Crafting An Essay Style Documentary Part 2
This is part 2 of a 3-part series on structuring essay-style documentary films.
Traditionally, PBS essay-style documentaries were characterized by talking heads, narration and occasional b-roll used as “wallpaper”. Not very cinematically appealing materials, to say the least.
Then along came Ken Burns who put his imprint on landscape beauty shots, reenactments, actor’s voiceovers and rotating zooms on photographs.
Today we may yawn at these once engaging tactics. In the last few years, creative directors have racked their filmic sensibilities to come up with fresh stylistic approaches.
On the visual side, essay films are now employing animation (Bowling for Columbine), humorous verite scenes structured as character vignettes (Religulous and Sicko), and most refreshingly, spectacular graphic gimmicks.
I recommend studying such fine examples as the psychological profiles in The Corporation, the clever timelines in I.O.U.S.A, and the guilty/innocent verdict “stamp” in Who Killed the Electric Car?
The other chief reason to use graphical representations in your editing repertoire, in addition to adding visual verve, is to convey complicated information.
Witness the dramatic ballooning timeline in I.O.U.S.A, which helps us wrap our heads around economic theory and all those zeros in a trillion dollars.
If you can afford it, develop both animation and graphic treatments for your more knotty concepts. If your budget is tight, then aim to convey ideas through simple reenactments, verite scenes in which some genuine action unfolds, or spectacular landscapes heightened with simple Motion filters such as the “lens flare“.
The bottom line: give viewers a reason to watch your film, rather than read a magazine essay on the same topic.
What about the sonic landscape? Definitely hire a composer. Essay films are notoriously talking-head heavy, so the idea of introducing what filmmaker Jon Else calls more “yackety-yack” seems counterintuitive.
For a period, narration fell out of favor, as a generation of filmmakers eschewed the booming, omniscient voice of father god.
These days, narration as text has become quite popular and effective. In the future, I believe, the unseen, third-person human voice will make a comeback as storyteller extraordinaire.
I happen to favor narration. From an editing standpoint, it keeps your cuts spare (rather than wrestling with jump cuts and long-winded interviewees to make a point). From the audience’s vantage point, narration clarifies, a welcome tactic when ideas get dense.
Next week I’ll be sharing structural strategies to make your essay documentary as compelling as a narrative film.
To learn more about how to structure an essay-style (or topic-driven) film in great detail, check out my online seminar, “The Ultimate Guide To Structuring Your Documentary” at:
https://newdocediting.com/products
For a limited time, buy “The Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary”, and you’ll also get my other two most popular courses for free.
