My Doc Idea. Please Comment

duranracing23

duranracing23

Well-known member
Hi everyone im putting the finishing touches on starting to shoot my first feature documentary. It is based on a couple of my classmates in highschool and their involvement in multiple bank roberries which in the end let to a fatally shot FBI agent. You might remember this it recieved a ton of media coverage, this was the first agent shot in 30 years his name was Larry Lee Bush.
Anyways im pretty close to the families of the guys involved and i got full permission to document this. My question is does it seem like something any of you guys would watch?

Below you will find some articled regarding this incident.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-06-fbi-agent_N.htm
http://www.sqlhelper.net/html/Politics/04/_Just_shoot_me___begs_FBI_fugitive_in_NJ_13516.html
 
I would definently watch it. Sounds very interresting. Since you already have their full permision to document it, I'd say go for it!
 
IanBJohnson said:
ditto, that sounds super interesting. Just try to avoid re-enactments.... please...
Click to expand...

Ian I certainly appreciate your re-enactment comment but may i ask,why not? One of the things i was thinking about was that to have re enacts. Would that make it boring? PLease elaborate.
 
I'm just not a huge fan of them. I don't think I've ever seen a well-done re-enactment, unfortunately. They all seem to end up cheesy and remove the viewer from the film.

The problem is that with a topic such as yours, viewers want to see it... but the best we can do as filmmakers is re-enact the event which is never good enough. I'd just use local news footage and use as much descriptive language and storytelling via interviews to paint a picture for the audience.
 
So...compromise.

Film renactments, but play them in the background, really desaturated and grainy, with a greenscreened interviewee in front.

Helps with the talking head aspect, and satisfies the wanna-see-action folks.

:)
 
Gen i think you have a small point there. But my intentions sorta say was somwthing diffrent for this. I wanted to have like mini re enactment shorts throughout the film. Like short films.
What do you guys think?
 
I'm not a fan of re-enactments either, but there are two examples that I can think of where it was really effectively used; Thin Blue Line and Touching the Void. I think your impulse to treat the re-enactments as mini films in and of themselves is correct - they should be approached with all of the care and attention that you would give to any other fully realized fiction piece, which means good actors, good lights, good sound, writing, direction, art direction, etc. But I think you run a very real risk of your re-enactment segments coming off staged and hokey compared to the real and candid documentary footage you'll be getting, even with the best of intentions and talent.

I think some good examples of docs about crimes already past that don't use re-anactments (as far as I recall) are Murder on a Sunday Morning, Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost, The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills and, to a lesser extent, Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (which is as much about the filmmaker as it is about his subject).

A good example of re-enactments (or much of anything else) not really working out too well (in my opinion) is The Brandon Teena Story (a rare case where the Hollywood, albeit indy, version was far superior)

Anyway, bla bla bla. Your story sounds fascinating and I say that if you have the kind of access and personal connection to the story that you have, then you should go for it. I'll definitely want to see it.
 
Bus #8 i really appreciate your input. I have rented and seen about 30 docs already. You know what facinates me the most is the Aileen Story, how can you even call that a doc. It had some of the worst footage i have ever seen. But my point is that the film makrs spent alot of time in camera and it sorta worked. So i think im going to go with the short re enacts. I have alot of great actor friends who go to acting school. So if that worked for them i will make this work for me. Also can you tell me which docs did this sorta of thing in their docs?
 
Re-enactments narrated by the criminals who perpetuated the crime would be pretty compelling, especially if you do them in an impressionistic kind of way. Like a painting of the memory of the perp.

That would be watchable.

e
 
Another reason re-enactments dont work is that the tension and suspense you want to build in telling your story is many times destroyed by the re-enactment - leave it up to the viewers 'minds eye' to what happened and how.

Also we typically want to learn about WHY the killers did what they did not so much HOW they did it. . . .
 
I like a well done re-enactment and some times a cheesy one depending on the subject matter.

One thing I always do when I ask others their opinion about something is to remember that it is just an opinion. No matter how adamant they may be about their opinion, they may still be wrong.

Ultimately it is my vision that I am going to try to show. Show your vision if it moves you, it will move others.
 
when i see a re-enactment i usually lose interest because of how fake the scene looks... my opinion would be to insert a lot of factual material between your re-enactments like newspaper clips/tv news clips... narration possibly but ALL factual. maybe interview some law enforcers too that knew the agent that got shot. his family... dig deep... it could be great!! open a debate for the viewer... I hate one sided documentaries unless they're my personal heros' type bio pieces.
 
I like your idea for the documentary and would be interested regardless. Make it the way you want, that's what I say.

However I agree that re-enactments are generally detracting. I'd rather see news footage, photos, and articles from the paper creatively displayed on the screen with narration. You could narrate events with current footage of locations as they are now, letting the viewer imagine the participants moving around the locations.
 
Hey I am very interested in your idea and I hope it all goes well for you. Let me know when it's finished as I'd like to see the final product. Although re-enactments are sometimes detracting I think for this story they would be good. You could probably pull it off by doing short clips (maybe in B&W and/or slow motion) with no sound set to some powerful music and lyrics (or just music if you'd prefer) Also you could play voice clips from news and/or people involved while you show the re-enactments. I like voice clips that are somewhat echoy for setting this type of mood but it's up to you. Hope this helps.
 
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