Documentary can no longer make the same claims of an unbiased truth that it once could. Ultimately, with the progression of time, it would seem as though documentary as a medium has shifted away from its initial contract with its audience to articulate an unmediated and absolute objective reality. Within this change, the boundary between fact and fiction has become increasingly blurred, forcing upon us the question, “is truth via means of this representational mode even possible?” And, in considering questions such as this, similarly “how do documentaries
construct the narrative that they wish the audience to assume to be the truth in its most unmediated, objective sense?”
The answer lies in a documentary’s organising events (through the content that they collect) chronologically, editing the various strings of information in with one another to influence the audience to read the construction a particular way. The editing is the co-ordination of may different fragments threaded in with one another to create a web of relationships and, because of this, documentaries are not so distinct from film itself.
A documentary often produces much the same effect as a film (in presenting to its audience a carefully crafted narrative) because it follows much the same protocol that a film does. Michael Rabiger wrote of this in his Directing the Documentary (2009) and how documentary needs to follow “a satisfying dramatic form … the way a story’s dramatic needs may end you to recognise events to give a story more impact.”
Much like a film purely for entertainment purposes, documentaries also rely on foregrounding of a heroes as a central character and “the dramatic tension you generate (that) comes from getting us involved with this person (or people) and making us care whether they prevail.” The central character is a vehicle via which the director (or documentarian) can underscore a prevailing message throughout the documentary.
Documentaries, just the same as film, also follows a three part structure that establishes a set-up and the dominant problem that requires resolution. Following on from this establishing of the scene, the central character struggles with obstacles or complications that prevent them from overcoming the main problem. Then, lastly, the main character confronts their major obstacle with either a rewarding or heart-wrenching outcome. The more intense the climax, confrontation and outcome, the more satisfying on an emotional level for the audience. Thus, both films and documentaries lay the framework for an audience to become emotionally invested and, in one way or another, fulfilled. Because of this, as according to the text, “social experiments make wonderful material for documentary makers.”
According to the source, understanding the confrontation that needs to develop in front of the camera is highly important to dictating how documentary filming will take place. It also permits the director to influence events and steer filming in a particular direction. Documentaries face the need to fulfil the key “keeping their audience engaged in suspense” requirement and thus “follow the curve of pressures that build to a climax then release it into a new situation.”
As a director of documentary, you need to recognise the dramatic tension building and intense moments of conflict as they take place, an “indispensable skill, for it prepares you to catch what matters” (Roemer, 1995). This process, according to the source, is also referred to as “the dramatic curve.” Because, much like a film, documentaries require an agenda, a director needs to know how to shoot intelligently, capturing the best footage possible to advance the narrative that they wish to create. Building relationships between frames to construct a dynamic and engaging three-part structure is essentially the best way to do this. And, just like with any film, the documentary requires a quest of some sorts that drives the subjects forward and gives the production just as great a sense of purpose as what you would assign to a film.
