Description

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 practiceis 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.

 

 

Features

• Five sections covering creativity and creative documentary and the contemporary creative industries: strategies for developing documentary ideas; the art of documentary narrative; digital production methods; new documentary forms; distribution and financing.
• Provides a comprehensive overview of critical thought and techniques in digital documentary filmmaking.
• Authors and specialist contributors combine the experience, knowledge and skills of academics and media professionals working in the industry.
• Practical case studies support analysis and reflection.
• Exercises, checklists, interviews with professionals and further reading materials accompany each chapter.
• A historical overview of world documentary.
• A website offering additional illustrative material for each section.

Table of Contents

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

Back Cover

 

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 theory and practice, it outlines the contemporary, institutional, practical and financial contexts for production - always encouraging innovation and originality.

Key features

• Five sections covering creativity and creative documentary and the contemporary creative industries: strategies for developing documentary ideas; the art of documentary narrative; digital production methods; new documentary forms; distribution and financing.
• Provides a comprehensive overview of critical thought and techniques in digital documentary filmmaking.
• Authors and specialist contributors combine the experience, knowledge and skills of academics and media professionals working in the industry.
• Practical case studies support analysis and reflection.
• Exercises, checklists, interviews with professionals and further reading materials accompany each chapter.
• A historical overview of world documentary.

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 interested in video, film and media theory and production.

Visit our media and journalism website at www.pearsoned.co.uk/mediajournalism to find links and resources for this and other Pearson titles.

Wilma de Jong is a documentary filmmaker and teaches documentary theory and practice in higher education.  Prior to this Wilma ran her own independent production company for 14 years.

Erik Knudsen is a filmmaker and teacher in higher education, working across fiction and documentary, and also runs his own company.

Jerry Rothwell is a documentary director who has worked within television, interactive production and cinema.  His work also draws on participatory and community arts practices.

Reader Review(s)

"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