TIME IN
Just for the sake of technological expertise, let’s ignore the box above and assume that you’re going the old-fashioned (film lab) route: The “answer print” is the first timed print made from a spliced negative. It may make you very upset or it may be a delightful surprise. This depends not only upon the skill of the lab’s timer, but upon luck, enterprise, and the complexity of the lighting and the scenes you shot. What will you be looking for?
One Any negative editing that went wrong. If this happens, you’ll notice it in a few flash frames (frames of another shot in between the shots you had planned to adjoin each other) or, God forbid, something out of synch. If that has happened, unless the picture is going to be shown on television (where you can do miracles, editing it on videotape), you’ll have to go back to the negative editor and get him or her to correct it and go through another whole answer print.
Two Color changes that you don’t like. This can range from a whole scene that is just not the color you chose, to a scene in which shots don’t match (he has ruddy complexion, she is green). The timer, sitting with you, will be making quick notes (“up 2, more amber, down 1.5”), but don’t hesitate to make sure that you agree on which direction to change things.
Three Differences in light. It was shot with a wonderful “low-key” look and the lab has printed it as if it were summer, and midday. You patiently explain to the timer what you had in mind, and you hope the next time you see the scene it will be quite right.
I remember one scene that was especially important at the end of a film. It was indoors, with the big HMI lamps shining in through the window. It took place during the day, but what we wanted was a cool, almost blue light (the kind often used to indicate moonlight in films), with lots of shadows that hid people’s faces. The timer had given us warm sunlight (How could he tell what we had in mind?) but that didn’t work for our scene, which was about the greed that had been hiding behind closed doors in this town and was about to be revealed. It took five answer prints to get the scene right, and by that time there was a scratch in the film and a strange wobbling line along the left side of the print that seemed to everyone to be something that happened in drying, although it wasn’t; which brings us to the next category of things to look for in answer prints.
Four Defects. When you are editing a work print, with all its grease pencil markings and its splices, its dirt and its smudges, you may not realize that a hair or a scratch or a tear is actually in the negative and not just in the print. When the answer print comes down the line, any such defects will show up. Strangely enough, scratches seldom happen—at least in my experience—but dirt (like black or white “snow”) does, and when it does it can be a very depressing event. What are you going to do? A scene or a shot has a hair or a scratch or dirt. Did it come from the negative editing, or was it from the lab? Is it in the print or in the negative itself? Is it, in other words, correctable, or is it permanent? In order to determine this, look for the color of the scratch or the dirt. If you are working with negative (not reversal), the defect will be white if the print has been underexposed there, which means it’s dirt (dirt on the negative keeps light from going through). That’s correctable. If the defect is black or colored, then it’s probably a scratch, because it removed emulsion, allowing too much light to pass through. It’s permanent, probably. Now what? You’ll have to decide whether (a) to let it go, (b) to reedit the negative and get a new print, or (c) to try one of those “miracle” processes labs sometimes recommend that can, under the right circumstances, fill in scratches (though they often leave the image a little “soft”).
After you have had your second or third answer print, you’ll probably be 95 percent happy, and that’s the most you can expect. If you’ve got a perfectly splendid timer who really listened when conferring with you and the editor, then your first answer print may do. Next to consider: a “release” print. This is nothing more than the timing on your answer print as it is applied to a standard final print. In other words, it’s the answer print plus one. You put it under your arm and off you go. Well, not quite.
Suppose you want a lot of prints for release purposes. If you’re using 16mm, the negative won’t hold up for a lot of prints (normally beyond ten). You have to make a Color Reversal Internegative (CRI). This item is a new negative made on reversal film from the spliced old negative, but on stronger stock. From it, you can make as many prints as you want without risking damage to the original negative. Of course, as in other areas of filmmaking, nothing is that simple. Take a look at the color and the focus in the prints made from the CRI. They aren’t quite as crisp or as accurate as the print “struck” from the original negative. That’s because they’re a “third generation” away from the original. (The negative is first generation; a print is second generation; so is a CRI, which makes the print from the CRI third generation.) As with all such generations, there’s a deterioration of quality. Sorry, but that’s one of the trade-offs you get. If you’re not prepared for it, it can be quite a shock. A lot of directors and producers insist on getting their own personal copy and any festival prints struck off from the original A & B roll negative, not from a CRI. By the way, this is one area in which videotape is much better than film. If you use digital videotape, you can go down four, five, six, or even seven generations (copies of copies) without seeing a difference.
The difference between 16mm and 35mm films is as big in the laboratory as it is in the work print. You’ll notice it. On television, because of the size of the screen, it may not make much difference in terms of quality, but in the movie theater a 16mm film, especially if it’s “blown up” optically to 35mm, will look much more grainy, much less crisp, and the colors will be less defined and pure than something shot on 35mm. But a lot of very good filmmakers are using 16mm, even Super-16 (a wide-screen variety of 16mm film used a great deal by the British) for television and even for the theater, because the reduction in cost (at all levels, not just the lab) is extraordinary. If your particular laboratory does work on both 16mm and 35mm, you should find out what they’re favoring these days in terms of schedule. One of New York City’s finer labs for 16mm became well known for speed and care in its work, and then took on so much feature film work in 35mm that it sometimes neglected its old 16mm customers. It’s not a frivolous matter when you’re sitting around waiting for your answer print and something green, faded, out of synch, and late comes on the screen. I’ve seen grown men cry!
16 A & B rolls are the two separate strands of film that are run in parallel through the optical printer, with the first shot on one roll, the second on the next, and so on. This is done so that the splice mark between one shot and the next won’t show. How does the use of A & B rolls eliminate the splice? You might want to visit a film editor and ask him. It’s easy to see and very hard to explain on paper.
12
The Documentary: A Special Case
In several of the chapters in this book, I have brought up the special case of the documentary. I have pointed out, for instance, that scripting a documentary calls for a special kind of approach, a different way of reading and rewriting; that editing a documentary is significantly different from editing a narrative film or videotape. Some people don’t think that documentaries call for “directors” per se, that producers or producer-directors (hyphenates) are required. There is much to be said for that approach, since documentaries require a kind of single-mindedness of purpose that often defies the cooperation of two leaders. But the DGA often requires television stations to hire a director for documentaries, and a producer who has never directed often comes up with a documentary film or videotape that has good content but no visual appeal. For these reasons, alone, it seems to me worth discussing this special case.
The term “documentary” is used by me to cover many kinds of nonfiction films, not only the NBC “white paper” variety, but educational, industrial, instructional, and cultural films or videotapes as well. A word or two about such product
ions is in order before we discuss technical and aesthetic matters.
Before television came into existence, documentaries were usually made by strong-minded, independent souls who had a powerful political, cultural, or social point to make, who raised the money themselves and supervised the entire project. Men like Joris Ivens, Robert Flaherty, and Pare Lorentz fit into that category. But when television came around, the idea of a film with a point of view caused some problems, and the documentary took on a different gloss. It was now a film or videotape that examined an important subject, but usually from various points of view. It was “objective.” It was, also, a team effort.
The distinction between, and debate over, objective and nonobjective (or nonpartisan) documentary has been the subject of many books and many lectures. For the purpose of this chapter, however, the controversy is noteworthy because the two types of documentaries, to the extent that one can distinguish between them, require different kinds of preparation. One cannot imagine, for instance, the late Robert Flaherty letting someone else write a script for him, do his research for him, or supervise his editing. He also had to raise his own money and had an awfully hard time doing it. On the other hand, when Fred W. Friendly and Edward R. Murrow made their documentaries for CBS in the 1950s, a team of cohorts provided much of the work surrounding the projects and CBS, of course, provided the money.
Independent documentarians these days often work with other people—coexecutive producers, coproducers, and so on—sharing the labor and sharing the credit. Generally, where the subject matter is political, a strong producer-writer must do much of the research, the writing, the filming, while keeping a firm hand on the filmic helm. But where a cultural documentary is being made, a producer may turn over much of the filming to a director, who is called upon not so much to supply the content as the images, to interpret a script already written rather than to invent a film or videotape from scratch. Of course, there are exceptions. My own choice, for the sake of saving money as well as for the pleasure of it all, is to be a producer-director-writer-narrator, but the hubris (a valuable word for directors) of that approach and the sheer labor of it, has often made me long for the less difficult role of the coproducer or, even, just director. That has its drawbacks (it’s not your film), but it has compensations as well (less work).
SCRIPT
One of the major differences in making a documentary as compared to a drama is the timing of scriptwriting. This is an ancient argument. Some people insist a documentary must be written before it is shot; others say it cannot be written until afterward. For me, documentaries are written twice: once before the shooting, and once during the editing. Certainly, it is difficult to shoot anything unless one has done a certain amount of research and planning and that, in its barest form, is what scripts are about. But certainly, too, after a documentary is shot, its script must be altered, even to the point where it doesn’t resemble the first version. The problem with rules is that there are so many different kinds of documentaries that forming a hard-and-fast rule is impossible. Even with one subject, a variety of kinds of documentaries present themselves. Here is an example.
If the Pope is coming to Washington, D.C., and you want to make a “news” documentary about his visit, it is likely that you will go out and film him, film those who arranged his visit, get comments from common citizens and from clergy, and only then, after transcribing your material and viewing it, will you know what you have. Suppose, however, that you are opposed to the visit and want to demonstrate, via film, that it is a drain on the Treasury and contrary to the First Amendment? You may very well want to do some research, write a script, and shoot to that script. At the least, you will want a shot list. Now, suppose that the purpose of your film is to educate Americans to the notion of the First Amendment, and the Pope’s visit is only one small part of the film. You will probably have to write your film ahead of time (inserting “wish list” kinds of shots where the footage isn’t already available or where news-type photography will be required), get it financed from some corporation or foundation, and not go out to shoot until you have done so. Finally, there could be a film about the Pope’s visit that is intended to have poetry set to it and is to give a scenic view of Washington at the same time. You would be foolish to go out and shoot until you had researched your poetry, set your shots to it, planned it all the way around. That’s a script in anyone’s language.
But what if it doesn’t photograph the way you planned? By now, you will know that the answer to that is the same as it is with any film. No film comes out just the way you planned. So, in the editing room, you will change it. A documentary is the same; it, too, changes in the editing room. You may go back and rewrite the script, adding or subtracting narration, getting stock shots or new photography, shortening, lengthening, rearranging. On one level, that’s no different from what you would do with any film, no matter what its format, no matter what its content, but with documentaries you often do a lot more.
Just how does a director look at a documentary script, and what difference is there between that and a narrative script? A sample script should point to some of the differences.
What is immediately obvious? There’s no dialogue, at least not in the conventional sense. Instead, there is narration. The second major difference is that the shots as they are described are likely to be less specific than in a dramatic script. In the latter, because it’s all to be crafted by the actors, the set designer, and the costumers, you can put anything you like into shot descriptions and stage directions. In a documentary, you must describe things well enough so that people know what to shoot, but you cannot describe things too explicitly without looking foolish, because everyone knows that the real world cannot be manipulated the way actors and set dressings can be. So, in the accompanying script, we see that the river is to be shot “wide” the first time, with a follow-up shot (“medium”) with attention paid to the activity of small boats. This leaves the director a good deal of leeway.
SHOOTING
Leeway? Don’t all directors have leeway? Isn’t that what being a director is all about? Yes, but in a documentary, the leeway requires that the director (or director-producer) be very flexible, to the point of shooting something entirely differently if it presents itself and will “serve” the script. This requires knowing a great deal about the subject matter. What kind of small boat activity is required? Why? Is it drug smuggling we’re after? Or labor union recruiting? Is it sunset or daybreak? These distinctions cannot be arbitrarily decided. In advance, discussing the script with the producer, you must add details to the shots that have been listed. You must also read the narration very carefully and see if there is additional material that should be shot to cover it. And—this is the most important matter—you must shoot a wide variety of additional shots for you-don’t-know-what purposes. These “cutaways” are the lifeblood of documentary shooting, providing ways of cutting around dull interviews, inadequate material, cloudy days, jiggling cameras, and the like. I don’t mean the very unattractive cutaways used in news film, where the cameraman takes shots of the hands of the reporter or a wide shot of the President to cut into the speech. I mean the imaginative use of “useless” material as well as full “coverage” of a scene.
TIME OUT
I have fallen into a customary verbal trap, but it’s worth talking about. Like almost everyone else in the industry, I used the word “cutaway” to indicate those shots that are not of so-called principal action (such as an interview). In news, they are called “B-roll” as contrasted with the “A-roll” of interviews. The problem is, though the term is current and omnipresent, in a documentary nothing is a B-roll. Everything is pertinent. “Cutaway” implies something unimportant, a mere shot to get you from one place to another. But, in fact, reaction shots, or scenery, or a multitude of other matter, are always important. You will need these scenes to make your picture interesting, intelligent, and flowing. So:
You can never shoot too much non-interview
material for a documentary!
And this is true no matter how much you’ve shot!
TIME IN
Here is an example of a documentary shot list for a single “scene.”
You are shooting the laboratory of a research institution. Your main focus is an interview with the head of the unit, though you also want to see something in close-up of one of the experiments being performed. Your shot list would look something like the following (though your script might simply say “Interview with Dr. X: she talks about important discovery”):
1 Wide shot of Dr. X, seated at her table
2 Medium shot of Dr. X, seated at her table
3 Close shots of Dr. X, seated at her table
4 Dr. X, seen from behind, being framed through tubes and wires of experiment (Use for “fake synch.”)
5 Dr. X, walking toward her office, for voiceover
6 Dr. X, talking to nurses
7 Dr. X, doing experiment; get this in variety of shots:
(a) ECU of mouse’s brain
(b) ECU of Dr. X’s eyes during operation
(c) close-up of assistant holding gauze
(d) medium shot of all of above
(e) wide shot, through paraphernalia of all of above
8 Lots of extra shots of lab and people
Directing for Film and Television Page 21