documentary technology

P

peawea

New member
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!
 
Like every type of filmed entertainment, documentary films have shifted completely from a technology standpoint. 16mm film was the defacto format for acquisition until only a few years ago, which commanded the use of double-system sound during production. Now, a great deal of unscripted production is accomplished with single-system sound to video / digital cameras.

Lighting packages on a typical documentary are more sophisticated now than ever before. LEDs, small fluorescents and incandescent lighting packages are commonplace - as are the extra baggage fees associated with moving them wherever the production takes you. Drayage is a huge expense in documentary filmmaking.

Post was often accomplished in a primitive A/B/Offline Edit or via an interpositive film print. Now, you'd be hard-pressed to find a documentary cut outside of an NLE. I would venture that few make it to what would be considered a true "online" session. Domestic theatrical releases and outright broadcast commissions for documentaries are exceedingly rare, meaning that the deliverables requirements vary outlet-by-outlet and run the gamut. Save for the BBC-Discovery super-co-pros like Planet Earth, networks that do air docs do so by non-exclusive acquisition. They'll get a three month / six air window for the film with some online ancillary rights for $3k - $5k... possibly more.

It is still a business where there is little money for the creator and statues on the shelf don't always lead to funding for your next [documentary] project. That one truth hasn't changed.
 
what do you mean by double-system sound?

i think with the new technology which is still to come, with cheaper cameras which allow the director to produce a documentary which is similar quality to those of a 35mm camera, used in the film industry.
Also the progression of adaptors, have allowed Video camera's to use lenses of old cameras, which lifts the restriction of quality and style of film.Thus, allowing documentaries to be made by someone at home.
 
I think you are slightly missing the point. Just because everyone can shoot for cheap nowdays doesn't mean that anyone can produce a doc. Truth is you see many ametuers who tried to do that but then almost always fail as besides standard talking head with some primitive b-roll they have very little to offer. They fail in formal terms - their b-roll (if they have enough of it in the first place) is nothing but an illustration of what the heads are talking about rather then creative extension of the words, but what's more importantly their content is lacking. It takes a tremendous amount of skill to find subjects that can be engaging.
 
your right, and i totally agree. but that comes down to creativity not necessarily technology. yes, the technology determines the make and brake to a certain extent, but its the creativity which causes emotion. the access to cheaper technology has created a path for those who had ideas but not the equipment to make documentaries, i.e. postsecret production. it was shot on a dslr which you could pick up for under £500, brand new. but some have that skill for creativity and then channelling that creativity, and some dont.
 
You are overestimating the importance of creativity. Or rather creativity by itself without experience. Creativity begins when all the other options of possible solutions were exhausted and out of ambition one is trying to find new ways instead of relaying on proven solutions that work. That's why experience is so vital as it's the experience that allows a person not to relay on old tricks (thinking that they are new as the inexperienced person still hasn't done them).
 
definitely, you need experience to express your creativity. you need to know what to shoot, how to shoot it, and the best possible method of shooting to get the most of it. film making is a skill, its not all art. the same way you get film production, and you get film technology. to film your art, is the hardest task. Saying that, coming back to the point of, people have the access to this technology. no becomes a film maker over night, and no one becomes a film maker, purely after handling a camera for the first time. everyone starts of with a camera they have at home. film makers were made not dependant on technology it self, but the way their films were shot, and these were skills which were built over years of playing around with a camera. what i am saying is, it is rare yet possible, to make a documentary, with a small budget.
 
Are you writing a paper on how it is being done today or theorizing for how it will be done in the future? There are a good number of distributed documentary producers, DPs and editors on this site who have real insight into the craft.

e
 
Hey Erik, im doing an evaluation on how they were filmed, and how they are being filmed today. also would love to hear on what everyone has to say on, how they think it will be filmed in the future. ( like how the 35mm camera was used. but then the 16mm came due to light weight and allowed new filming techniques to be created, and the change to super 16, then back to 35mm cameras, which are now hand held. but then you have the invitation of digital and video)
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
You are overestimating the importance of creativity. Or rather creativity by itself without experience. Creativity begins when all the other options of possible solutions were exhausted and out of ambition one is trying to find new ways instead of relaying on proven solutions that work. That's why experience is so vital as it's the experience that allows a person not to relay on old tricks (thinking that they are new as the inexperienced person still hasn't done them).
Click to expand...

That doesn't make any sense at all. Some of the most creative films (or music, or books, or whatever) are made by people who have no experience whatsoever because their lack of indoctrination into a "system" and the fact that they haven't learned all the "old tricks" yet sometimes allows them to see things vets don't. (Admittedly, more frequently it just allows them to make terrible movies, but a few come out with new stuff.)

Of course, with film, there is a basic technical standard everyone has to surpass. It doesn't matter how "creative" you are if you can't turn a camera on. But I think the idea that creativity is what happens only when all the "traditional" solutions are exhausted, or when one has mastered "traditional" filmmaking, is depressing. And it just isn't the case. If it were, no one under 40 would have ever made a "creative" film.
 
Provide some examples.

Besides i'm not talking about mastering the techniques but rather spending time to think about and even more often doing something at least once. Only then with some rudimentary experience of at least trying something once (or experiencing that try in some form) you can move on past cliches and into field of true creativity.
 
Last edited:
custerc said:
That doesn't make any sense at all. Some of the most creative films (or music, or books, or whatever) are made by people who have no experience whatsoever because their lack of indoctrination into a "system" and the fact that they haven't learned all the "old tricks" yet sometimes allows them to see things vets don't. (Admittedly, more frequently it just allows them to make terrible movies, but a few come out with new stuff.)

Of course, with film, there is a basic technical standard everyone has to surpass. It doesn't matter how "creative" you are if you can't turn a camera on. But I think the idea that creativity is what happens only when all the "traditional" solutions are exhausted, or when one has mastered "traditional" filmmaking, is depressing. And it just isn't the case. If it were, no one under 40 would have ever made a "creative" film.
Click to expand...

It's usually not the inexperienced who break boundaries successfully, but those who have mastered the 'system' and have pushed the medium further. But every 1 in a 1,000,000 can come out of the gate shooting.
 
The honest truth about creativity, is anyone can be a creative genius and see an amazing film in their head, but it takes education to transfer that onto the camera - that is, unless the film someone sees in their head can literally be created by a bunch of teenagers and a camcorder, like Blair Witch. Blair Witch has no standard to it, the people literally went out into the woods, improved everything, the cameraperson didn't know how to operate a camera and spent two days before the shoot trying to learn how, and again, it was all a no-standard camcorder film. That's the genre of things that amateurs and teenagers can pull off in very unique ways at times, and it simply takes people who are having alot of fun and are passionate about staying in character and creating an exciting event beyond whatever the camera mistakingly captures. It's mistake-ist art, and it requires acting, it requires creating a new world, but it calls for the camera capturing images at random, capturing a world that is well set up to the point it looks great no matter what is captured.

And then, when it comes to any sort of professional film, that's where young filmmakers and the less experienced are best simply hiring a good DP. Harmony Korine for example, who dropped out of the Tisch School Of Arts after a month to become a professional skateboarder, became a filmmaker both because he had extraordinarily unique visions for scenes, yet didn't have a clue how to execute those scenes. That's where he became a writer, with Larry Clarke directing and Eric Edwards DP'ing the first film Korine co-wrote with Clarke, and then, when Korine started his own filmmaking career, he became friends with many incredibly famous DP's (Anthony Dod Mantle, Marcel Zyskind, ect ect) who liked his visions so much that they charged him insanely low fractions of their usual hiring rates to become his DP's; none of his films would have been created without those very talented DP's. Korine is a visioneer but I've never once heard him talk anything about any technical aspects of film or DP work. The visioneers usually rely on the people who are more technically efficient if they want a more professional, clear cut film to be made. Even Korine's Gummo and Julient Donkey-Boy, two very dirty, random films, have excellent DP work that couldn't have been accomplished by anyone who didn't know the absolute in's-and-out's of filmmaking like Anthony Mantle does, for instance. The first film that Korine has DP'd was his latest film, Trash Humpers, which was a "Blair Witch" camcorder film.

And that's what filmmaking really is. The people who love filmmaking, yet don't create scripts or "storyline" ideas, become DP's. The people who have big imaginations and huge inspirations, but couldn't fart out what shutter speed is to save their lives, they become writers and directors, or Blair Witch creators. That's usually how things are and that's how things usually should be. It's teamwork that equals out. The kids should stick with Blair Witch films like Meadowoods or Paranormal Activity, the more ambitious writers should always hire DP's, sound guys, ect ect. And the geniuses can be geniuses, and they are extremely rare - documentary work is great training because it allows for the cameraman to create his own shots, learn the experience, and not always have a super high standard about things - documentary work can indeed work just by placing your subject around some windows and such, it's not always hard. It's like a mixture between being a director or writer, a newscaster, and being a DP. To me, it sounds like great training, and it's probably one of the most interesting of careers out there.

For example, Shane Carruth is one of the few "geniuses" that do exist. He wrote, directed, DP's, composed the soundtrack for, funded, and starred in Primer, and Primer was extremely successful in the indie market. It's no real surprise, he was a mathematician before he thought about becoming a writer and filmmaker, he was smart enough to accomplish Primer without any real background work. But most folks can't do that, and even Carruth didn't accomplish it fully in my opinion - it was very boring, and some of the shots were very stale. But it happened, and it was a success, same with Blair Witch, same with Paranormal Actitvity, same with Clerks, and whatever else. A true filmmaker is someone who knows the goal, knows the target audience, knows what standard is possible, and knows what can be done with their abilities and equipment. Not everyone is out to make the next Black Swan, and I think that's what too many experienced filmmakers here hark on about when they say inexperienced filmmaking can't be done; there are so many genres of filmmaking that almost require inexperience, and that's what I have to add to the theory of what can and can't be done on a low budget or with no major filmmaking experience.

For instance, Shane Carruth probably won't make another film for a very long time. He poured his life into perfecting his skills for one specific project, he made an impact, and now he's probably worn out and has no interest in filmmaking anymore. Perfectly acceptable, and the honest truth is that as long as you keep to a very specific look or feel, you can really accomplish things with only minimal knowledge directed at the specific project you want. You don't have to learn CG to make a film about an Arkansas girl trying to live in the city. You don't have to have to be Stephen King to write a unique horror script. It just takes dedication to what you want and an extension of the interests you find interesting to do something you find great - many filmmakers literally think to themselves "Okay, I want to make a horror film...but about what? Hmm. We need a killer. We need a blonde girl. We need to shoot on Red. We need to light this to look like Saw. Ect ect...." and that's not the way for low budget work, you have to build a script around low budget forms of filming, you have to know your lighting direction, you have to know your cast and know exactly what you're after, or else you'll be making something full of cheese.

^None of that relates to the OP's topic, I just got on a role. Long story short, low budget filmmaking requires vast precision, but a different form of it. Best words to describe it, IMO.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top