The Psychology of the Protagonist
Extracted from Unit 2: Writing a Screenplay by Dr Lisa Dethridge

From The Truman Show to Survivor: Narrative versus Reality in Fake and Real Reality TV by Marie-Laure Ryan

Autobiography and Documentary an excerpt from the Encyclopedia of Documentary

Cultural Change- The media and public opinion

As stated in a previous post, Bill Nichols suggests there are different styles of documentary:

1. Expository - TV docos, nature doco, narrative
2. Observational - filmmaker is elided from the doco
3. Interactive - filmmaker is present in the film
4. Reflexive - examines the documentary form itself

each of which impact upon the relations between author / subject / audience.

What form of documentary is your project leaning toward?

On the Mac platform, Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects have become the foundation of broadcast production. The power and speed of Final Cut is widely recognised throughout the industry as is the rapidity of its acceptance and evolution.
Both are extremely powerful tools and, resultantly, are difficult to master. I have been using Final Cut Pro since its inception, and have seen it grow in synch with the rapid evolution of digital video. In its latest incarnation it would seem to have overhauled Avid through its abilty to render on-the-fly and with it’s animated text generator Livetype. Genius DV at Stetson University(seriously? a university named after a hat?) provides an unbiased comparison of FCP HD and Avid Pro HD.
The choice obviously comes down to which platform is used, as FCP is a Mac-only application.

Resources for FCP Studio HD
Ken Stone’s FCP site provides a good series of tutorials and resources

atomiclearning.com/finalcutpro provides some good introductory video tutorials on FCP settings, preferences and basic functions

users.design.ucla.edu provides a comprehensive course in FCP, if a little out of date. Still, most of the notes are directly applicable to current version 5.0.

www.creativecow.net provides tutorials on travel mattes, compositing and capture cards/codecs.

digitalvideoediting.com is an excellent site providing over 100 detailed techniques. Current and up to date with version 5.

vtc.com provides training videos on Introduction to Digital Production, New in Version 5, System Configuration and Video Capture.

dvcreators.net

lafcpug.org

kenstone.net

www.animationsforvideo.com

www.digitalmedi0atraining.com

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/resources.html
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/resources.html

The MediaEd site is run by Media Education Wales in partnership with ‘in the picture’ magazine.
A great resource for media students.

Media Ed Digital Gateway

3 point lighting Step-through

Creative Archive Licence: Free video clips for download

How-to site on Artificial Lighting

The Good Shooting Guide is an excellent resource for new videomakers. Before presenting your pitch this Saturday, go over the following checklist:

Have you

* Decided on the story’s angle

* Written a synopsis or sketched storyboards?

* However “last minute” the shoot is, have you established a clear brief?

* Checked that what you’re doing is realistic in the time available?

* Made allowance for unforseen events - are you ready to react if the story changes, and follow new developments?

* Reminded yourself “I will always focus on telling the story.”

National Schools Film Week in the UK have some good resources to further the investigation on documentary genre.
Download the Bowling for Columbine research task at

www.filmeducation.org/filmlib/BFC.pdf

www.realityfilm.com
This is a good doco site that has a real grapple with this most difficult of questions.

Many valid approaches have been made by documentary theorists on how to classify the form by genre. Perhaps one of the better has been by Michael Rabiger, who references Bill Nichols Introduction to Documentary (Bloomington, IN; Indiana Uni Press, 2001) who divided documentary into six categories:

Poetic (1920’s)- lacks specificity and too abstract eg Joris Ivan’s Rain, 1926

Expository (1920’s on): the classic “voice of God” commentary; suffer from being too didactic ( ie preachy style), and could be propaganda: eg Frank Capra Anatole Litvak’s Why We Fight (US War Department, 1942-1945) or Leni Reifenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935)

Observational (1960’s) Observes things as they happen, without imposing commentary or re-enactment. Inclined to lack content and historical background. eg Fred Wiseman’s Titicut Follies (USA, 1967)

Participatory (1960’s) Interviews or interacts with its participants and uses archival film to retrieve history. Deficiencies of intrusiveness, excessive faith in witnesses, tendency for a naive view of history.
eg Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer (France, 1960)

Reflexive (1980’s) Questions doco form and conventions- how it represents things, not just what it represents - as an important part of its purview. Inclined to become abstract and lose sight of the actual issue.
eg Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (1982)

Performative (1980’s) Describes human issues, not in the abstract way of Western philosophic tradition, but gives them weight in presenting them subjectively, based on specifics of personal experience, in the tradition of poetry, literature and rhetoric. May be sidelined as avante-garde.
eg Marlon Riggs Tongues Untied(USA, 1989)

A great reference for doco makers is Michael Rabiger’s Directing the Documentary (4th edition, Elselvier, NY, 2004)

the following is an excerpt from an interview with doco maker Marshall Curry:

You mentioned getting started making documentaries by doing interactive documentaries. I’m interested in documentary film and was wondering how / what ways would you recommend getting started (for a person with no experience)?

Curry: I think the best thing to do is to get a camera and start shooting. I shot over 200 hours of footage with this film, and my first 50 hours are a lot worse than my last 50 hours. I also read a number of books on documentary filmmaking — the classic intro is Michael Rabiger’s Directing the Documentary. In addition, I watch a ton of documentaries and pay attention to the way that the stories are put together, and I have learned a lot from friends who make documentaries, who have shared tips with me. Classes can also help with the basics — perhaps there is a college near you that offers an “intro to documentary production” class. But, again, the most important way to learn is to get out and DO it and then study the result and get out and do it again. Cinema Verite