My Documentary Manifesto (abridged, 2008)

Janis Cole’s Documentary Manifesto

1. Committing to a documentary begins with a passion for the topic.

My early student films were about friends living alternative lifestyles in downtown Toronto, and my passion in telling their stories was to convey their point of view and break down stereotypes. My goal (in 10 minutes or less!) was to introduce them and slowly reveal their alternative lifestyles as strippers, hookers, transsexuals, gay men and female impersonators. In the 1970's when I made the student shorts there was much less material being made on these topics than there is now. I believed then, and still do, that people get stereotypic ideas and/or unfounded fears about people who live different lifestyles because they don’t know similar people in their own lives. The people in my early films were friends and I related to them without awe or intrigue about their lifestyles. I wanted to get that same feeling across to audiences. In this way it is my belief that audiences will get to know people in different walks of life for who they are. The approach I used in these two student films became the approach I built upon in subsequent films about people living in the fringes of society. I have an ongoing passion to bring stories about people living in the fringes into mainstream consideration.


2. Voice-over narration is best used sparingly to fill in the story, not to ‘tell’ it.

My goal in documentary filmmaking is to avoid using voice-over narration altogether. “We have been ‘taught’ to believe in the image of reality and similarly ‘taught’ how to interpret the narrational voice as distorted and imposed onto it [film].”(1) While I prefer avoiding narration altogether in my own films (with the exception of Thin Line, 1977), I can appreciate films that use voice-over narration effectively. The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) has been a long standing favorite of mine.

The narration, which is carried through the whole film, never bothers me; in fact the voice of well-known gay actor Harvey Fierstein acts as a welcome guide to convey the emotionally packed story. “The role allotted Fierstein’s narration is confirmatory as opposed to purely instructional, so the ‘voice’ of The Times of Harvey Milk ostensibly comes from the active collusion between filmmakers, form, subjects and archive.”(2) I admire docs that don’t use narration. Next to that I like docs that weave narration into the story so it doesn't feel added afterwards. I dislike overly narrated docs explaining the obvious instead of letting the audience get it for themselves. Robert Drew says “narration is what you do when you fail” (Drew 1983: 271-3)”.(3) While this is harsh, I find it’s generally true.


3. Research your doc topic thoroughly, and then do more research, and more…

To make Thin Line I researched criminology, criminality, sociology and psychology, the Penetanguishene Hospital for the Criminally Insane and the penal system in Canada for similarities and differences, noting recidivist rates in both streams of incarceration. I screened every film I could find on penal issues in Canada and the United States. I researched famous prisoners who were locked up at Penetang, the categories of crimes the patients at Penetang fell into, like rape, murder, spree killing and serial killing, and the types of treatments patients underwent such as the capsule, the use of pure alcohol and forms of speed (I also researched acid treatments which had been controversial and were no longer used by the time I filmed). I researched various mental health conditions the patients were diagnosed with such as schizophrenia, antisocial disorders, paranoia, and psychosis. Once I met the participants for the film I researched their crimes and backgrounds. I taught myself how to do deep research on that film. I prefer doing my own research even though it’s time consuming. There is no greater gift than discovering a nugget during research that leads in a new direction to explore.


4. Get to know your participants before you film them.

I was lucky to have the advantage of knowing my participants in early student films I made. Then I worked on getting to know participants once I left school. It took six months to get into Penetang to film Thin Line. This seemed like a long time but I focused on research and when I started filming I was able to converse with the patients on their terms. Taking so long to get in turned out to be an opportunity in disguise. This waiting period carried on into the next project, P4W; Prison for Women. It took four years to get into the prison to make P4W. I can’t say enough about the value of getting to know the participants in advance of filming, which includes getting to know the primary location, especially when it's an institution such as the Penetanguishene Hospital (for the criminally insane) or the Prison for Woman. An institution, just like a person, has a life and a story all its own.


5. Documentary filmmaking is a transaction between filmmaker and participants.

A documentary filmmaker enters into a transaction with their participants, a negotiated way of conducting the business of making the film. I want my participants to be themselves. I want to capture the naturalism of their lives on film. I want them to be reliable, especially when I film over a period of eighteen or twenty days. One way to secure participants is to pay them, which I have heard of some documentary filmmakers doing. Television reportage tends to pay participants for the ease of filming without getting to know people due to quick turnaround for delivery. Personally I have ethical questions about paying participants. On the one hand if the crew is being paid why not pay the participants. But on the other, if the participants are paid do they see their role as a job, and act accordingly. It can be a tough call. I work out the filmmaking transaction with my participants, not paying participants to be in my documentaries, which has been the right decision for me. I always go back to show the film to my participants. I don’t give them editorial control, which I make clear from the start, but at the end when I’m completely finished I get great satisfaction in hearing my participants say, “Wow, you really got the story right.”


6. Documentaries are harder to make than dramas.

Unlike most dramas which are scripted before shooting, there isn't a script written in advance for most documentaries. The shaping of the story is a series of decisions made by the filmmaker about what to film, and when and how to use the rushes. One of the main difficulties in making documentaries is learning to balance objectivity/subjectivity in making these decisions. Documentary film is traditionally perceived to be the hybrid offspring of a perennial struggle between the forces of objectivity (represented by the ‘documents’ or facts that underpin it) and the forces of subjectivity (that is the translation of those facts into representational form).”(4) One’s objective/subjective balance in documentary shapes everything in the film, from the choice of participants, how and when they’re filmed, when the cameras roll, how the film is put together, what the story is about and how to release the finished film. The entire shape of a documentary rests with the objective/subjective choices of the maker, often an auteur, and he or she cannot escape the result of these choices. If you make the wrong choice at any phase of the production the story might not cut together, may require narration, or at worse may never work at all.


7. A good documentary director uses their ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’ in the field.

Learning to direct a documentary is about learning to shape a story as you go. There is no point in writing a script for a documentary film and then heading out in the field and trying to film that script verbatim. When I go out on a documentary shoot I’m well prepared. I’ve done my homework, carried out exhaustive research and I know my topic and participants. I have a schedule for every shoot day and a list of things to be shot. I am prepared for every interview. But that is not a blueprint to abide by, it’s an outline so I’m prepared to converse with people and learn from the actual experience of being in the field. I veer from my shooting plan all the time when I’m filming documentaries. Something happens that is different than I anticipated, so I shift things accordingly. Or I discover something I didn’t know and shift my plan to fit it in. Sometimes I learn that I’ve gotten something wrong in my research and by learning the right thing in the field I have to change quickly and move my shoot in the right direction, even if it means eliminating things I thought were important. I use my eyes and ears in the field, and I process what I hear and see through the knowledge I’ve gathered in my research. I make informed decisions and instead of doing what’s best for my schedule and plan, I do what’s best for the documentary story and the portrayal of my participants.


8. Documentaries are written in the cutting room.

The place for writing documentaries is in the cutting room, not at the writer’s desk. It helps if the documentary director is an editor or at least understands the job of editing. I have edited all but two of my documentary films and I was involved in those cuts all the way through. “This book [New Documentary, second edition by Stella Bruzzi] has argued against the uncompromised rendition of the real being an attainable goal for non-fiction, [however] the presence of the auteur is not so problematic, for one of the corollaries of accepting that documentary cannot but perform the interaction between reality and its representation is the acknowledgment that documentary, like fiction, is authored.”(5) Yes, documentary is authored, but unlike fiction where the story is scripted before shooting, documentary rushes are generally used to ‘find’ the story after the filming wraps.

The director experiences a freedom of choice in their rushes, the opportunity to tell any number of stories, and yet there is generally only one ideal story lurking in the rushes that rings true to the experience of the filmmaker. Any number of stories exist in documentary rushes. Finding 'the' story takes skill, practice and time. I did three rough cuts for P4W and each told a different story. I settled on the final one because it reflected what I wanted the film to say and it had an emotional structure. My sound recordist, who had seen all three rough cuts, was disappointed at first that I didn’t stick with the first, which she said was the best because it was wonky just like the prison. She was right, but it was also all over the map, and the story needed to unfold with a structure. “I found that there were many smart, articulate people willing to talk to me, but the amazing thing was that none of these smart people could agree on anything. So it fell on me to try to develop the truest story I could (Fairweather 2003: p.6) [about the experience of making Capturing the Friedman’s].(6)


9. Practice good ethics.

Ethics is a way of operating in the world, a way of treating people, a knowledge of what is ‘truth’, what is not, and how reality events are used. Ultimately ethics will form the guiding principles of documentary storytelling to shape the final results that will be shown to an audience. Wrapping a film in a documentary package gives the subliminal message that you are presenting the ‘truth’. I see no reason why anyone should needlessly be disregarded in the making of documentary filmmaking. I see no reason why fiction events should be disguised as non-fiction to fool audiences. In this era of the hybrid doc this is one of the more controversial aspects of documentary ethics to consider before setting off to shoot.


10. If you’d like others to be changed by your films allow yourself to be changed too.

Making documentaries is a gift of continual learning. I’ve had rare experiences along the way and gained unique insight into the human condition. My greatest reward is earning the trust of people living in the fringes, who are usually there because they have a mistrust of people. I learn something each time I make a documentary film, and it keeps me going to make the next.

1 Stella Bruzzi, New Documentary, Second Edition, pg. 47
2 Stella Bruzzi, New Documentary, Second Edition, pg. 54
3 Stella Bruzzi, New Documentary, Second Edition, pg. 48
4 Stella Bruzzi, New Documentary, Second Edition, pg. 46
5 Stella Bruzzi, New Documentary, Second Edition, pg. 197, the auteur
6 Stella Bruzzi, New Documentary, Second Edition, pg. 241, Capturing the Friedman’s