| |
One of the most effective ways to study documentaries is to have
students produce their own documentaries about an issue, topics,
or concern, as well as a study of an institution, group, or event.
(For your final task in this module, you are asked to develop an
idea for creating such a documentary).
|
These documentaries can take on a range of different forms or
formats. In some cases, they may simply be short portraits of a
site or event in which the student interviews participants and capture
some aspects of the site of event. In other cases, students, working
in teams, may select an issue and create a documentary about different
aspects or that issue. For example, they may want to do a study
on the issue of equity in athletic funding in their school between
male versus female sports. In doing so, they need to do some prior
investigation about the competing perspectives associated with that
issue so that they know how they will frame the issue and which
individuals they need to interview.
|
As noted on the Education
Video Center site engaging in these documentary productions
will:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In making their productions, students need to use their discretion
in making
decisions about what material to show and how they should show that
material. They should be aware of the risks of showing people in
a negative light, and should obtain the written permissions of any
persons whom they are filming. As the producers of the PBS high
school documentary, American
High noted:
|
We invited 25 kids to be part of the video diary project and
from that pool...we filmed with about 14 of them. In lesser hands,
American High could've been a logistical nightmare. R.J., who
also produced the political documentaries The War Room and A Perfect
Candidate, had a simple system. Two crews covered up to eight
students each. From August to June they shot three weeks out of
every month, wherever the "cast" led them. That includes
at home, on dates and at parties.
It gets kind of tricky covering very social, underage kids virtually
24 hours a day. Sometimes the crew may have wanted to jump in
and stop someone from fighting or drinking. But, as R.J. explains,
they tried to maintain distance to protect the series' authenticity.
"There were plenty of situations where it was necessary
to exercise our discretion as grown-ups and human beings, but
our principal objective was to observe and tell the truth as much
as possible. I think we did that...but you always develop a personal
relationship with your subjects. You do try to keep on a certain
side of the line."
When the cameras finally stopped rolling, R.J. and the production
team had logged literally thousands of hours of tape. Then came
the task of sorting the footage and cutting it all together. Witness
the enticing, fascinating, funny and poignant results of American
High.
|
It is important that students carefully plan out their productions,
beginning with a script and storyboard, along with some estimation
as to length of the various shots. They should also have a clear
sense of the key ideas or points of view they want to convey through
each of their shots. And, they need to consider whether they want
to employ a voice-over narrative or music as part of their editing
of the final product. |
One key aspect of creating documentaries is to find a potential
audience. One audience can be the local Public, Educational and
Governmental (PEG) access television channels on cable television.
You could contact one of the channels for information about including
student-produced documentaries. Strategies for doing do are described
on The
Alliance for Community Media site.
|
For other student documentary-production sites: |
Children’s
Media Project
|
Global
Action Project
|
Teaching
Intermedia Literacy Tools
|
Media
Alliance
|
Bay
Area Video Coalition
|
Media
Arts Center, Seattle
|
Asian
Media Access, Metropolitan State University, St. Paul, Minnesota
|
Multimedia
Library [hundreds of QuickTime productions that illustrate
documentary techniques]
|
Intime
teacher Video [students create an ImovieiMovie documentary
on environmental health]
|
Intime
teacher Video [students create a CD-ROM documentary about
Manson, Iowa based on photos, interviews]
|
Street
Level Youth Video
|
PBS:
Listen-Up Youth Media Network
|
Document
Durham: Neighborhoods Projects
|
Students could also incorporate documentary materials, including
still digital photos, into their own writing of particular sites
or events. |
Fixing
Shadows: Still Photography [photography used in ethnographies]
|
Voices
of the Land: Minneapolis Star Tribune [The Voices
for the Land project encouraged Minnesotans to write about the
land they love, defend its existence and fight for its preservation.
Every week for a year, we featured an essay with photographs by
Star Tribune staff photographer Brian Peterson.]
|
The
Library of Congress: The American Memory digital collection [
American Memory is a gateway to rich primary source materials
relating to the history and culture of the United States. The
site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100
historical collections.]
|
Pics for
Learning [lots of digital images]
|
Hanover
2000 Worlds Fair [examples of 360 degree QT shots of exhibition
buildings]
|
U
of M Tech Talk: Digital Photography
|
Intime
teacher Video [students using digital photos to create a montage
of their school]
|
Literacy
through Photography
|
For further reading on documentary production: |
Escobar, D. (2001). Creating History Documentaries:
A Step-By-Step Guide to Video Projects in the Classroom. New
York: Prufrock Press. |
Goldsmith, D. (2003). Documentary Makers.
New York: Rotovision. |
Kochberg, S. (Ed.) (2002). Introduction to
Documentary Production. New York: Wallflower Press
|
Rosenthal, A. (2003). Writing, Directing,
and Producing Documentary Films and Videos. Carbondale, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press. |
Other recommended documentaries for high school viewing; descriptions
from the FACETs
catalogue
|
American Dream
Winner of the 1990 Academy award for best documentary, forceful
account of the labor strike, Barbara Kopple, 1990
An American Love Story
Jennifer Fox's amazing 10-part mini-series has been hailed as
one of the most ambitious documentaries about American family
life, 1998
Anne Frank Remembered
Family members, childhood friends and the people who hid the Franks
bring to life the girl behind the diary, Jon Blair, 1995
The Atomic Cafe
This chilling documentary culls newsreel footage and government
archives to recreate the hysteria of the Cold War. Kevin Rafferty,
1982
Baraka
Amazing 70mm cinematography tells this global story of human and
environmental interdependence. Ron Fricke, 1992
Be Good, Smile Pretty
Filmmaker Tracy Droz Trago chronicled her quest to understand
and cope with the loss of her father, who was killed in Vietnam
30 years ago,
Tracy Droz Tragos, 2003
Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary
Traudle Junge, a soft-spoken, gray-haired, 81-year-old woman,
breaks her 60-year silence to recount the years that she spent
as Adolph Hitler,
Andre Heller/ Othmar Schmiderer, 2002
Christo in Paris
Since the days of King Henry IV, Paris' Pont Neuf has inspired
artists. Here it is the focus of environmental sculptor Christo
Javacheff, Albert Maysles/
David Maysles, 1991
Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt
Academy Award winner Robert Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's moving,
powerful documentary about five people who died of AIDS, Rob Epstein/
Jeffrey Friedman, 1989
Crumb
Robert Crumb, the multi-talented underground comic book artist,
is profiled in this unique, in-depth documentary portrait, Terry
Zwigoff, 1995
The Farmer's Wife
In the spirit of An American Love Story, this exceptional six-and-a-half
hour television documentary series follows Nebraska farming couple,
David Sutherland, 1998
A Great Day in Harlem
Nominated for an Academy Award, this documentary offers a cross-section
of jazz greats, Jean Bach, 1995
Harlan County U.S.A.
The Academy Award-winning documentary about the efforts of 180
coal-mining families to win a United Mine Workers contract, Barbara
Kopple, 1976
Looking for Richard
Al Pacino's critically acclaimed tribute to Shakespeare features
Winona Ryder, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin, and Estelle Parsons,
Al Pacino
Lost in La Mancha
Director Terry Gilliam's uphill battle to film an adaptation of
Cervantes' epic novel, "Don Quixote," Keith Fulton/Louis
Pepe, 2002
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media
This remarkable Canadian documentary is a riveting look at the
political life and times of the controversial author, linguist
and radical, Noam Chomsky, Mark Achbar/Peter Wintonick, 1992
Road Scholar
The whimsical and offbeat Transylvanian humorist Andrei Codrescu
takes off across America in a red convertible, Roger Weisberg,
1992
SlamNation
A high-energy documentary feature about poetry "slam"
contests and the talented poet-performers who compete in them,
Paul Devlin, 1998
|
