At its face value, colorblindness seems like a good thingreally taking MLK seriously on his call to judge people on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Narrative structure sometimes mandates manipulation, which they often but not always found uncomfortable. Documentary filmmakers typically are small business owners, selling their work to a range of distributors, mostly in television. Ultimately Im not of that position. This DPA may be amended and the observance of any provision of this DPA may be waived . The interview team consisted of Center for Social Media fellow and filmmaker Mridu Chandra and American University School of Communication MFA graduate student Maura Ugarte. Breyer urges people to inject diversity into what they watch and read. Symbolic tribunals?. I am keenly aware of the hypocrisy of asking someone for access that I myself would probably not grant. They let you be there as their life unfolds, said Steven Ascher, and that carries with it a responsibility to try to anticipate how the audience will see them, and at times to protect them when necessary., I often think, Let me be this person watching the film. Would they hate me? We are a respected educational program provider, [and] we would have looked bad, disgraced by it., Filmmakers expected to get to truth via the vehicle of a story and held themselves responsible for its implications. Accompanying the represented sub-ject matter is the film's attitude toward its . We consume news in very small bites now like on Twitter, but we naturally tend to want to be able to sink our teeth into something, whether 8,000-word magazine piece or big documentary, Woelfel said. Rather the opposite, in fact: faced with evidence of or a decision for inaccuracy or manipulation, they often moved the truth to a higher conceptual level, that of higher truth.. . Adi Rukun, left, questions Commander Amir Siahaan, one of the death squad leaders responsible for his brothers death during the Indonesian genocide, in Joshua Oppenheimers documentary The Look of Silence. Courtesy of Drafthouse Films and Participant Media. Filmmakers who thought of themselves as journalists resisted even the idea of payment. No, I never show rough cuts to subjects. A.253m2B.25m2C.103m2D.53m2\begin{array} { l } {A. For the most part, however, when it comes to standards and ethics (and even independent fact checking), documentary filmmakers have largely depended on individual judgment, guidance from executives, and occasional conversations at film festivals and on listservs. By Justin Sayles Jul 9, 2021, 6:30am EDT. Hopefully you do it in a way that ultimately, with the finished product that I had a clear conscience. In a certain sense there is something deceptive about that. Many even see themselves as executors of a higher truth, framed within a narrative. I wanted to learn more about why she did the awful things . . WasFahrenheit 9/11accurate in its factual indictment of the Bush administrations geopolitics? For instance, filmmakers also regularly used re-creations (re-staging of events that have already occurred, whether in the recent or distant past), although they widely believed that it was important that audiences be made aware somehow that the footage is recreated. However, what I will call the content of a film often contains something further. What were seeing now is a democratization of storytelling in a way that gives John Q. For Grierson, who incessantly strategized to garner government resources for documentary film, the phrase had strategic advantages. Luc Jacquet 3. if the regular price od the book is $25, how many books could be bought at the sale price if a shopper spent $105? Someone else will be culling footage from your film. This is an area that we havent really worked out, where a big conversation needs to happen. if the regular price od the book is $25, how many books could be bought at the sale price if a shopper spent $105? how many hours will it take to produce 3000 cars? Although the result was unintentional, he also felt no remorse. That could be good or bad, depending on the story being told, Cross said. Documentary filmmakers need a larger, more sustained and public discussion of ethics, and they also need safe zones to share questions and to report concerns. Is somebody on the soundtrack telling you what to think? We said, We cant let this happen. We stopped filming and stopped this from happening. One filmmaker who made a documentary about a company that employed illegal immigrants simply left that fact out of the film and did not report it, either: We didnt call the policewe felt like that would be a breach of trust. Another filmmakers subject told a story about trying to bring her son across the border illegally. office printer uses an average of 33.5 pages every hour if the printer is only used while the office is open, and the office is open for 50 hours each week, how many pages will the printer need over the course of 8 weeks. If the tables were turned, God forbid, said Joe Berlinger, I would never allow them to make a film about my tragedy. In journalistic practice, payment is usually forbidden for fear of tainting the information garnered. The felt power differential also led them to protect their subjects when they believed they were vulnerablenot, however, at the expense of preserving their own artistic options. Only one respondent, Jennifer Fox, said that she offered fine cut approval in a legal document, with the caveat that the subjects couldnt object to the film because they didnt like the way they looked but could object to things on the grounds of hurting their family. A journalist wouldnt show you the footage. But for us to inflict pain to get a better shot was the wrong thing to do. The ongoing effort to strike a balance, and the negotiated nature of the relationship, was registered by Gordon Quinn: We say to our subjects, We are not journalists; we are going to spend years with you. So we got one. Above all, Breyer said, accept that it's OK to walk away without a solution to the problems a film presents. This distinction accords with filmmakers sensitivity to the power differential in the relationship. These developments often troubled documentarians: [Facts] are not verified . They constantly face resource constraints and often are trying to behave conscientiously within a ruthlessly bottom-line business environment. Washington, DC 20016-8017, SUBJECTS: DO NO HARM, PROTECT THE VULNERABLE. But that doesnt mean that I dont bend the truth. For all their aesthetic beauty, both The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence occupy an unsure place on the continuum of cultural forms. In relation to subjects, they often did not feel obliged to protect subjects who they believed had themselves done harm or who had independent access to media, such as celebrities or corporate executives with their own public relations arms. By the late 1990s, U.S. documentary filmmakers had become widely respected media makers, recognized as independent voices at a time of falling public confidence in mainstream media and in the integrity of the political process. But Im reconsidering, after seeing the good sense of Errol Morris paying his subjects inStandard Operating Procedure. I can convince you that a lot of films are truthful., While news outlets appeal to different and distinct audiences based on interest and political persuasion, Cross says documentary films are thriving precisely because they dont try to settle on whats true., Theres this idea that somehow, I have to be a trained reporter to dispense the news, Cross said. This movie does not, however, intend to be a documentary about Presley's drug usage. It is a powerful moment in the film but I felt bad to push him to that point when he broke down., This perception of the nature of the relationshipa sympathetic one in which a joint responsibility to tell the subjects story is undertaken, with the filmmaker in chargedemonstrates a major difference between the work of documentary filmmakers and news reporters. you decide what your film is going to be, you have to put your traditional issues of friendship aside. He wanted us to interview someone else as a precondition [for using his own interview], Nelson said. The problem is, its not hard to convince people something is truthful. . But I feel like its important to get the big-picture truth of the situation on camera. In one of the most intense moments of director Joshua Oppenheimers acclaimed film, The Look of Silence, viewers are treated to an unflinching, discomfiting shot that gives the film its title: A former militiaman and mass murderer, now elderly, stares into the camera, his eyes eerily magnified by optometrists testing lenses as he searches, with the audience, for an answer to his horrendous crimes, the silence as penetrating as his gaze. The subjective line between fact-finding and cinema is a conundrum critics recognize about Oppenheimers work even as they praise it. And you want to be honorable. This baseline research is necessary to begin any inquiry into ethical standards because the field has not yet articulated ethical standards specific to documentary. But you should also develop core competencies that help you collaborate with clients and meet their expectations. . They portray themselves as storytellers who tell important truths in a world where the truths they want to tell are often ignored or hidden. [Our subject] had one for radio; we used the audio and made a commercial [to go with the audio]. The journalistic approach is the news comes first and story second. Who is it and how they are using it is also important, because as a small independent [filmmaker] you are personally accountable. The movie's lesson is brutal, sad, and inescapable: Elvis Presley was a man who gave joy to a great many people but felt very little of his own, because he became addicted and stayed addicted until the day it killed him. As one said, I dont want to make films where people feel like they are being trashed . Anonymity permitted filmmakers to speak freely about situations that may have put them or their companies under uncomfortable scrutiny. Clockwise from top left: Casting JonBenet; Homecoming, Dirty Money, They'll Love Me When I'm Dead; Miss Americana; Jim & Andy. At the same time, they shared unarticulated general principles and limitations. I changed it . It was awkward for them but I did not want to set a precedent.. the perilous cliff filled the hiker with___________________, but her companions urged her to _______________ her fear, upon entering the ________________ home, police officers were disgusted to see its rundown state, a group of numbers has an average of 11. the first three numbers are 16, 3, 10 what is the other number, an investor purchases shares in a company for $20 share. I wasnt comfortable with it but I did it. if the cost per dozen eggs rises to $1.80, how much more will the restaurant have to pay for eggs per week, based on the ______________ behavior and _________________ toward service staff exhibited by the job applicant before his interview, the hiring manager decided not to move forward with his application. A great documentary doesnt give you an answer, Breyer said. So to use archival footage . Breyer pointed to witness footage of police killings of black men like Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Walter Scott over the past two years as an example. Filmmakers need to develop a more broadly shared understanding of the nature of their problems and to evolve a common understanding of fair ways to balance their various obligations. Data were reviewed by an advisory board composed of two industry veteransfilmmaker and author Sheila Curran Bernard and filmmaker and professor Jon Elseand documentary film scholar Bill Nichols. The terms of these releases are usually dictated by insurers, whose insurance is required for most television airing and theatrical distribution. Filmmakers also asserted a primary relationship to viewers, which they phrased as a professional one: an ethical obligation to deliver accurate and honestly told stories. Thats an advocacy piece where people come on camera and say, This is terrible and the other side doesnt want to comment because it will demolish them, Dixon said. People who love documentaries love Netflix because the streaming . . Filmmakers were acutely aware of the implications of telling a story one way rather than another. We have the money. An independent filmmaker said that his financially strapped subjects could see that we had money to make the movie, and we were making money ourselves off their tragedy, at a time when they could not work because of dealing with [a difficult situation]. In this regard, many found institutional rules against payment to be arbitrary and even counterproductive. At the same time, some people encouraged us to make their stories public and volunteered use of their names. In one case, for instance, a filmmaker was on location shooting a wildlife film, trying to capture one animal hunting another: We tried to shoot a few, and missed both of them. Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law. That lack of balance and fairness is precisely the worry for some journalists and media analysts. I was making a film about someone who was not loved . A substantial minority of filmmakers argued that they would never allow a subject to see the film until it was finished. It may be a necessary sacrifice if the media is going to continue not to investigate things like Indonesia.. They nonetheless subscribed to shared, but unarticulated, general principles. I feel like I approached the subject differently. Then she was OK.. if Rauls sister is 25 years old how old is Rauls brothers, a store selling posters featuring Yosemite national park carries posters in three different sizes, with twelve different designs, and each poster is available in four different frames. All Rights Reserved. The trouble is, most viewers dont know the difference. Singled out for notice was the attention at some television networkseven when not in the news divisionto factual accuracy. That more cinematic approach to documentary filmmaking is new, said Stacey Woelfel, the director of the University of Missouri's Center for Documentary Journalism, but it's present in many modern documentaries like "The Jinx," "Blackfish" and others. It summarizes the results of 45 long-form interviews in which filmmakers were asked simply to describe recent ethical challenges that surfaced in their work. We did talk to that other person on the phone and then decided not to interview them for the film. if the bartenders total pay for the moth was $4,250. Dixon suggests viewers beware certain hallmarks designed to sway them. They believe that their viewers are dependent on their ethical choices. Another featured uniformed guardsa one-time, exceptional moment. Steven Ascher said that revealing a subjects weaknesses or positions that the audience is likely to find laughable or repellant can be justified when they are taking advantage of other people or when they are so completely convinced of their own rightness, they would be happy with their portrayal. That paradigm isnt going to stand any longer.. If Americans substitute documentary film for hard news reports and daily journalism, it could have major implications for journalism and for how Americans view the world around them. The relationship between documentary subject and documentarian has been fraught with conflict since the genre's evolution beyond "actualities" and into a narrative format pioneered by Robert Flaherty. She said she was trained to think of archival this way, to think that as a filmmaker, you put it out there as truth. My test for these things is, Does the audience know what its getting? . He chose to do this because the subjects had asked for money, and he felt that by then his access was not predicated on the payment, and that this was an important gesture to make. Another filmmaker found subjects, who were immigrants, asking to borrow money, which she refused to do because she feared it would jeopardize her working relationship with them:You cross the line, are you the filmmaker or their best friend in America? And Im not sure thats a bad thing.. . If journalism is like a window, art is like a mirror to confront our deepest mysteries.. Some of these outlets may ask filmmakers to observe standards and practices, and/or ethics codes derived from print journalism and broadcast news and developed in conjunction with journalism programs in higher education. Saying this blurry figure is not our guy would ruin the scene, said Peter Miller. . Filmmakers also face pressure to inflate drama or character conflict and to create drama where no natural drama exists. Their common reasoning was that doing so in any one case would set a precedent, delegitimize the film, and jeopardize the independent vision of the film. It summarizes the results of 45 long-form interviews in which filmmakers were asked simply to describe recent ethical challenges that surfaced in their work. Their communities are far-flung, virtual, and sporadically rallied at film festivals and on listservs. A documentary is something that intends to be truthful, said Richard Breyer, Syracuse University director of documentary film and history. Filmmakers often felt that subjects had a right to change their minds (although the filmmakers found this deeply unpleasant) or to see the material involving them or even the whole film in advance of public screenings. Some filmmakers were adamant that only precisely accurate images should be used. legally I could have put it in [without the familys approval], but hey, I want to sleep at night. In general, documentary filmmakers tended to volunteer few comments about audio elements. What is the difference? A cable TV producer argued that the ethical thing to do would be to pay subjects. "But we dont know what a balanced media diet looks like.. [Our broadcaster] asked if it was real. Everyone raised their hands. Then Id be suspicious, Dixon said, adding that dramatic re-enactments, too, can be manipulative. One said, If you add birds chirping to facilitate the story, the birds are inconsequential to the audience misunderstanding the scene, it helps them enter the moment. However, a few noted that audio that changed the meaningfor instance, adding the sound of gunshots to a scenewas regarded as inappropriate. " Free Chol Soo Lee " charts the . If there's a lawyer on your company's payroll, they're the subject matter expert for anything legal. Because investigative journalism has been cut in American media, nonfiction filmmakers easily take on the duty of going out and pursuing deep investigations, Oppenheimer said. With profound sadness, Adi Rukun watches footage of interviews conducted by Joshua Oppenheimer with perpetrators of the 1965-66 Indonesian genocide in Drafthouse Films and Participant Medias The Look of Silence. Courtesy of Drafthouse Films and Participant Media. Shes a real person and you cant imply something about her that never happened. , However, filmmakers balanced this concern with the need to resell their footage to make a living and considered appropriate decision making part of maintaining their professional reputations. This study demonstrates the need to have a more public and ongoing conversation about ethical problems in documentary filmmaking. Center for Media & Social ImpactSchool of Communication,American University4400 Massachusetts Ave NW March of the Penguins March of the Penguins Official Trailer #1 - (2005) HD Watch on Not only was March of the Penguins a legitimate cultural. When documentary filmmakers do have to make their own ethical decisions, how do they reason? I felt that my obligation was fulfilled. In another case, a director decided not to show footage to a subject who wanted approval over material used, because he feared the subject would refuse to permit use. Filmmakers admitted to not telling the whole truth or concealing their motivation or their films true politics to get access to a subject or to get the scene you want to get. In one case, a filmmaker hid the fact from a political candidate that his film was about the opposing candidate. Its mostly now a reporter being front and center rather than telling the stories of others, so people feel they cant trust it, Columbia University journalism and documentary film professor June Cross said. to figure out which of those statements could put the character at risk. The filmmaker removed an incriminating line, while keeping the general information and preserving the filmmakers interests as a creator. Is the filmmaker the center of this film? You have to be 99.9 percent sure that people will know. Some filmmakers also stage events to occur at a time convenient to the filming. the cryptocurrency appreciates 200% in the first year and 150% in the next. Gallup reports that just 40 percent of Americans trust media outlets to report the news fully, accurately and fairly. Amid dwindling trust in the press, documentaries with strong, emotional points of view can feel more authentic by comparison. It depends on the project.. In both these cases, the choices not to honor the subjects requests reflected the fact that the subjectsboth experts, not less-powerful subjectsattempted to exert control over the films outcome that differed from that of the filmmakers. . . Anonymity was important to many, especially to those working directly and currently for large organizations. And it wasnt, so we had to take it out. . One filmmaker, for instance, created archival material to use in her documentary and was asked to take it out by thebroadcaster when they found out it wasnt real. . But if you want to really explore it, you have to shape and bend. Filmmakers grounded this permission in two arguments: they wanted to demonstrate a trust relationship with the subject, and they wanted to make a film that was responsible to the subjects perspectives. Documentary clients have included Sonia, Power Trip, Afghan Women, Trembling Before G*D and Blacks & Jews. In the case of subjects who they believed were less powerful in the relationship than themselves, they believed that their work should not harm the subjects or leave them worse off than before. The interview pool consisted of 41 directors or producer-directors who had released at least two productions at a national level and who have authorial control. Its become an easy thing to do to say that we dont pay. . They commonly shared such principles as, in relation to subjects, Do no harm and Protect the vulnerable, and, in relation to viewers, Honor the viewers trust.. This study provides a map of perceived ethical challenges that documentary filmmakersdirectors and producer-directorsin the United States identify in the practice of their craft. Stanley Nelson said, People have to know and feel its a recreation. an=(4.5,2,0.5,3,5.5,)?a_n=(4.5,2,-0.5,-3,-5.5,\ldots)? Sometimes filmmakers are constrained by contract, but far more often they are constrained by the fear that openly discussing ethical issues will expose them to risk of censure or may jeopardize the next job. It was the right thing to do, he said, because it was their lives, their stories that made it successful. The two central characters had equal shares with the three filmmakers. Controversies emerged about several documentaries. We loved the texture of the campaign commercials for various candidates. You always have to be aware of the power that you as a filmmaker have in relationship to your subject. At the same time, they recognized that professional obligations might force them at least to cause pain. I always decide not to use that moment, said another. [You have to be] obsessively careful. Filmmakers thus find themselves without community norms or standards. Explain the error. The difference is, if Im making a fictional film, Superman can fly. . Guy Clark Music Documentary Looks to Get Its SXSW Due, One Year Later "Without Getting Killed or Caught," which also deals with the legacy of singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, faces a very . Some filmmakers acknowledged that they occasionally would resort to bad faith and outright deception, both with subjects and with gatekeepers who kept them from subjects.
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