Transformational Documentaries Rising
There’s a new genre of films emerging known as “transformational documentaries”. It’s big. It’s already influential.
“A transformational film,” according to AwareGuide founder and CEO, Gary Tomchuk, “seeks to inspire the movement of society toward ideals, values and practices that create a better world for everyone. They focus on solutions…”
This new category of documentary, which has its roots in social issue docs as well as the human potential movement, leaves viewers feeling inspired when the credits roll—rather than disempowered by a troubled world.
“More and more filmmakers are drawn to the ‘genre’ of Transformational Film,” says Celeste Allegrea Adams, Producer of the 2009 Conscious Life Film Festival in Los Angeles. “Transformational films, which are films that focus on creating a shift in thinking, can be spiritual, metaphysical, political or environmental.”
Traditional ways of making social issue documentaries, as powerful as they once were, are reaching their limitations for viewers. For decades, important documentaries have fiercely critiqued the wrongs in the world–often inadvertently leaving viewers depressed and immobile. In contrast, solution-oriented films are hitting the sweet spot, inspiring viewers to be the change they are waiting for.
Transformational documentaries such as An Inconvenient Truth, The Ghosts in Our Machine and May I Be Frank? tend to be more motivating than the bulk of films made in the last three decades about poverty, environmental degradation, injustice, and other global crises.
Although those films were important for their time, waking us up to the crises of a post-modern world, transformational documentaries are the logical response to “the sky is falling” call. They provide inspiring solutions to the problem paradigm with which we viewers are already so familiar.
Creating transformational films, which is still an emerging genre, can feel like pioneering new territory without a field guide. But according to the market research undertaken by the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment (GATE), “The audience is ready” for films that embrace or at least land on a positive viewpoint.
“What differentiates these movies,” according to Matthew Gilbert, former editorial director at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, “is their explicit intent to either affirm a positive vision of ourselves or the world or to actually change people.”
A New Movement Afoot
Are transformational films too New Agey for the mainstream? Not at all. The audience is enormous for transformational documentaries that are grounded in true inquiry and sound journalism.
According to statistics on the LOHAS market (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability), approximately 1 in 4 Americans will pay for goods and services (and films) focused on health, the environment, personal development, social justice and spirituality. And the projected annual LOHAS expenditure? A whopping $290 billion.
“The current growth in this market group strongly supports the notion that spirituality is no longer relegated to the New Age periphery but is undeniably migrating to the center of mainstream cultural awareness,” says LOHAS.
According to the award-winning film production company Way To Go Media, “In the film world there is currently a movement afoot to add a new cinema genre or classification, which could be called Transformational Media.”
Whether we call this emerging genre Conscious Filmmaking or Transformational Filmmaking or simply “documentaries that make a difference”, directors who are succeeding in touching and transforming viewers are implementing new editorial choices and new narrative devices. These new filmmaking tactics emerge from an optimistic sensibility that many social issue films, which tend to be downers, lack. Here are New Doc Editing, we are pioneers in the transformational film space. You can get a taste of this new media landscape in Karen’s story.
Karen’s Story
A friend recently invited me to see The Ghosts in Our Machine, a 2013 documentary about animal abuse. Although I routinely watch new documentaries, initially I resisted, not wanting to subject myself to yet another horrifying documentary depicting animals in cages. But since my friend was a vegan and I wanted to support her, I went to the community screening in Oakland, CA.
Within minutes, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself transported on the quest of a young protagonist who set out to photograph animal abuse and get her evocative work published. She faced the same challenge that I had initially displayed: how does one depict abuse in a way that evokes a caring response rather than revulsion?
By the end of the film, I had only covered my eyes once. Mostly, I felt touched and transformed. Why? Because I had experienced a connection with other sentient beings (animals) that made me realize that someday, at least for my own spiritual and moral growth, I would need to face the implications of my carnivorous ways. When the credits rolled, I didn’t decide on the spot to become a vegetarian or vegan, but I did take a big step closer to a behavior change that, if enacted en masse, would profoundly change the world.
How was director Liz Marshall able to effect this transformation? Among other things, she didn’t vilify the meat industry or gratuitously portray animal suffering. She focused on a solution-oriented character with a noble quest. And she used innovative cinematic techniques (focusing on animals’ eyes) to evoke a connection between the two-legged viewers and the four-legged “characters” on screen. As it turns out, The Ghosts in Our Machine tied with Take Back Your Power to win the 2013 AwareGuide Viewers Choice Award for Top Transformational Film. Both are terrific example of transformational filmmaking.
So…without throwing out their critical faculties, how do filmmakers integrate the best of the old school, Michael Moore-type documentaries (that decry the status quo) with the emerging transformational paradigm that the human condition can radically improve within our lifetime? It’s a big question that could change the look of documentary filmmaking in the next 5-10 years.
Here at New Doc Editing, we’re committed to answering that question and empowering transformational filmmakers. In order to serve this growing need for filmmaker training, we’ve created what may be the first seminar on Transformational Filmmaking. For course specifics, read the second half of this page: Directing the Transformational Documentary.
