It's certainly totally up there, but there's also Drive to Survive whilst more fact-ent in its approach also has great access. That's why it's done so well - people love authentic fly on the wall film making. Remember Nick Broomfiled, Michael Moore, all these great directors took us on a journey with them...
It’s great that you’ve spotlighted the outstanding talent Dave Nath is. What you’ve drawn attention to I would call Storyfinding as opposed to Storytelling. Nowadays everyone is a storyteller and every dull brand reckons it has a story. The focus of my work these days is as a Storyfinder - after two decades of commissioning boundary-pushing films/programmes/media I like to think my skills in this key discipline are finely honed.
The other interface of your thought-provoking piece and my practice is Smartphone Filmmaking. Smartphone pioneer director Victoria Mapplebeck and I have just launched the 2nd edition of our Smartphone film festival for next May. This kind of intimate filmmaking makes longitudinal docs & observational docs shot over a long period possible again. Victoria’s latest feature documentary ‘Motherboard’ has the distinction of being shot on 6 generations of iPhone! The film we made that first brought us together ‘Missed Call’ was shot on an iPhone 10 and was the first film made primarily for YouTube to win an academy award anywhere (a TV BAFTA in 2019). Danny Boyle just used 20 iPhones on ‘28 Years Later’ so smartphones now span the full range of filmmaking.
Thanks for the insights Adam - can’t wait to see more about your smartphone festival. It’s definitely where the entire industry is heading and I love the fact the technology is democratising content production. Brilliant that you are at the cutting edge of this…
I agree with much of what you write, in particular about the predictability of interview based docs which despite the beautiful set ups and carefully constructed pacing often make you wonder why you're sitting through them rather than simply reading a long form piece of journalism. I started out in the late 90s as a self shooter with small cameras and was almost always in the edit, and you needed a beginning, middle and end, shot and edited to a tightish schedule, hitting the right notes and emotions according to the channel and the TX time slot. i.e. a formula of some kind but done as obs doc. Some film-makers earned the right to go and make their own thing in the obs doc genre with looser schedules but I seem to remember that these wouldn't exactly be ratings winners and production companies weren't crazy about doing these one-offs because it didn't keep them afloat. Wasn't all that a problem? But everything's changed completely so maybe it could work much better now given that these films ought to be cheap to make? Am I being naive?
Thanks Barney - you're totally right that popular TV has always been subject to a process which formalises the budget and shooting period. My worry is the modern execs, whilst liking this style, just dont know the previous styles of documentary making mainly because they haven't really been exposed to it throughout their careers. So the end shot we're losing a skillset that I think is vital when constructing these stories. One offs have always been hard as ratings winners - Dave's documentary was part of a strand called Cutting Edge back in the day - something that I think would do well again today in digital. The industry has now changed so much that companies are really pleased to get a one off film commissioned and so you are seeing a rise in singles coming back...
Thanks Ed. Cutting Edge often had great films in the series, as did 40 Minutes (way back) and many others. If singles are coming back that's very good news. So, for making an obs doc you can have a shooting director, an AP, a production manager and an exec' to keep an eye on it, and then a reasonable length edit. This shouldn't be expensive. I always thought it made sense and it surely still does!
As pertinently written and accessible as ever Ed - I agree with so much of this. It would be fair to say that you're talking about UK and US produced 'premium factual' documentary which has been formatted and sometimes 'industrialised'. Many doc cultures in other countries allow more latitude for directors as creatives, and expect them to be there from idea conception to completion. Often that leads to 'too much style' and self-indulgence at the cost of the story (and the efficiency to get it out there) but we surely need a bit everything in a varied audiovisual diet. I never worked at the coalface of popular factual (as it used to be called in the early 2000s) but really recognise what you say about it being the training ground for fine directors and producers in the UK.
Many thanks for your kind words Krishan. Yes, I'm mainly talking about UK & US premium factual - but very often, not always of course, these docs often set the trends in story telling around the world as regional producers try to mirror the editorial tropes of these shows to give their local films a chance for sale in the US. As you say, it's really important to have a varied diet, especially in linear TV if it's ever going to keep differentiating itself in this ultra competitive world.
This is why 24 Hours In Police Custody remains the best documentary series we have.
It's certainly totally up there, but there's also Drive to Survive whilst more fact-ent in its approach also has great access. That's why it's done so well - people love authentic fly on the wall film making. Remember Nick Broomfiled, Michael Moore, all these great directors took us on a journey with them...
It’s great that you’ve spotlighted the outstanding talent Dave Nath is. What you’ve drawn attention to I would call Storyfinding as opposed to Storytelling. Nowadays everyone is a storyteller and every dull brand reckons it has a story. The focus of my work these days is as a Storyfinder - after two decades of commissioning boundary-pushing films/programmes/media I like to think my skills in this key discipline are finely honed.
The other interface of your thought-provoking piece and my practice is Smartphone Filmmaking. Smartphone pioneer director Victoria Mapplebeck and I have just launched the 2nd edition of our Smartphone film festival for next May. This kind of intimate filmmaking makes longitudinal docs & observational docs shot over a long period possible again. Victoria’s latest feature documentary ‘Motherboard’ has the distinction of being shot on 6 generations of iPhone! The film we made that first brought us together ‘Missed Call’ was shot on an iPhone 10 and was the first film made primarily for YouTube to win an academy award anywhere (a TV BAFTA in 2019). Danny Boyle just used 20 iPhones on ‘28 Years Later’ so smartphones now span the full range of filmmaking.
Thanks for the insights Adam - can’t wait to see more about your smartphone festival. It’s definitely where the entire industry is heading and I love the fact the technology is democratising content production. Brilliant that you are at the cutting edge of this…
I agree with much of what you write, in particular about the predictability of interview based docs which despite the beautiful set ups and carefully constructed pacing often make you wonder why you're sitting through them rather than simply reading a long form piece of journalism. I started out in the late 90s as a self shooter with small cameras and was almost always in the edit, and you needed a beginning, middle and end, shot and edited to a tightish schedule, hitting the right notes and emotions according to the channel and the TX time slot. i.e. a formula of some kind but done as obs doc. Some film-makers earned the right to go and make their own thing in the obs doc genre with looser schedules but I seem to remember that these wouldn't exactly be ratings winners and production companies weren't crazy about doing these one-offs because it didn't keep them afloat. Wasn't all that a problem? But everything's changed completely so maybe it could work much better now given that these films ought to be cheap to make? Am I being naive?
Thanks Barney - you're totally right that popular TV has always been subject to a process which formalises the budget and shooting period. My worry is the modern execs, whilst liking this style, just dont know the previous styles of documentary making mainly because they haven't really been exposed to it throughout their careers. So the end shot we're losing a skillset that I think is vital when constructing these stories. One offs have always been hard as ratings winners - Dave's documentary was part of a strand called Cutting Edge back in the day - something that I think would do well again today in digital. The industry has now changed so much that companies are really pleased to get a one off film commissioned and so you are seeing a rise in singles coming back...
Thanks Ed. Cutting Edge often had great films in the series, as did 40 Minutes (way back) and many others. If singles are coming back that's very good news. So, for making an obs doc you can have a shooting director, an AP, a production manager and an exec' to keep an eye on it, and then a reasonable length edit. This shouldn't be expensive. I always thought it made sense and it surely still does!
As pertinently written and accessible as ever Ed - I agree with so much of this. It would be fair to say that you're talking about UK and US produced 'premium factual' documentary which has been formatted and sometimes 'industrialised'. Many doc cultures in other countries allow more latitude for directors as creatives, and expect them to be there from idea conception to completion. Often that leads to 'too much style' and self-indulgence at the cost of the story (and the efficiency to get it out there) but we surely need a bit everything in a varied audiovisual diet. I never worked at the coalface of popular factual (as it used to be called in the early 2000s) but really recognise what you say about it being the training ground for fine directors and producers in the UK.
Many thanks for your kind words Krishan. Yes, I'm mainly talking about UK & US premium factual - but very often, not always of course, these docs often set the trends in story telling around the world as regional producers try to mirror the editorial tropes of these shows to give their local films a chance for sale in the US. As you say, it's really important to have a varied diet, especially in linear TV if it's ever going to keep differentiating itself in this ultra competitive world.