Creative Documentary: Theory and Practice

What does it mean to be a documentary filmmaker in today’s world?

How are new technologies changing documentary filmmaking?

What new forms of documentary are emerging?

Recent technological developments have made the making and distribution of documentary films easier and more widespread than ever before. Creative Documentary: theory and practice is an innovative and essential guide that comprehensively embraces these changing contexts and provides you with the ideas, methods, and critical understanding to support successful documentary making. It helps the aspiring ‘total filmmaker’ understand the contemporary contexts for production, equipping you also with the understanding of creativity and visual storytelling you’ll need to excel. Bridging the gap between the theory and practice, it outlines the contemporary institutional, practical and financial contexts for production, always encouraging innovation and originality.

Creative Documentary: theory and practice is an essential guide for those engaged in the study and practice of documentary theory and making, as well as key reading for those more broadly in video, film and media theory and production.

About the authors

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part 1 The creative documentary

1 What is creativity? Wilma de Jong

2 The creative documentary Wilma de Jong

3 The creative industries and documentary Wilma de Jong

4 Passionate business: entrepreneurship and the documentary

filmmaker Wilma de Jong

Part 2 Development strategies

5 Developing ideas Jerry Rothwell

6 From idea to pitch Jerry Rothwell

7 Budgets and schedules Jerry Rothwell

Part 3 Narrative strategies

8 The nature of stories and narratives Erik Knudsen

9 Life does not tell stories: structuring devices in documentary

filmmaking Wilma de Jong

10 The classic narrative Erik Knudsen

11 The transcendental narrative Erik Knudsen

12 Cinematic codes Erik Knudsen

13 New media, new documentary forms Mary Agnes Krell

Part 4 Production strategies

14 A good waltz or a nasty tango: individual qualities of the ‘total’

filmmaker and teamwork Wilma de Jong

15 Producing Jerry Rothwell

16 Directing Erik Knudsen

17 Camera and cinematography Erik Knudsen

18 Interview strategies Jerry Rothwell

19 The uses and abuses of archive footage Toby Haggith

20 Zen and the art of documentary editing Wilma de Jong

21 Being there: the creative use of location and post-production

sound in documentaries Jean Martin

Part 5 Distribution strategies

22 Online, portable and convergence environments Erik Knudsen

23 Delivery and compliance Jerry Rothwell

Bibliography

Useful websites

Appendix

Documentary filmmaking: a historical overview

Index

"A wide-ranging, illuminating and comprehensive book. Simultaneously both very practical and deeply thought-provoking , it is an indispensable guide for people wanting to make their own documentaries." - Dr Tony Dowmunt, Goldsmiths, University of London

" ... with an informed awareness of the implications of digital developments, this is an important pragmatic and conceptual guide for new documentary makers, especially those aspiring to a critical and reflexive engagement with the genre" - Dr Cahal McLaughlin, University of Ulster

“A brilliantly useful and comprehensive book that takes you through the A to Z of documentary filming. Read it, digest it, take what is useful and go and make a brilliant film!” - Nick Broomfield, documentary filmmaker