How Long Will the Character-Driven Documentary Remain King?

I recently advertised at the last minute on Doculink for an assistant to help with my seminar at the San Francisco Film Society this weekend.  I was relieved to get several interested volunteers.  I’ve been teaching “Structuring the Character-Driven Documentary” three times per year for the last five year, and the class continues to fill up.  I’d like to think that’s because filmmakers are swarming to sit at the feet of a brilliant guru, but the truth is, filmmakers understand that character-driven documentaries are getting funded, broadcast and distributed. How long will the character-driven documentary film stay in fashion?

The trend in character-driven docs began in 1994 with Hoop Dreams, the first documentary to make it big at the box office, and it remains a powerful force on the documentary landscape today.  At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, for example, ten of the eleven documentary films to win awards followed the character-driven format:  protagonist(s) embarks on a quest in the face of daunting obstacles.  I blogged about this “Trojan Horse Trend” when I got back from Sundance, the “Trojan Horse” being the riveting story (generally 3-act structure), that once rolled into the viewer’s psyche, allowed the filmmaker’s socially-conscious agenda to sneak past the fortress of our belief in the status quo.

Some documentary filmmakers grumble that the three-act structure to which character-driven documentaries adhere is too limiting, and that there need to be more structural models in play.  I think the grumbling is often born out of a hidden frustration that the filmmaker doesn’t have a really compelling story.  My answer to that is threefold:  1) stop complaining and find a story; 2) the three-act structure is a hearty art form that spawns infinite variations; 3) there are plenty of ways to edit a topic-based documentary.  In fact, I have talked with ITVS executives about changing the popular opinion that the agency only wants to fund character-driven documentaries.  Stay tuned…

I am curious to see how long the character-driven documentary will remain king, and what other forms will arise to usurp it.  You’ll find plenty of predecessors in any history of documentary class:  the ethnographic documentary, the direct cinema documentary, the Ed Murrow essay-style documentary.  What documentary genres will wed with, morph from or topple the character-driven documentary?

And, while in Rome, do as the Romans do. That is, if you are making or contemplating filming a character-driven documentary, I invite you to check out my seminar, Editing the Character-Driven Documentary.  It’s now available online as a 6-part self-study e-course at https://newdocediting.com/land/editingdocumentaryecourse/.