In terms of ethics, it seemed questionable to me that the filmmakers were filming these situations. I do not feel as though many of these people were adequately able to consent to being filmed. For example, there was one man who could not identify any living family and was struggling to communicate with the doctor. It does not feel right to me to be filming this man, as it does not appear as though he could have consented to being filmed.
Speaking on a more general term, the film to me was interesting because of how well they depicted the stresses of all parties involved when one is nearing death, whether it be the doctors, the families, or the patient themselves. However, it was not a film that I would watch again because of how sad it was.
One question that I had was about how the final call is made regarding if they should take a patient off life support when the patient is unable to make the decision for themselves. While they have a team of workers with who they talk over the decision, who is the person that is tasked with making the final call?
The rough cuts of your videos will be due by class time on Wednesday, Dec. 1. The final cut will be due by class time on our last day of class, Monday Dec. 13.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Nov. 24, will be an editing/production day for your videos. I will be here on campus that day for anyone who wants help with editing, but attendance is not required; you are welcome to spend that time doing additional shooting if that is what your story needs at that point. Monday, Nov. 29, will also be devoted to editing/production.
Screening and Discussion
We’ll take a look at your 5-shot sequences, critique them together, and troubleshoot any issues you ran into so that you know what you’re doing for the actual video assignment.
Discussion: The Documentary Filmmaking Industry
It’s an exciting time in the documentary filmmaking world, especially with streaming sites getting in on the game and producing and distributing so many buzzy, prestige, high-production-value feature-length docs and docu-series. Think about how many documentaries in recent years have been talked about around the dinner table: The Last Dance, Leaving Neverland, the R. Kelly documentary, Tiger King, The Fyre Fest documentary, My Octopus Teacher.
There’s a spectrum of how journalistic documentaries can be. Some allow for moments to be staged or reenacted—this is usually disclosed or obvious—others are scrupulous about letting life unfold as it will and capturing it faithfully.
There are different kinds of documentary films: one popular genre tells stories that happened in the past, relying on collecting old/archival footage, usually from numerous different sources, and weaving in present-day interviews with the people who were involved.
Another popular genre these days is verité documentary films, which derives its name from the French film movement cinéma vérité, which basically translates to “truthful cinema.” When applied to documentaries, what it means it that the filmmakers are capturing life as it happens. A lot of the time, they take a sort of fly-on-the-wall approach. One filmmaker who has become well-know in recent years for his verité documentaries is Matt Heineman.
Cartel Land: A film made mostly by one guy filming alone for nine months.
“As someone who [is] a director and a producer, and also shoots themselves, it makes it a lot easier to just jump in because I don’t have to necessarily raise money,” Heineman told IndieWire in a panel discussion at the Sundance Film Festival, where his first film “Ghosts” premiered. “Canon was very supportive of me — [they] give me a camera to help shoot this, so it was very easy to just dive in and start making this.”
How do these kinds of solo independent doc films get made, financially speaking?
Depends on the film. If it’s a passion project and the filmmaker has the access, equipment, and time, they might be able to do most of it themselves. Or the filmmaker may start off covering expenses themselves, and then once they have enough footage to show people, they cut together a “sizzle reel” and either crowd-fund it on something like Kickstarter, or they apply for grant funding, find a private donor, team up with a production company, etc.
In this class, you have been learning to do things more or less “one-man-band” style, and that’s how Heineman and many others started, but he has now become a big name who can much more easily get all the funding and access he wants for a film.
On a well-funded documentary project, there are typically more roles available: DP (director of photography), B camera operator, lighting technician, sound technician, producer, editor, etc. If you continue pursuing this field, you may find that there’s one role in particular you are drawn to. Maybe you love shooting but hate editing, or vice versa. Maybe you’re a fantastic ideas person, extremely good with people and making things happen, and a good reporter, but not as interested in the technical parts of filmmaking: you could be a great producer.
Here’s an assignment that can be done any time between now and Monday’s class. Watch “Extremis” (I assume most of you have a way to watch Netflix, but if not, please let me know and I’ll figure something out!) and read the following interview with the director:
Write a short (roughly 200 words) blog post about the film, giving your thoughts about the storytelling, the ethics involved, and any questions or takeaways that stuck with you.
