“No Impact Man” Crafts A Great Documentary Opening Scene
After having relished a “fun documentary” last week, The September Issue, my girlfriend Lynn obliged me by going to see a hard-hitting investigative documentary, Crude. Frankly I wasn’t too hot to see what I thought would be a downer, but hey, I missed it when I went to Sundance and Director Joe Berliner is a great filmmaker. As we were buying tickets, we noticed that No Impact Man, was playing down the hall. As we watched the first few minutes of Crude, I saw that Lynn seemed tired and checked out. I whispered, “Let’s go see No Impact Man,” and she readily agreed. Within minutes she was laughing at the trials of first-person narrator Colin Beavan and his wife, Business Week writer Michelle Conlin, as they agreed to forsake everything from caffeine (no Starbucks cups to dispose of) to toilet paper to refrigeration. Score one for an entertaining activist documentary film!
Since we missed the very first minute of No Impact Man (I hate doing that), I returned the next day to observe how the opening scene had been constructed. Editor William Haugse did a great job crafting a compelling start which helped this audience focus within sixty seconds on the film’s central questions: “If you could live without hurting the planet, what would that feel like?” asks protagonist and co-producer Colin Beavan. “Is it possible? Is it even practical?”
What I had missed the first time I saw the film was the important opening scene of Beavan nervously practicing his spiel in the green room of the The Colbert Report, a popular satire on Comedy Central. As an open, this scene succeeds in achieving three important objectives of any documentary film open:
- We viewers empathize with the protagonist;
- From his nervous rehearsals, we quickly learn the gist of Beavan’s point of view and hence the film’s topic. We won’t be wondering what this film is about;
- By showing Beavan engaging with Stephan Colbert, followed by two other media appearances including The Today Show, we understand that Beavan and his quest to live a year without impacting the environment is a topic of national importance. Big media appearances placed early on say “this film is worthwhile”.
After this opening, editor Haugse gives us a “six months earlier” title. The first act of No Impact Man then builds to the media blitz teased at the film’s open and played out six months into the Beavan’s mission. Like any good first act climax, this one confronts Beavan and his family with their biggest challenge to date: in this case, the negative public reaction to his quest for sustainability. Critics scold Beavan’s ploy as an attention-seeking, profit-motivated gimmick designed to sell his next book. Again, we viewers empathize with the protagonist.
Go see No Impact Man to have a good time, as Lynn did, but also with your structural cap on, to note an elegantly structured first act. You might even see it twice!
