As I'm in the middle of writing and editing and directing my first documentary, I'd like to take a look at some of the best from the genre. I've been on YouTube, MySpace video and the IFC Media Lab watching selections from their “documentary” sections, but, they're, err, not so good.
I've rented a few documentaries I've really liked. “$100 And A T-Shirt” is my favorite, but more for its subject matter than its production (though, for what they had to work with, I think it turned out great). “Super Size Me” was good. And I've seen all of the stuff Michael Moore did. While I can tell some of the footage is manipulated to get his point across, he does captivate his audience, and that's what I'm looking to do.
So many of the docs I found posted online had intros that were waaay too long, stayed on the same interviewee long enough to make him/her sound uninteresting. The lighting and sound were almost always bad - the questions were left in, when the interviewee's answers would have been enough. And there weren't cut-aways to keep my eyes from browsing other web pages while I ended up just listening to the doc.
I don't want mine to suffer the same fate.
Can you recommend some good documentaries? (even better if they were posted online, I live in an extremely small town with a horrible selection at the video store, and no netflix account, yet.) Ones that have held your interest, even if the subject matter wasn't something you'd normally pause for? I'm most interested in writing, self-publishing and the arts. But art pieces about art pieces never really do it for me. Maybe I just haven't seen the right ones.
I've rented a few documentaries I've really liked. “$100 And A T-Shirt” is my favorite, but more for its subject matter than its production (though, for what they had to work with, I think it turned out great). “Super Size Me” was good. And I've seen all of the stuff Michael Moore did. While I can tell some of the footage is manipulated to get his point across, he does captivate his audience, and that's what I'm looking to do.
So many of the docs I found posted online had intros that were waaay too long, stayed on the same interviewee long enough to make him/her sound uninteresting. The lighting and sound were almost always bad - the questions were left in, when the interviewee's answers would have been enough. And there weren't cut-aways to keep my eyes from browsing other web pages while I ended up just listening to the doc.
I don't want mine to suffer the same fate.
Can you recommend some good documentaries? (even better if they were posted online, I live in an extremely small town with a horrible selection at the video store, and no netflix account, yet.) Ones that have held your interest, even if the subject matter wasn't something you'd normally pause for? I'm most interested in writing, self-publishing and the arts. But art pieces about art pieces never really do it for me. Maybe I just haven't seen the right ones.