Rabiger’s book, Directing the Documentary, provides insight into Bill Nichols’ theorem on the documentary form. It is amusing to see that thefirst two sub-genres listed are those that could be classified as polar opposites; Poetic documentary and its abstractness versus the Expository documentary with the overbearing Voice of God narration. In comparing my proposed concept on the Western Suburbs to the list provided (with samples of each in memory from my True Lies Documentary course), it would be interesting for me to portray the idea in a poetic aspect with elements of the Observational sub-genre. I remember having shown a short documentary (title unknown) in one of our screenings about the construction of a major freeway in America that required the demolishment of local buildings, conveyed in a definite abstract technique; illustrating freeways as a spider web slowly encroaching suburbia.
Secondly, Rabinger provides a step by step process to pre-production research for successful documentary
filmmaking. It is as follows:
1) Beginning with a working hypothesis
2) Familiarisation with people, situation/s and other important details
3) Taking advantage of resources; i.e. Internet, publications and other filmic content
4) Communicating and building trust with ‘experts’
and Lastly, 5) Reality Checks: Is the concept possible/accessible?