|
 I
want to say something about style, execution and presentation for
the documentary film. Technique is sometimes the easiest part of the
film. Especially given that many of those involved in filmmaking
quickly become adept at using the new software that regularly
appears. For that reason many who make independent fiction films
spend more time honing the look and feel of the film, the color and
sound, the cuts, dissolves and effects, better than one would think
considering an often paucity of money. That is not the case for the
non-fiction film. Too often the documentary filmmaker seems content
to get the story finished and into the marketplace, rather than
spend additional time in making the picture crisp, the sound audible
and the effects, well, effective.
The documentary film may be the only medium where a compelling story
will matter more than, finally, how the film looks. The filmmaker
can shoot his story with a low-end camera using poor stock, `cheap
lenses and barely workable microphones. The film can come across as
if shot by an amateur. It may even have weak or suspect reporting,
and shoddy writing. But if the story is compelling and the
characters strong, those two elements alone invariably help the
filmmaker overcome the problem of something that looks like home
video or, in the old days, 8 millimeter film.
The culprit is cable where postproduction work is almost
non-existent. Postproduction costs money. Cable works on small
budgets and slender margins. Using almost video exclusively, the
final product for air looks thin, seems to have no depth, and often
has a weird patina or shine. If the producer, whether as individual
or with production house, is to make a profit, there is not much
money for what an executive for a cable network once described to me
as the niceties of film. He went on to say, the audience more
often than not does not know good from bad in a documentary anyway,
so why should we care? I thanked him for his insight and exited his
office as quickly as I could.
In television when I worked in film, we took pride in how the piece
looked when it played on the air. It mattered to us in television
that the audience deserved the best quality we could give it.
Connecting with the audience was important then, and it should be
now. Giving the viewer a palatable image, however strong, emotional
and daring, was uppermost in our minds. It still should be. Sadly,
it is not. To make something better does not interfere with
creativity. It in itself becomes a creative act. It enhances the
possibility of getting your message across to the viewer in a
compelling manner. As a producer, you need the time to give your
documentary that extra something that will link the story you are
telling to the person seeing it for the first time. But there is a
problem, especially in cable. Each day that a film lingers beyond
the usual three months it is in production, means there is less
profit for the company making it. Most cable documentaries do not
hold quality as a goal. That would be asking too much in that highly
competitive world.
In making an independent narrative film, you usually have nothing
but time. Typically, there is not much money to support your
endeavor and there is no scheduler for a cable network breathing
down your back to finish your project so it can have a slot on the
schedule. But when you are a producer for hire, you have no choice
but to conform to the will of your masters. Producing documentaries
or hybrids for cable is a world of its own. I will soon tackle that
in another column.
It is a shame that some documentary filmmakers prove lazy when it
comes to giving their work the best quality possible. I understand
too well how costly it is to enhance the color and sound. Money is
always a major consideration making an independent film of any kind.
But if you cannot hear what the characters are saying, why see the
film? If the images are fuzzy, hazy, and lack color, if the blacks
and whites and grays all seem as if they are one, the audience will
react in kind and turn from your work. I do not include the world of
video art, often subsumed under the rubric of the avant-garde, an
area filled with all the tricks of editing and shooting, but none of
the soul of a meaningful film. Just because inexpensive cameras are
available, and more recently easy to learn desktop editing, does not
mean I have to sit through an often disjointed and rambling
discourse that uses diverse and mismatched elements and images that
are only clear in the mind of its creator. I leave that criticism,
which I hope will be fierce, to art critics who seem better able to
interpret what I can only call self-indulgent juvenile drivel.
We never forgive sub par standards for a non-fiction writer, a
novelist or a poet. They, too, often create something so powerful
that we find it their work impossible to ignore. Yet, these other
artists are strongly demeaned for their efforts if in the end what
they create does not meet the standards of worthy art. I exclude
painting or sculpture because these are inanimate arts and the
stories they tell are self-contained by the restraints of physical
movement. Why give film this leeway?
Without a compelling story, there will be no documentary film. I
know that sounds simplistic. Some filmmakers compose their
documentary in the field where they shoot everything in sight and
then hope they can find the films essence in the cutting room. The
other method is to have a plan, to know your story as well as you
can before you shoot a frame of film. Be prepared for the
unexpected, though because it sometimes changes everything. Even
with a reasonably defined story, the unexpected can and should be
welcome. However, do not become mesmerized with your film because of
a compelling story, a powerful interview or a one-time image or set
of images unique to that film.
Finally, the audience, and often the reviewer, sometimes ignores
many of the elements in a film that deserve criticism, good or bad.
When critics and the audience gloss over the making of a film, they
do a disservice to that film and all future films. Form and content
must mesh. They must compliment each other. If they do not, we will
soon forget the piece as a whole, deny the art, and rarely remember
the message.
.........................................................................................................................
At NBC News for 35 years, Ron Steinman was bureau chief
in Saigon, Hong Kong and London, was a senior producer on Today and wrote
and produced for Sunday Today. At ABC News Productions, he produced
and wrote documentaries for A&E, TLC, Discovery, Lifetime and the
History Channel. He has a Peabody, a National Headliner award, a
National Press Club award, a International Documentary Festival Gold
Camera Award, two American Women in Radio & Television awards and
has been nominated for five Emmy's. He is a partner in
Douglas/Steinman Productions, whose latest documentary, "Luboml: My
Heart Remembers," aired on PBS' WLIW/21 and the History Channel in
Israel, April 29, 2003. He is the author of, "The Soldiers 'Story",
"Women in Vietnam," and most recently, "Inside Television's First
War: A Saigon Journal," University of Missouri Press, 2002. |
