If I had to summarize the Documentaries Panel at the Nantucket Film Festival in three or four lines, it'd probably be something like this:
To create the Great American Documentary takes --- a. tenacity, b. love (for the protagonistof your story), or alternatively, the ability to seize an unexpected great opportunity, c. and only last, the artistic talent to discover the unifying narrative plot lines lurking, hidden in your raw footage.
But very importantly - the last, artistic talent, as a friend of mine says, is overrated. There was certainliy no lack of talent at the panel, but it'd have been a mistake to imagine that's all - or even most - of what it takes.
The event was orchestrated and moderated by Jace Alexander, a highly accomplished TV director of shows such as Law & Order and Rescue Me.
The panelists included mostly documentarians except for one narrative film maker who used a documentary-like backdrop. The documentarians - Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg, directors of The Trials of Darryl Hunt and The Devil Came on Horseback, Mohammed Naqvi director of Shame, and Luke Wolbach the director behind Row Hard No Excuses. The documentary-flavored narrative film-maker was Barlow Jacobs the writer and star of Low and Behold which uses the Katrina disaster as an inexpensive setting for his film.
So on to the secret potions of great documentary-making:
A. Tenacity:
The psychic obsession determination at the panel was obvious.
If you ever thought you've worked hard on a movie, the creators of the Trials of Darryl Hunt, after filming, had to place their film in a freezer for 10 years as they waited for funds to come in. After ten solid years, the film was developed. Then, they spent another year searching for the audio track - which thankfully they found. The whole process took no less than thirteen years. And this is no documentary of little impact. It won the audience prize at Full Frame Festival (arguably the premier documentary festival), appeared in HBO, and was also a nominee for the Grand Jury prize at Sundance, and it had to wait THIRTEEN years to be finalized. And even now, even with their successes and their name recognition, they comment that making documentaries feels like "a constant fundraiser."
The Great American Documentary seems to me is quickly becoming the new Great American Novel.
Interestingly, while documentaries are also becoming the newest form of highly in-depth, long-form journalism, it is worrisome that such well-received artists have such difficulty finding funds. Perhaps this is an inefficiency in the market that needs to be corrected- I for one know that if a documentary was close enough to my interests I'd be happy to support it monetarily. If you could multiply that by a thousand or a hundred-thousand, it is easy to imagine an efficient mechanism for funding films of the sort - a mechanism that currently does not exist. However providing hopes for documentary film-makers: DVD documentaries sell much better than DVD features, so maybe that's a smart way to monetize them.
Other examples of tenacity were abundant. The row-boating-across-the-Atlantic competition (you read that right) that provided the material for Luke Wolbach's Row Hard, No Excuses took place five years ago. Similarly, the story line behind Shame took place in 2002, when a Pakistani girl was sentenced by a tribal council to be gang-rapped by a group of men in retaliation for her brother's romantic dalliances. The fastest production of those in the panel was not surprisingly that of the narrative, Low and Behold, based on Katrina (2005 for those time-confused). Narrative film-makers just have it too easy.
This slow-cook model for documentaries is likely due to the vast time requirements for organizing the (usually) extraordinary amounts of footage collected, the challenges of finding a coherent unifying story or vision (as opposed to imposing one), and the substantial greater difficulty in obtaining funding for documentaries.
Off to the second requirement for great documentaries ---
B. The need for love or an eye for serendipity:
Per their creators, this is how each one of the filming of each of their documentaries got started:
The Devil Comes on Horseback : The directors met the military man who lost heart after his mission in Darfur, and were so drawn by his voice that they had to follow the story. (ie clearly a case of love for the narrator)
Shame (also love): In this case a love of country and protagonist was what moved Muhammad Naqvi, also a Pakistani, to follow the life of a woman wildly assaulted and who has since transformed darkness into light (to paraphrase the director) by founding foundations, schools, and having a salubrious effect on the entire country.
Row Hard, No Excuses (the eye for serendipity): Director is sitting at home, and gets a call from his father telling him of the incredible race that pits 2-man boats rowing across the Atlantic. He drops everything, and rushes to cover this golden opportunity.
Low and Behold (the eye): Young director is at straws end on what to do next in his life. Katrina hits. Director gets a phone call that they are looking for people to become claim adjustors. Sees precious opportunity. Rushes... is trained... and spends the next three months working to his bare knuckles, 7 days a week, claim adjusting. By understanding what it takes to be a claim adjuster, and amassing the money to fund it, he develops a script for such a protagonist... produces the feature... and also films the scenes of disaster and real life stories of Katrina survivors, and uses them as a rich source of panoramas and sub-plots.
So with four data points, I have thus proven my point. Love or an eye for serendipity appear ot be indispensable.
C. Artistic talent in common with narrative film directors: Of note, Stern and Sundberg have both been TV producers (in "Neglect Not the Children" and the seires "Family Plots" respectively), Muhammad Naqvi just the prior year was a producer for the feature film Big River with Atsushi Funahashi, and Barlow Jacobs' movie was already a narrative film (and he has acted in other features). And Luke Wolbach the director behind Row Hard No Excuses spoke, in admiration, about Kevin McDougal and his remarkable fluidity in moving from the documentary Touching The Void to producing the narrative The Last King of Scotland.
Wolbach demonstrated his own own narrative sculpting ability in that while he started the film with a desire to capture the row-boating competition across the Atlantic as a Survivoresque (my words) competition, and a neck-to-neck battle among the many teams, he eventually decided to focus on the complexities of friendship between two men who went full circle in the range of their affections for each other, even as they transversed in straight line the Atlantic. Indeed, a great choice now having watched the film.
So that brings to end this synthesis. The only other film of the set I have seen is Low and Behold which while brilliant in story concept, choice of setting and general cleverness (if you have a source of subplots akin to Katrina, how much time does that save you?), it really needs to be half as long. As it is right now, it is over-long, painfully over-long. Not recommended, at this point.
Agree... disagree? Boston is a capital of great documentary making, and it'd be very interesting to hear the opinions of the veterans in the art.
