lives out there with a story to be told. We need what I regard as the "educational documentaries" but they also can be improved by the addition of the human element; remember the steeple jack who told us about industrial things?

ned c

[Michael Slowe]

Wanting to make a meaningful contribution to this interesting thread I penned what I thought was a an erudite piece only for it to disappear into the ether when I clicked 'submit'. This has happened on more than one occasion and I wonder whether others have suffered the same fate? Maybe Dave can offer an explanation.

Documentaries are recording from life, by definition surely, but of course, selection is the key. If history was to be faithfully represented then every second of existence would have to be presented. So every reference to history is selective, someone or some authority has edited the footage, very often of course to their advantage, but it is still from life. This is what we do in making our documentaries, we select. Actually I disagree with whoever wrote that it is people who provide the interest. They do of course but I have seen (and produced) films that were documentaries in that they weren't fiction, but contained no people at all. Montages cut to music can provide great documentary material and are often very effective. I also don't think that a producer necessarily has to take a point of view. I often present a subject and deliberately don't take sides but remain quite neutral in my stance. The audience can make of it what they will, I prefer not to hector them.

As to the current controversy regarding the BBC polar bears, I think that they were justified since what they showed actually happened. I always shy away from 'staging' any action in my documentaries, if I miss it then too bad, I won't re enact it. The BBC were not re enacting, just obtaining their footage at another time from the main action. Fair enough I say.

[Jill Lampert]

This is a fascinating discussion. I am in agreement with those who think the polar bear scene was OK. I agree that it wouldn’t have been OK if the film was about what D. Attenborough saw in a frozen land.

I realise that wildlife film makers are very often not absolutely truthful. For example I believe that whenever we hear the chomping sound of lions eating meat from a carcass it’s not live sound. The sound recordist could never safely get close enough. So what we hear is either completely manufactured sound or, presumably sound taken from a lion or other animal in a zoo or similar. When I first discovered this I was rather shocked, and felt a bit cheated. But now I think about it, I see that the choice is either having no sound of the lions chomping or having what we have. I do feel that it’s cheating. But I also feel that the sound effects add to my pleasure when I watch the film. In one of my films I used the sound of a baby monkey squealing over a picture of a different baby monkey – the latter probably was squealing but either I didn’t capture the sound or the sound was unusable for some reason. Does anyone think I shouldn’t have done that???

What about this? In the current series called ‘Earthlife’, the first episode featured birds migrating. I think they were some sort of geese. We saw lots of geese flying. Great masses of them. Every now and again we’d have a rather wobbly picture from sort of birds eye view. I believe that was from a camera attached to the back of a bird. And then there were absolutely amazing tracking shots. The camera was looking at the geese from the right hand side and appeared to move with the geese flying over some big city. If you look on the website you can see that in fact those tracking shots were of a small group of the birds, and those particular birds had been hand reared, and had attached themselves to a fellow and his microlite aircraft as if he was their mother. So he was able to film them flying because they’d grown up doing this and were not disturbed by the presence of the flying machine. I don’t know whether these particular birds were migrating. But whether they were or not, I feel as though there is an element of cheating because I thought I was watching proper wild birds and in fact I wasn't. Nevertheless I loved the shots. Those birds flew exactly as their totally wild counterparts would have done. Was that cheating???

As to the point about people being what’s interesting. I think yes and no. I love Michael Slowe’s films. But I am driven wild by Springwatch because there what I want to see is animals and what I actually see is people.

[ned c]

We have to accept the fact that documentaries are dishonest and trying to set the level of acceptable dishonesty is obviously impossible. So; shot A of the polar bears is from one location shots B & C are of other bears and locations but edited together to give the impression that it is a single event; the sound of a monkey is lifted from one shot and set over another. This is entertainment, not science, for a biologist there is nothing of scientific value here. OK in nature films perhaps but how about a political documentary; what level of selective editing is acceptable there?

I saw an Imax movie about climbing Everest; amazing lugging that giant camera around in the Himalaya but in the end credits there was an aknowledgement that some sequences were shot in the Rockies. Hold on; which sequences; how much of the finished movie? As a sometime mountaineer I felt cheated; and who were those people wrapped in down suits and wearing oxygen masks; were they always the Everest climbers or actors filling in here and there in the Rockies? Suddenly the whole movie became suspect as a record of an event; it was entertainment shot and edited to appeal to a maximum audience. Is this a documentary or a form of narrative movie?

ned c

[TimStannard]

Wanting to make a meaningful contribution to this interesting thread I penned what I thought was a an erudite piece only for it to disappear into the ether when I clicked 'submit'. This has happened on more than one occasion and I wonder whether others have suffered the same fate? Maybe Dave can offer an explanation.

Not wishing to step on Dave's toes, I have suffered a similar fate several times over the years, here and on other forums. I have learned that if one is constructing a lengthy post it is wise to select all the text and "Ctrl-C" (Copy) immediately before posting, then, if the post disappears, simply hit "Reply" agains and Ctrl-P (Paste) your response. At times, if I need to take a break, I've been known to save it to notepad or Word.

I suspect the reason it disappears is either down to a time-out occurring between when you started the respnse and when you hit "Submit" and/or some other activity taking place on hat particular thread.

[Dave Watterson]

My favourite story of "dishonest documentaries" came, ironically perhaps, from David Attenborough at a conference. He showed a clip from a BBC b/w piece showing what I think were Vanuatu Land Divers. From atop tall trees, people dived headfirst toward the ground with a long vine tied to their ankle. The vine was not noticeably elastic but the tree bent to offer some bounce, so that the guys skimmed the earth rather than dying.

The government department in charge of motoring asked for a copy which was duly given to them. Later the film makers learned that the government scientists were drafting regulations for seat-belts in cars and studying the amount of impact a human body could take. The filmers had to rapidly tell the scientists they had only had one camera and so the "dives" they showed were reconstructed from shots of several different dives edited together and could not be assessed as scientific evidence!

[Referring back to Michael Slowe's problem and Tim's post which arrived as I was writing this - about losing what he typed in to the forum ... we have had one or two people over the years mention this, but have not been able to reproduce the problem. I suggest that if you are writing a long piece you use the "Save draft" button from time to time.]

[Willy]

[Referring back to Michael Slowe's problem and Tim's post which arrived as I was writing this - about losing what he typed in to the forum ... we have had one or two people over the years mention this, but have not been able to reproduce the problem.

I had the same problem a few times. I thought it was my own fault. What a relief! Many thanks Michael, Tim and Dave. Now I know I was not the only one. I know my messages are sometimes (too) long.

Wow! Amazing! Fantastic! Wonderful! Unbelievable Extraordinary! Spectacular! That's what people said about 15-20 years ago after having seen the film "Mantis Religiosa". I translated the film for an international Festival. The country was still called Burma I remember. I am sure there were many mistakes in the text. Now I know someone who always helps me. I am very grateful to him.

Writing the following sentences I looked at Wikipedia from time to time.

He ate his own wife!
Back to "Mantis Religiosa". They are called like this because of their typical 'prayer-like' stance. They are sometimes confused with grasshoppers. Most species are known to engage in cannibalism which happens most frequently during mating season. They are ambush predators waiting to prey to stray.

The filmmaker went to the South of France and caught some mantises. He put them in a terrarium and observed them. He filmed the draconic animals. Using a macro-lens they look awful. In his documentary you could suddenly hear a loud bang! The rascal - I mean the mantis - he attacked his own wife and ate her up! Terrifying! At that moment there was a strong crescendo in his music.

The filmmaker has been successful for years and years thanks to his inventiveness and his research. His films are always award winning films.

Dave said something like "In documentaries god is the director". "In fiction films the director is god." In most cases that's right. However, don't you think that this documentary maker is also very creative and always tries to create entertainment (also thanks to his superb photography)?

Gannets bite!
I also remember the film "Sula Bassana". Made in the late seventies or early seventies. I was fascinated. How could he have filmed those thousands of gannets I wondered. Having climbed all those seacliffs? Not possible! I had my doubts. The gannets were gliding gracefully up in the sky. They even looked like kites. The filmmaker took some close ups. You could almost see his own reflection in the pupils of a gannet's eye.

Some years later I found found out where he had filmed everything. On Bass Rock near North Berwick in Scotland. It only takes 15 minutes to get there by boat. You go on land. There is a footpath. You are in the middle of thousands of crying gannets. You can even touch them. But mind : they bite!
In the middle of the action
Making documentaries is also a matter of finding the best places to take the best shots. Who does not remember Bernhard Hausberger's film "The Battle of the Oranges"? He and his wife Karin were in the middle of the action. They had managed to get a press card. His documentaries were always very informative and entertaining.

[Roy1]

I have had posts dissappear after clicking the submit button. It happened last night. I think I forgot to put a heading title in appropriate panel, Would that cause the post not to be sent? Imediately after, I sent another with the title and it appeared where it should do within a minute of clicking the submit.

[Peter Copestake]

Thanks for all contributions which have been very interesting.
I have a film to make about a textile mill.
If I left the sound at the original level audiences would need ear plugs. I suppose I shall have to 'cheat' but I think I'll tell the audience that I've done so. When I haven't on another film (Judge) Dave said he would have liked to hear what the oldest employee had to say. He wouldn't have been able to hear her! I had turned down the noise of the machinery.
Thanks all.
Peter.

[Roy1]

slightly off tangent but all the television news channels having been cheating for years by prentending they have reporters all over the world reporting live from the scene. Most of the time the reporter is in the studio using Green screen. Sometimes it's quite noticable when the reporter is supposedly in Russia where all the people in the background are breathing out steam( for a better word) and the reporter is standing there with nothing coming from his mouth but steam. Nobody complains about this deception so why worry about harmless deception in wildlife films. To my mind an interesting film is an interesting film no matter how it's made.