Crafting An Essay Style Documentary Part 3

Today I want to share a powerful structural template for structuring an essay-style film.

While there are plenty exceptions, most idea-based films can be divided into three parts. I use the word “parts”, rather than “acts” intentionally, to distinguish the powerful essay we are crafting from the classic three-act narrative structure first articulated by Aristotle.

In Part One, which runs no more than one-quarter of the film’s length, you introduce your viewer to the film’s topic and ethos, or intellectual sensibility.  What is the film about? Is your approach critical, affirming, investigative?

Most importantly in Part One, you present your hypothesis, or central idea. Let me stress that your film’s premise should be a remarkably simple idea, i.e. “global warming is real”, to really grab your viewer.

Filmmakers with multiple dissertations and agendas make the mistake of diluting their vision and diverting their viewers’ attention.

Another way of presenting your essay film’s single thesis is by asking a central question.  For example, in Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore asks, “Why does America have the highest homocide rate from handguns?”

All the other questions he poses in the film lead to that central question. For a great scene-by-scene case study of Bowling for Columbine’s essay structure, check out Sheila Bernard Curran’s excellent book, Documentary Storytelling.

In Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog poses this question: Why did Timothy Treadwell get so close those big bears (that they ate him)? The documentary Who Killed The Electric Car? poses its central question in the title.

In Part Two, the bulk of the essay film, you craft arguments in support of your thesis and then organize these claims in a way that keeps momentum building.

In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore (and by extension, director Davis Guggenheim) puts forth several contentions to support his now rarely contested thesis-that global warming is an impending crisis.  First, he debunks the naysayers’s research.  Then he presents scientific evidence that temperatures and sea levels are rising, species are drowning, water shortages are creating arid farmland, food shortages are becoming epidemic, etc.

If your central idea is posed as a question, then Part Two explores different answers to that single question.  Why did the Grizzly Man get so close to the Alaskan bears?  Was he it because he was a fearless advocate for four-legged endangered species?  A showman? Was he a man with an intuitive, non-verbal, bear-whispering talent? An egomaniac?  Was he insane?

Likewise, in Who Killed the Electric Car, director Chris Payne cross-examines one suspect after another to find who should answer for this crime against the environment.  Was it the car company CEO’s? The marketing executives? The American consumer? Technology?

How do you order your arguments or answers into an escalating format?  Generally, you save the most intellectually powerful and damning evidence for last, although this will depend on whether you have the footage to illustrate it.

Sometimes spectacular cinematography trumps the power of points made by talking heads. In other words, you may decide that great visuals accompanying a less powerful argument merit placing it toward the end.

Or, your organizational strategy may be chronological, if your timeline naturally builds suspense.  Or, you may hold for last the arguments that are best illustrated through moving character vignettes. I say “vignettes” because essay films are more likely to feature character snapshots rather than full-blown character arcs. Michael Moore excels at this strategy in Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko.

Part Three of an essay film raises the stakes even higher, perhaps by expanding the geographic realm of the topic, looking into the future at the implications of your case, or presenting solutions.

Now that you’ve make your argument, it’s time to turn a structural corner and spend a little time (not much) speculating on what it all means.  OK, the earth is heating up.  What are the consequences? What can we do about it?

In a similar vein, now that we’ve pointed the finger at all the suspects who could have sent the twentieth century electric car to a premature tragic death, where do we go from here?

In Part Three, you need to decide on how you want to end your film in terms of tone.  Do you want your audience to leave feeling hopeful? Outraged?  Troubled?

My sensibilities tend toward the hopeful, particularly if you’ve spent most of your viewer’s attention span in a critical analysis of the status quo, as many social issue documentaries do.

The Celluloid Closet, a terrific essay film that indicts Hollywood for its homophobic erasing and vilifying of gay people, ends with a flurry of hopeful signs:  gay characters appearing in television sitcoms and dramas, straight actors playing gay characters, gay actors coming out.

Give your attentive audience a dessert for their denouement–such as a sweet montage of success stories–and they just might honor your film, as evidenced by Fields of Fuel, an ultimately buoyant documentary about bio-fuels that won the 2008 Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

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 editing seminar for free. It’s called “Editing the Character-Driven Documentary”.