Documentary

by bam

A documentary is a relationship that lasts long enough to change, and that is its central craft problem as much as its central ethical one. This course covers what documentary actually claims about the world, the recognized modes and what each one implicitly promises a viewer, access and the consent that has to be renewed rather than signed once, how structure is found in material rather than scripted in advance, interviewing at depth including the uses of silence, archive as evidence, the ethics of the edit where every honest film shapes and the question is how, the signals that keep reenactment and music honest, and who the film is finally for when the participant, the funder and the audience want different things. Built on the six decisions from How Stories Work, with the field's own account of its dilemmas rather than a list of rules.