Documentary Films: Change as a Result of the Adaption and Advancement of
Technology in Documentary Films
Marshall DeMeritt
Senior Thesis
December, 2009
Shepherd University
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The Beginnings of Documentary Film
Documentary films, from the beginning of their existence were focused on
showing the “raw material of actuality.” (Beattie; 10) These films have been
known to stand for something and not only tell a story, but also teach a lesson.
Not necessarily the lesson that you would expect to be taught from a self-help
video, but a lesson of historical and/or social significance. It could be a
documentary on the Civil War, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, or a
hometown Fire department showing off the changes and obstacles they have
overcome in the two hundred-plus years of their existence. Documentary films
have been produced in order to show the effects of McDonalds sandwiches on
the human body, to belittle the political foundation of our country, or to show the
different religions and belief systems we attach importance to in our society and
culture. When documentary films made there way into the mainstream media,
they had a representation of telling the truth and nothing but the truth.
Documentary films draw on the past; therefore, they are immediately, in most
cases, making a claim of truth. “Of course, saying that a documentary
representation makes a truth claim is not the same as saying that it presents the
truth.” (Beattie; 10) These films are respected. These films are admired, and
these films tend to live on. When I entered Shepherd University in 2005, one of
my first production classes in the Mass Communications department was
Documentary Journalism. As a senior, I look back over my years at Shepherd,
and this class had a huge effect on me. As ironic as it may be, I did not do well in
that class; finishing with a “D,” yet this class is one that I will never forget. In the
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course, we were challenged with not only studying the culture of documentary
films but also with making a documentary film. I fell in love.
Documentary films have changed over the years not only as a result of society
changes, but also at the hands of technology; that same technology is
responsible for the advancement of documentary films.
Since the days of Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North, the first
documentary produced in1922, documentary films have been changing and
adapting. The fabulous things about documentaries, as Keith Beattie says, are
that documentary productions encompass remarkable representations of
surprising realities. Documentaries have given insight into realms of this world
that few will ever have the chance to first handedly look into and study; with the
medium of documentary film, many can now learn about such realms.
Documentary films began to adapt when scholars began to expect certain ideas
and layouts to come across in the works. The media theorist John Corner has
outlined three different frameworks for academic interest in documentary. Corner
has noted that, ‘a great deal of clear and focused thinking about the nature, form
and function of documentary work has developed from’ learning the basic
documentary film techniques. (Corner; 124)
The Truth Behind Documentary Film
“Documentary can be defined, generally, as a work or text which implicitly
claims to truthfully represent the world, whether it is to accurately represent
events or issues or to assert that the subjects of the work are real people.”
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(Beattie; 10) When you sit to watch a film in the documentary genre, you expect
the truth. There is a moral ‘contract or bond of trust between the producer and
viewer.” (Beattie; 11) This is a contract that is held fast among the producers of
documentary films, and it is a perceived negatively when this code is broken. In
1996, The Connection producers made this mistake. The Connection was a
British documentary produced for airing on ‘Britain’s commercial channel 3.’
Carlton Television, the producers, was fined two million pounds (3.2818 million
U.S. dollars) for using professional actors and not labeling the scenes within the
documentary as reconstructions. “It is the implicit duty of every documentary
maker to stand by the accuracy of the film’s claim to truth. (Kriwaczeck; 42) This
phenomenon is called ‘situational cues’ or ‘indexes.’ At the time of the first
documentary films, photographs were believed to be as authentic as if the object
were directly before the eyes of the viewers. The saying went, “the camera
cannot lie.” (Beattie; 13) The philosopher Charles Peirce argued that the
photograph is made under circumstances in which it is ‘physically forced to
correspond point by point to nature.’ (Nichols; 149) However, we are working with
film. “The interpretation and manipulation of reality occurs at all stages of the
documentary process”, says Keith Baettie in his book, Documentary Screens.
Beattie goes on to say, “The presence of a camera and sound and lighting
equipment is likely to affect the world as being filmed in multiple direct and
indirect ways as much as a simple rearrangement of furniture to accommodate a
film crew in a tight space, to alterations of behavior in which subjects ‘act’
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naturally for the camera.” This phrase, taken from a book, does not even mention
the editing process, this once again skews the film.
Discoveries of Personal Experience
Over a year ago, I embarked on a mission to portray the Shepherdstown
Fire Department in a documentary film. The department was planning a “Over
200 Years of Service by trained Volunteers” ceremony and I was going to
produce of documentary that covered briefly the entire existence of the
department. I started my project as any other would, a storyboard (with the
exception of producers such as Werner Herzog). While storyboarding my film I
laid out just how I felt that I wanted the film to go. I would start with an emotional
title scene followed by a historical segment that covers the department from
foundation all the way through present times. After I laid the foundation for the
film I would then dive into a segment on a historical figure of the department.
Chief D. L. Morgan was fire chief for almost fifty years. He was a huge part of the
department and therefore I decided to honor him with his own segment. After the
history sections I would take the viewer through what they may see on an
emergency call. I then did a segment on Emergency Medical Service and the
implementation of that into the department. I decided I would end the film with a
segment on the community. And to end the documentary I would again pull on
heartstrings and have an emotional ending.
This was all in my head. The problem came to putting it on paper. This
thesis paper is meant to summarize what I have learned as an undergraduate
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student. I can tell you one thing I learned, I do not like storyboards. I tried to
storyboard this film, and it fell apart. I cannot draw for one thing. I also got the
impression that the storyboard would hold me back. I felt tied down by the
storyboard so I decided to not do it. This did cause problem when I got to the
editing of my raw footage, but we will discuss that in more detail later.
Documentary Style’s and Modes
“Style in documentary is rarely used for its own sake as technical virtuosity
or ornamentation; dominantly, it is deployed to develop a work’s perspective and
to convey information.” (Plantinga; 147) This being said, stylistic features in
documentary films are not universal. Each creator or producer will bring in their
own styles and there own way of doing things; this gives each of their
documentaries their own feel. However, there have been laid out some unique
and at the same time general ways of including your audience into your films.
According to Corner, imaginative relationship is when the narrative of the realistic
fiction is designed to engage imaginatively (and selectively) with viewers’
perceptions of the real world and what can happen in it. He continues,
observational realism produces the effect that what you are seeing is a record of
reality as it unfolds. This style strongly suggests that the events we are
witnessing are beyond the intervention or control of the film crew. This gives the
impression that the events we see on screen are what would have happened no
matter what. Expositional realism is a style that closely aligned with commentary
and the expository mode.
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Nichols defined five modes of documentary representation: expository,
observational, interactive, reflexive, and performative. These five modes can
either work together or they can stand-alone. They are not mutually exclusive to
one work or even to one section of one work. They all can work together to
provide the viewer with an amazing viewing experience.
The first of Nichols modes is the expository mode. The expository relies
heavily on commentary in the form of intertitles or voice-over narration to give
meaning to the film and to construct and maintain authority. This mode was
extremely common in documentaries in the 1930’s produced in the united
Kingdom. This is where we get the idea for a male, deep, authoritarian voice, to
tell you what happened and why it happened. So-called “voice of God
commentary.” (Beattie, 21) This mode takes some of the visual meaning away
from the film and relies more heavily on the voice. From a production standpoint,
this would mean that you do not have to rely so heavily on the video telling the
story, as you have to rely on the video going along with what the audio voiceover is stating. In my documentary I did not use this mode.
The observational mode of documentary production, according to Nichols
is “when the camera becomes a fly on the way.” This mode really took off after
the synchronization of audio and video. When a portable camera was able to
capture sound as well, you could see things from a new and improved light. You
began to feel as though you were in the room with the people you were watching.
The angles and the audio all gave you this feeling of being in the room, just like a
fly on the wall.
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The third mode of the five is the interactive mode. This is the mode I used
the most in my production of a documentary. The interactive mode, I would
argue, is the most used mode in documentary films. This is when you stress
dialogue and you use the verbal testimony of subjects in your documentary to tell
you the story. I used this mode frequently in my documentary. In the set-up of the
entire documentary, you have a character telling you through dialogue how
important this department is to the people of the community. In the second
sequence you have an expert telling you the story of how Shepherdstown got
their first fire engine, and how we are still using fire engines today. In the second
segment you have experts telling you how the previous chief of Shepherdstown
lived his entire life to serve fellow man. In the next segment you have an expert
telling you how Shepherdstown started Emergency medical services, and last but
not least in the final segment you have exerts telling you that the department will
continue to change and adapt to the changes of the community we serve. This is
an extremely effective way get a story across, and tell the truth holding yourself
to that burden of truth along the way.
It is not just having the experts that make the interactive mode a success.
It is also the framing of the shots. The person deemed to be the expert; in the
case I will discuss, Mike Athey, is framed against a backdrop that gives him
credibility. In many cases if you were interviewing a police officer, you may have
the state seal or something over his or her shoulder. In my case, I used a cutout
of firefighters with an SVFD on the back of the coat, signifying that this guy
knows about Shepherdstown Fire Department. The backdrop must give the
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subject a sense of authority in the matter. You are using visual stimuli to give the
audience a feel that this guys needs to be listened to.
In my documentary, I did a good job of framing the majority of my subjects
with the cutout behind them. However, later in the film, I use a subject that has a
blank wall behind him. This gives the subject no authority on the matters of which
he was speaking. As you watch the film you can notice that he does not grasp
your attention and respect the way other do. In order to correct this issue, I reshot the segment with him, still the blank, white wall, but I placed a white
fireman’s helmet on the table beside him and this gives him some authority on
the matters that he is speaking on. It relates him to the department and gives the
viewers a reason to watch and pay attention to him. Another reason the previous
subjects in the documentary appear to be more authoritarian that this subject is
that in the case of the mode of interactivity, it give them more credibility of they
look as though they are on a specially framed and constructed set. This majority
of my subject gets that feel. The backdrop and such is well lit and has details that
look as though the set was constructed for them. In the case of the blank, white
wall, it is obvious that the set is just a room with a camera set up.
The fourth of Nichols Modes is the reflexive mode. In this mode the film
make does not try to hide them. They show you the impact they have on what
you are seeing. They let you see how they disturbed the mother bird’s nest in
order to get a look at the baby birds sleeping. This is a way that the filmmaker
can bring you into the film itself. In my film there wee no segments where it was
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important to bring myself, the filmmaker, into the shot. Everything was done on a
interactive or performative mode.
This brings me to the fifth mode that Nichols defined for documentary films; and
that is the performative mode. This mode takes you the documentary and
pushes it way from its roots and towards the realm of cinema. This is where you
show action to get the point of your documentary across. If you were telling a
story of war, you take the viewer through war. In my case, I used this mode in
two areas of my documentary. I used it first to take you into the life of a fire
fighter in Shepherdstown. I used this mode to get a high action, intense scene
built into the film. I show the viewer putting out a fire and the tools they use to do
this. I also use this mode later in the film to give a spotlight on the life saving
work the department does. When the victim of the car crash is being treating for
his injuries, I show this using a performative mode. It looks like it was taken out of
a cinema style narrative film, but yet it is a perfectly acceptable way to gain
involvement into your documentary film.
Technology Provides a Reason for Change
Now that we have explored the beginnings or the origin of documentary
film dating back to the days of Nanook of the North, we can now look more
closely at how technology has improved documentary film. The number one way,
in my opinion, that documentary has been improved by the increase in
technology is that it has become an assessable medium for many filmmakers.
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Due to technological increases, documentary films can be shot, edited, and
produced by aspiring filmmakers without a budget at all.
The latest documentary I produced I did with a budget of $0.00. And
remarkable I was only in the hole for the cost of tapes and DVD’s. The
technology of cameras has made a huge impact on the documentary filmmaker.
In the days of the first films, cameras were not moveable. They were stationary
objects that the action had to accommodate. Now, with the improvements,
cameras have become as commonplace as a pair of shoes. We have cell phones
that will shoot in better, bigger quality than that of the cameras that Eisenstein
and Flaherty were using at the beginnings of their respective careers. The
camera that I use for my productions is a small, inexpensive camera that is easy
to use and maneuver. However, with technology comes draw backs and
problems arise as well. The fact that people are using a camera that is not
“studio grade” brings on an entire new area of issues, such as sound.
Sound is the number one area that young aspiring filmmakers such as
myself stumble. It is extremely hard to get good sound. If you use the built in
microphone on the handheld camera, you tend to get a hum, and hear the noise
from the entire 100 square foot area in which you are shooting. You can upgrade
to a lapel mic or a boom microphone (as I did in my productions) but you then run
into a problem with the input in the camera. It can be cheap and therefore you
still get a hum or connection noise.
Technology improvements have made these noise disturbances easier to
handle as well. Technology has provided filmmakers with rather inexpensive
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programs that are designed just for this purpose. In my experience, this has been
my number one problem. I cannot seem to produce film that is totally without this
annoying hum or drone. Parametric equalization is a fascinating technological
improvement that has aided filmmakers in removing these distracting sounds from
their films. The technology of parametric equalization does a number of things to
your sound file. This phenomenon offers “vernier control of frequency and amplitude,
and coherent control of "Q" or shape. It is suitable for automatic voltage control, and
finally it improves transient and phase response by the use of all-active RC circuitry
which also eliminates parasitics.” (Massenburg, 121) To put this into laymen’s terms,
parametric equalization give the sound designer the ability to find the Megahertz
range of the hum and destroy it. My destroy it I mean, remove it completely from the
mix leaving the higher and lower frequencies in tact as to not disturb the quality of
sound, but rather improve it by removing the irritating hum or buzz. Using this
system, standard on programs such as ‘Sound Track Pro’, you can actually see the
decibel range and the MHz range with which you are working, as seen in the picture
below.
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Parametric equalization has opened a new window into sound design for not
only the filmmaker but also for the garage bands and the game designers. This
technology has improved documentary film and other types of film.
In my production experience, I used parametric equalization to the best of my
abilities to withdraw from the sound files the hum and buzz that were accompanying
the sound. As I mentioned before, I believe the sound problems were a result of bad
connections and cheap video systems. Some day, perhaps, I will be able to afford a
system that is external and will not have the likelihood of these issues.
Technology has also improved documentary films in the availability of a
medium on which to show your work. DVD’s have made it so easy to burn and
distribute your work. They are economically friendly in the way they last, and they
are easy to use. In the past, you would have to produce your film on film strips or, if
you were able to produce the film on a computer operating system, you would then
have to run a VHS recorder from your system. Now, with the improvements of
technology, the operating system you produce your work on, can immediately
transfer that work to an acceptable medium for viewing.
Computers have become a necessity when producing a low budget film. You
can now, thanks to technology, purchase a home computer and when you remove it
from the box, you can immediately produce a film of any caliber. Even on a PC,
running various form of windows you will find, ‘MovieMaker’. If you purchase a Mac,
known for its intuitiveness, you can find, out of the box, ‘iMovie’. Personally, I was
able to spend the money a purchase the Final Cut pro Suit. This software system
comes with every program you could need to do everything from sound design to
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basic video editing, to green screen effects, to burning and authoring a DVD.
Technology has played a huge, and vital role on the documentary film industry.
Besides sound, the next largest issue with technology I had was that of
lighting. With the new lights that are available in today’s market, it is easy to light
from every angle and to shed light on everything. This does, however, give the
appearance of shadows. Shadows are a huge visual nuisance. I used a large set of
lights to fill the room, and I tried my best to backlight the interviewees. I ran into
some problems with this washing out the subjects of my film. However, technology
played an important role in fixing this issue in the final version of my film as well.
Programs such as Final Cut pro, have built into the software a color correction
device. If there is a way to get rid of the shadows all together, I do not know what it
is, however, using color correction, you can bring to the surface and correct any
lighting issues you may have. Below is a screen shot of the Final Cut pro Color
correction system.
In my own experience of producing a documentary film, you must take into
consideration the technological advances that your competitors will be using as well.
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The advances that have been discussed in the preceding paper are extremely
beneficial. In order to fully develop your documentary film, you take the technologies
that have been developed to benefit the filmmaker and you adapt those technologies
to the uses and desires you need. The fabulous thing about the technologies
discussed is that each can stand alone, and each can be used in part with the other.
In every circumstance, you may need each of these. Some of your video files will
need some color correction, some of your audio files may need some parametric
equalization, but you can use these things sparingly or across the board.
Using the small, handheld camera, you may find that the footage is shaky.
This is fixable as well, whereas at one time it was almost impossible to correct an
issue such as this. If you look at a documentary that was shot a hundred years ago
on a handheld camera you may find the film is shaky. Today, you upload your film
into a program such as final cut pro and you can add a filter to your footage that in
the Final Cut system is known as “steady cam.” Steady cam works by taking your
footage and moving the entire image around in your viewer in order to make the
footage appear less shaky. This gives even the worse footage a cinema grade
steadiness and allows for some errors in camera movements. This is another
technology that improved my footage tenfold. As I recall the footage I shot, I did a lot
of “walking footage.” I was able to take this shaky footage, upload it into Final Cut
and run the process of steady cam. The end project looks as though I was steadily
holding the camera or using a professional grade tracking shot.
The technology discussed in this piece, has taken what may have been a
standard, college student piece and turned it into what could pass as a professional
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piece of documentary film. Again, this comes with practice and patience. Technology
is one of those phenomenon’s that does not come to you over night, it takes time to
learn how to use the new standards and it takes patience as you work your way
through learning those standards. I cannot tell you how many times I messed up the
film I was working with before I got it right.
Where Documentary Films go from Here
When men such as Robert Flaherty decided to take on the task of creating
the first documentaries know to us, it was done so with pride, will, and sweat.
The film stock they used underwent hours upon hours of editing and piecing
together the films that they work hard to create. I in now way intend to take away
from filmmakers today by saying that it was more difficult to create and produce a
film in the early 1900’s than it is today. Both time periods had and have there
own unique challenges. However, today you tend to spend the house sitting in
front of a computer screen rather than sitting at a table and projector. This
increase and influx in technology throughout the entire world of film production
has taken us far away from the founders’ way of doing things. We use a
keyboard and a mouse to produce our films; they used chemicals and film stock.
Documentary films have changed over the years due to this very phenomenon.
You know see the increasing use of digital computer graphics in documentary
film, whereas before it was purely the images the camera could collect.
Documentary film haschanged as the society we live in changes. This medium of
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production is not bound by past, but yet it is ongoing and fluid into the future. As
society continues to change the way of doing things, so will documentary films
change. I would venture to say, technology is responsible for the advancement
of documentary films.
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Works Cited
1) Aitken, I., 1988. The Documentary Film Movement: An Anthology,
Edinburg, Edinburg University Press
2) Arthur, P. 1993. ‘Jargons of Authenticity (three American Moments)’ in
M. Renov, Theorizing Documentary, New York. Routledge
3) Beattie, K. 2004. Documentary Screens.
New York, Palgrave MaCmillan
4) Corner, J. 2001. ‘Documentary Realism’ in G. Creeber, The Television Genre
Book, London, British Film Institute
5) Corber, J. and Richardson, K. 1986. ‘Documentary meanings and the Discourse
of interpretation.’ In J. corner, Documentary and the Mass Media.
London, Edward Arnold Productions
6) Eitzen, D. 1995. ‘When is a documentary?: documentary as a mode of reception.’
In Cinema Journal, 35, 1, 81-102
7) Grant, B. K. 1992. Voyages of Discovery: The Cinema and Frederick Wiseman
Urbana, university of Illinois Press
8) Kriwaczek, P. 1997. Documentary for Small Screens
Oxford, Focal Press
9) MacDougall, D. 1998. Transcultural Cinema.
Princeton, Princeton University Press
10) Nichols, B. 1991. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary.
Bloomington, Indiana University Press
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11) Plantinga, C. 1997. Rhetoric and representation in Nonfiction Film.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
12) Winston, B. 1995. Claiming the Real: The Documentary Film Revisited.
London, British Film Institute