Expanding the Documentary Trend in Contrived Quests

I recently wrote this article for SF360, the online magazine for documentary filmmakers, which I thought you’d find interesting as we enter the New Year.

There is a new trend in documentary storytelling that has its roots in the 2004 hit Supersize Me and will likely morph into new forms in the coming year. Documentary filmmakers are tinkering with, fine-tuning and expanding on the idea of constructing a story arc that goes something like this: I’ll attempt this crazy, quirky, or impossible feat for X amount of time and in the process, reveal something important about a troubling social issue.”

According to a recent New York Times book review, the literary world is also riding this “increasingly popular subgenre that involves setting oneself a task, usually for a year, and writing about it in an online diary before committing the account between covers.”

As the article points out, the contrived quest has the advantage of setting out clearly defined narrative boundaries.  For filmmakers, that means being able to guarantee to funders that you have a protagonist on a mission (a full-fledged story) within foreseeable time constraints and a predictable budget.  These are selling points for producers seeking funding.

For Morgan Spurlock, the narrative “conceit” was to prove McDonald’s assertion that its food is nutritious by eating only from the McDonald’s menu for 30 days. In King Corn (2007), Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis set out to plant an acre of corn, and in the course of four seasons, reveal our nation’s troubling addiction to corn products. More recently, writer Colin Beavan teamed up with directors Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein to document his year-long efforts to live without impacting the environment in No Impact Man (2009).

I see this trend not only intensifying, but veering from the personal documentary genre — in which the filmmaker herself takes on a Herculean task within a specific timeframe — to filmmakers teaming up with writers/activists already engaged in such a task.  Many of these print-based creators are looking for innovative ways (beyond blogging and books) to document their journey.

For example, I just finished reading the uncorrected proof for “The Happiness Project,” in which writer Gretchen Rubin documents her 12-month effort to “sing in the morning, clean my closets, fight right… and generally have more fun.” Assuming Rubin has an appealing on camera presence, the book would have made a great documentary.

Filmmakers seeking a new, fundable project should consider capitalizing on this growing trend by teaming up with bloggers who may be trying to cross the US/Mexican border once a day for a month, dress like Oprah every day for a year, or in the case of the narrative film Julie and Julia (2009), cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s famous cookbook … in 365 days.

For more strategies about how to shape your protagonist’s quest, check out my 6-part e-course, “Editing the Character-Driven Documentary.”  

Go to https://newdocediting.com/land/editingdocumentaryecourse/.