Documentary style shooting

J

jghenderson

Well-known member
What are the needs to shoot a film in documentary style?

You want to stick to strictly hand-held right? So you would need some kind of a rig?

Also what kind of lens do you want? Since you move around a lot do you need a wide angle lens so you can have deep focus thus not having to worry about follow focusing?

Really as you can tell I don't know a whole lot about this but I want to learn. I especially adore the cinematography in Children of Men (and the Chinese film Chungking Express if any of you have seen that) and would like to emulate that as much as possible.

Thanks for any advice!
 
Only needs I know of are something to record Video/Film and Audio. Also excepted policy is to not influence the story or subject. Other then that you are free to do what ever you want.

I recommend re-thinking "hand-held" only. I have shot several run and gun solo Docs and I always have my monopod and tripod. The last one I did I also had a boom mic stand for my location sound. Every time I would start thinking about the weight I would try to think about the dudes that took an IMax camera up Mt. Everest.
 
Documentary style, as you call it, is simply precedence of documentaries that came before. With that said, I'll also add, that what you observe is basically true, but I have seen several documentaries that had a more polished look (dolly, fine lighting, etc).

So, for a typical documentary, you will want to choose a nice camera which reproduces an image you think is acceptable for your picture. Athetics of image aside, you will most likely want the following attributes:

1) Light weight. You will most likely be moving about, handheld, and for long periods of time. You'll not want to wear yourself out.

2) Comfortable. Despite weight, time makes any object uncomfortable to hold. Thus making sure you have the proper camera support (steadicam, shoulder pad, arm brace, etc) will save you from soreness and tiredness.

3) Zoom lens. This is only if you are doing the typical doc (guerrilla style-ish). Primes are the sh*t, but because of their fixed focal length and the uncertain nature of documentaries, the cameraman is often left to a zoom lens. Zooms allow very quick and sparatic readjustment on the fly. The need to carry around a case of primes and the time it takes to change them are relieved.

4) A camera that can have potentially long record times. If you don't have any money in the budget, using 1080 P2 cards when you only have a 4 and 8gig card, will be a bad idea. Make sure whether you shoot digital, analog, or film... you have the budget and production logistics to have plenty of media on hand in case you need it. So basically a camera that can record for long periods of time, or you can afford to shoot for long durations.

5) As far as DoF... if you want to 'focus less' because of deeper DoF, I would choose a camera that has a small sensor size, such as 1/3" CCD. I would also recommend a camera that is very light sensitive, such as very high native ISO cams. That way, you can stop the camera down to a smaller F/stop and increase the DoF.

Using a wide angle lens will ONLY give you deeper DoF if you stay on wide compositions. Meaning you don't shoot any medium shots or CU's. Even a wide lens will have the same DoF (almost the same, really close), because when you use wider lenses you have to move closer to the subject to get a similar subject size in the composition. Thus the distance from subject to camera has been reduced and the DoF was decreased, cancelling the gained DoF from using a wider angle lens. It should be noted that despite the two scenarios having similar DoF, the wider angles lens will look as if it has a bit more DoF because the background CoC won't be magnified as much as on a wider lens. It's simply an illusion.
 
Go to the DOC Channel and watch a few of the projects posted there. My background is documentary and unscripted, which are disparate, but more akin to each other in style than many would like to admit!
 
It's going to be very difficult to make a documentary film with the aesthetics of something like Children of Men or Chungking Express. Children of Men has extremely complex and long camera moves, which is something that is only achieved by an immense amount of pre-planning, blocking, and rehearsal. Chungking Express on the other hand, is extremely colorful and vivid - something that is done with extensively by Christopher Doyle's lighting, and post-production color grading.

"Documentary style" usually implies the form and aesthetic of documentary filmmaking, which is run and gun, on the go, shoot it as it happens filmmaking. A lot of filmmakers choose to hand-hold a smaller, longform recording camera so that they don't have to deal with workflow issues while they're shooting. But it always depends on the documentary or the content of the particular shot. If you're shooting interviews, then you have the time to set up a couple lights and concentrate on the aesthetic. But if you're out in the field, or shooting wildlife, sometimes you have to be ready to shoot anywhere, anytime, and for that you can't pre-plan shots or lights - so in these situations its usless to expect to apply an aesthetic like you see in Chungking Express or Children of Men. The look in those films takes time, planning, lighting - and in a documentary you often don't have that luxury.

Zoom lenses are very popular in documentary because with the rotation of a barrel on the lens you can go wide or get in tight. A good, fast zoom lens is key to success in documentary filmmaking - prime lenses usually aren't used in documentary filmmaking. Of course, there are exceptions, this is just a general rule.
 
maybe use a stabilizer with canon or panasonic pro cameras with good low light capability and performance ($3-10k), a good sound setup($500-1k), and maybe a lighting setup (?). also, a good tripod system ($350-infinity).



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I hate to nitpick, but:

"documentary" and "cinematography style" have nothing to do with one another. lots of documentaries are made with different styles:

the epic, planet-earth types
the low budget supersize me types
everything in between (e.g. historical, science)

i think the look your looking for is the one most associated with "documentary style" because it's traditionally the cheapest "style" to produce. thus, you see a lot of documentaries with that "style".


cheers.
 
Perhaps I shouldn't have referred to it as "documentary style". I just don't know what else to refer to it as. Hand-held?

I guess really i'm trying to learn the aesthetic that I like so that I can apply it to all my projects to the degree possible. Children of Men and Chungking Express are examples of the styles I really like.

As to what i'm shooting, I will be shooting a behind the scenes documentary on the making of a TV show, but I also will be shooting another short film soon. Perhaps I should not expect to be able to apply the same aesthetic to both. I just really feel inexperienced when it comes to cinematography and want my next productions to be a step up from what i've been doing so far.
 
^^ it's not a completely incorrect term, per se. i think a documentary was the first to use the style.

from wikipedia's article on hand-held camera:

Despite these technological developments, the aesthetic consequences of these smaller cameras weren't fully realized until the late 1950s and early 1960s. Hand-held Camera was first used in 1958, on the documentary film Les Raquetteurs, shot on 35 mm by Michel Brault.
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these two articles are a good start to learn about cinematography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematic_techniques

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and to better answer your first question... what's your budget?
 
hahaha, 1958?! That's not right.

Cinema was around for +/- 6 decades and nobody made a film with handheld? :P I'm going to have to read that article and try and see in what possible context this would be an accurate statement.

For starters... Does news reels and war footage count? Not to mention the TONS of 16mm and 8mm cameras, which were smaller and lighter and around from before and during the 1930's.
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
hahaha, 1958?! That's not right.

Cinema was around for +/- 6 decades and nobody made a film with handheld? :P I'm going to have to read that article and try and see in what possible context this would be an accurate statement.

For starters... Does news reels and war footage count? Not to mention the TONS of 16mm and 8mm cameras, which were smaller and lighter and around from before and during the 1930's.
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i think it means when the hand-held style became recognized as a style (i.e. 35mm cameras were generally too heavy/expensive to be used in a hand-held manner)
 
Fahad said:
i think it means when the hand-held style became recognized as a style (i.e. 35mm cameras were generally too heavy/expensive to be used in a hand-held manner)
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Old 35mm cameras really were/are not that heavy.

They became heavy when they got 'blimped' for films with sound, or were purposefully outfitted with larger 'studio' accessories for other reasons of convenience. I guess shooting handheld and sound would be an issue... so handheld might have been not used for THAT reason. Certainly not because it was yet to be invented as a style of camera operating. :)

If Buster Keaton can run with a camera, they can and did shoot handheld with 35mm film. :P

NUFL000Z.jpg
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ2kRzJajyo

1927 Handheld WHILE cranking the camera (before the motors). Handheld on the back of a horse. Etc.

Sure the whole film isn't shot this way, but using handheld to achieve the style/feel it gives (even for a just a scene or shots in a scene) is using handheld for it's aesthetic style. Gance *could* have left the camera on the tripod for all the shots in the snowball fight. But he didn't. It was for the style of handheld.

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/FQdlY0-0fhM/



OK....so I FINALLY got around to reading that Wiki Handheld page. The context in my opinion, is that film they listed in 1958 is the film that used handheld and prompted the New Wave, which we all know is available lighting and roving handheld cameras. So I suppose what it really means is that it was the film that started a movement where handheld was almost completely used as the camera movement choice. I see it not as a first in style or execution but simply as a milestone of a movement which just used MORE of it, and because of technology, sound and motor noise were not a big issue.
 
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Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
So I suppose what it really means is that it was the film that started a movement where handheld was almost completely used as the camera movement choice. I see it not as a first in style or execution but simply as a milestone of a movement which just used MORE of it, and because of technology, sound and motor noise were not a big issue.
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yeah that's how i understand it, too.
 
To me "documentary style" shooting means it looks like you don't have control of the action that is unfolding in front of the camera.

To do the job for real you would likely want a camera that you are able able to hold reasonably steady for long periods of time, and operate confidently on the run - a shoulder mount cam that I can also hold at my waist or above my head would be my first choice. But if you are just after a look you can fake it with any camera.
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
OK....so I FINALLY got around to reading that Wiki Handheld page. The context in my opinion, is that film they listed in 1958 is the film that used handheld and prompted the New Wave, which we all know is available lighting and roving handheld cameras..
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I haven't watched Vertov's, 'Man with the Movie Camera'(1929) to check if there are any handheld sequences, but Vertov's 'style' and 'philosphy' was a major influence in the Cinema Verite of the 50's and 60's.
 
Documentary technology

Documentary technology

hi, i am doing a dissertation on, the evaluation of the technologies used for cinema release documentaries. im mainly focusing on camera, sound and lighting.

ive looked around everywhere, and i keep getting theory based stuff on documentary, rather than the technology side of it, is there anyone who could maybe help?

also, im trying to draw up a timeline of how the technology has progressed from the first documentary ever made. if there's any info which anyone can help with, that would be wicked.

cheers!
 
jghenderson said:
You want to stick to strictly hand-held right?
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I have a friend who spends endless hours judging documentaries for a local film festival. She would literally jump across a table and try to strangle you for saying that. Well, maybe not, but she'd surely be thinking about it. One of her pet peeves is the lack of tripod use in most documentaries.

If you want your docu. to get past her and up a level, better use a good tripod. That's all I'm sayin'.

BTW, another of her pet peeves is bad sound. So get the mic off the camera!
 
pwyll said:
To me "documentary style" shooting means it looks like you don't have control of the action that is unfolding in front of the camera.

To do the job for real you would likely want a camera that you are able able to hold reasonably steady for long periods of time, and operate confidently on the run - a shoulder mount cam that I can also hold at my waist or above my head would be my first choice. But if you are just after a look you can fake it with any camera.
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In my opinion its almost impossible not to "control" a situation because if you are being recognized as a camera that is filming, the action changes, maybe not under control but sort of controlled because the subjects behaviour changes! The only way to REALLY be true documentary in that sense would be hidden cameras.
There are successful documentaries where the camera becomes a fly on the wall or fits into the surroundings so "invisible" that the subjects forget the camera, but its very very rare and I would still say: some influence on the filmed subjects is there. Lately I have enjoyed documentaries of a young french woman, Marianne Chaud who speaks tibetan rather well and spends a lot of time there. In one scene where she follows some tibetan children on a dire strait across Himalaya´s snow filled valleys she reverses this "conflict" nicely by allowing a small child to walk towards her, cleaning the lens of the raindrops!! This little boy knew he was being filmed and worried about the rain getting on the lens..:-) I really liked this scene because it broke every rule ... Another one I really like is a swiss film: Hippie Masala, where the camera is extremely "fly on wall" and no speakers comment, just subtitles where neccessary.
Today re-enactment is so common I cant stand it anymore, or these "adventure" types like Brady Barr, and the worst are these new formats called scripted reality!
 
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