jrn 572de - news documentary - lecture five

JRN 572 - Researching & Writing the News DocumentaryRich Hanley, Associate ProfessorLecture Five

JRN 572 - News Documentary

Overview:• The opening sentence of

Chapter 8 in Bernard’s text captures the essence of documentary writing.

• “Good documentary storytelling, with few exceptions, depends on good research,” she wrote.


Overview:• That said, it should be noted –

and Bernard stresses this on p. 119 of her text (Kindle edition) – that not all documentaries require research.

• Many are simply shot and assembled as a story.

• But most do, and that’s our focus.


Overview:• We launch an exploration of

what research is, what it means, why it’s important and how to conduct it this week.

• These research techniques will be discussed as applied to narration, voice-of-god-style films for clarity.


Overview:• Please read the assigned

chapter in Bernard as it contains information that may not be presented in the lecture.

• We do not use the lecture to restate material published in the book, so please do not think of this as a substitute to the required reading.


Review:• First a review.

• We have learned the history of documentaries to provide a footing in the role of factual films in society.

• We have identified presentation modes to show various narrative approaches.


Review:• We have explored the structural

architecture of documentaries to illuminate the process of making the work coherent to the audience regardless of subject and story complexity.

• We have described the role of

the narrative voice-over.


Review:• In each case, we have watched

a number of documentaries featuring different approaches.

• The documentaries were curated to give everyone a chance to internalize approaches, structures and forms of narrative, factual filmmaking across an array of subjects.


Understanding Story: Research• And now that brings us to a task

described by Bernard as the process on which “good documentary storytelling” rests: research.


Understanding Story: Research• First, let’s add some terms to

our vocabulary that will help understand and drive the research process.

• These terms will be deployed in this lecture.

• The terms are:


Understanding Story: Research• B-roll.

• Cover.

• Story development.

• Visual assets.


Understanding Story: Research• B-roll: This is the term used for

the extra footage captured for artistic enrichment of a film and to provide the visual elements when editing to cover expository and other informational sequences that cannot be carried by interviews or archival footage and still images.


Understanding Story: Research• Cover: As noted in the

explanation of b-roll, cover is the visual element that appears when not showing a talking head.

• This is used to “cover” expository material and to “cover” edited talking-head interviews, among other things.


Understanding Story: Research• Story development: This is the

exercise that will validate a story idea through research that identifies character(s), conflict(s) and change, all broadly conceived.


Understanding Story: Research• This material informs the

scriptwriting process, too, providing the expository details and narrative trajectory of the piece.

• It also reveals whether a story is beyond budgetary and technical reach.


Understanding Story: Research• Visual assets: This means the

material that will appear on the screen, including archival images, footage and other elements along with b-roll directed to be shot within the script to cover story elements or for artistic story enrichment.


Understanding Story: Research• We are operating here with the

concept that the writer is also the producer and director.

• That’s generally the structure when filmmakers launch careers, so it is useful for our purposes.


Understanding Story: Research• Among the curated films

required for viewing this week is Joan of Arc by the BBC and Dr. Helen Castor.

• That film takes us into the archives as Castor explores the main character, showing us the material from which shows are made.


Understanding Story: Research• To be sure, Castor wrote the

voice-over from her book on the subject.

• But she, too, required the same development and visual assets we all need to tell stories through the genre of the documentary.

JRN 572 - News DocumentaryUnderstanding Story: Research• And she couldn’t rely on stills or

footage. She used artworks, reenactments and other assets to visually represent the story in a creative way.

• Her work shows how to compose a film through creative visualization of points raised in the scripts.


Understanding Story: Research• The lessons here are that it is

possible to tell a vivid story through creative use of elements found during research even if our budget is a fraction of what Castor has to work with.

• Like her, we need to spend time in archives.


Understanding Story: Research• Please note that we are not

covering the type of research conducted for ESPN 30 For 30 or for other series that have unique, unfettered access to miles of footage that ordinary documentary film producers/writers/directors don’t have the funds to license.


Understanding Story: Research• We are focusing on what you are

likely to confront as independent producers/writers/directors operating in the world of constrained budgets.

• In short, we are keeping it real here.


Understanding Story: Research• That means we will explore

serving as our own researcher into both story development and visual assets.

• The funding piece comes later.


Understanding Story: Research• First, develop an idea and

validate it to see if the idea has been realized already in documentary form.

• It’s okay if it has; but the execution must be entirely different in terms of approach.


Understanding Story: Research• And your approach must reveal

new details in order for it to be fresh to the audience.

• Validate the idea with an online search for the subject via film databases.


Understanding Story: Research• Now, it’s time for story

development research.

• The basic question: what’s the story?

• That’s the first of many questions in the process, and research ought to reveal the answer.


Understanding Story: Research• Let’s take an example of

research I am pursuing for a documentary on a community whose centerpiece is a ski jump.

• It works for us because the subject rests at the intersection of sports and culture.


Understanding Story: Research• The idea emerged from a story I

read in The New York Times about how the community funded the construction of a new jump to replace one that had existed for decades.


Understanding Story: Research• That seemed like a good story: A

town whose social life revolves around a winter sport works to save the sport and reinvigorates the community in the process.


Understanding Story: Research• The story promised good visuals

– ski jumping – and the potential for a clean three-act arc along the lines of rise, fall and redemption.

• All of this emerged from that single article.


Understanding Story: Research• Let’s aside the funding piece for

a moment, as few works receive funding without much of the research already in place.

• The next step: talk to people.


Understanding Story: Research• This follows the path of

traditional journalism: who, what, when, where, how and why.

• I contacted the organization that runs the jump and scheduled a meeting with key leaders.


Understanding Story: Research• Over several days of

conversations, I identified the following:

1. Key characters2. Photo collections3. Film collections


Understanding Story: Research• Most of all, I identified the key

character who would drive the story from beginning to middle to end: a local man who competed in the Olympic ski jump in 1956 after recovering from polio.

• That’s the telling detail Bernard references in her text (p.124)


Understanding Story: Research• Still, I needed to do much more

research to fill the story’s background and give it depth.

• What was the history of the jump before living memory?

• Why here?


Understanding Story: Research• It is at this point that the

research process truly begins.

• Living memories are one thing, but it is necessary to established a documented chronology to embed sidewalls on the film.


Understanding Story: Research• First, it was important to

established the history of the town to launch the chronology.

• Town libraries or historical societies generally hold research works about the town, and that turned out to be the case here


Understanding Story: Research• The library also held a file

cabinet full of newspaper articles and other scrapbook-style material on the jump.

• There, I learned that ski jumping was brought to the town by immigrants from Norway.


Understanding Story: Research• That, in turn, meant that I

needed to conduct research on immigrants from Norway to the town.

• I had a name of the person – Satre – who started the ski jump but was murky on background.


Understanding Story: Research• I researched immigration data to

get a sense of when immigrants from Norway first came to the United States and in what number.

• That provided a data point for the chronology and context for the story.


Understanding Story: Research• Ancestry.com holds collections

of specific U.S. Census Bureau records, including the name, place of birth, immigration status, occupation and other details on people who arrived in the U.S. prior to 1940.


Understanding Story: Research• From that source, I learned that

he came to town from Norway and that he worked for a family as what was known as handyman.

• I also learned that he had been killed in a car crash.


Understanding Story: Research• The chronology took off from

there.

• I researched the family in public records, examined land records for the site of the jump and even went to the state library in Hartford to view aerial photographs taken in the 1930s and 1950s as I was familiar with the resource.


Understanding Story: Research• I then conducted parallel

research into the story and the visual assets (footage and stills) to make sure information I uncovered would have b-roll to cover voice-over sequences.

• In short, the story research permitted me to visualize the story as it unfolded.


Understanding Story: Research• Among the places I searched

was the National Archives.

• The archives holds the Universal Newsreel archives from 1927 to themed 1960s. That footage is in the public domain and documents lots of stories.


Understanding Story: Research• A search of the National

Archives collection revealed three newsreel stories on the ski jump from the early 1950s.

• That’s gold for two reasons: one, it is license-fee; and two, the footage would be surprising to the audience.


Understanding Story: Research• I also needed footage to cover

the narrative voice-over (yet to be written but it was clear it would be needed) about immigration from Norway.

• I needed to show Norway’s landscape, and I found it in the archives.


Understanding Story: Research• While conducting research into

the story development, I learned that the town had sent several jumpers to the Winter Games in 1932 and 1936.

• A standard search for 1936 footage in the archives revealed nothing.


Understanding Story: Research• And this is where experience in

research and knowledge of history enters the picture.

• The archives held images seized from Nazi Germany at the end of World War II. I searched there.


Understanding Story: Research• I found about 20 images of the

opening ceremony, including shots of the U.S. team marching in front of Hitler and shots of the ski jump.

• These was in the public domain and could be scanned without charge.


Understanding Story: Research• Other archives checked for this

film were the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division and the Associated Press.


Understanding Story: Research• Interestingly, once word of a

documentary production starts to circulate, people who hear about it and who have material will offer it.

• That’s what happened here, as I was granted access to a number of private collections of photos and home movies.


Understanding Story: Research• When information on the

chronology of the story was collected, I added it or inserted it into a timeline.

• Bernard covers the formatting for this (pp 126-129).


Understanding Story: Research• The chronology helps to

organize the story and creates a visual sense of the story.

• It’s best to include a column on whether footage exists to cover a segment. If not, b-roll comes into play as part of the process.


Understanding Story: Research• In the chronology of the ski

jump, it became clear I would need b-roll of the structure itself, both day and night, to establish mood in addition to coverage.

• That meant I knew what was necessary to shoot.


Understanding Story: Research• The chronology, in short, served

as a proto shooting script because it revealed segments that needed to be covered.


Understanding Story: Research• One of the areas revealed in

story development that needed either b-roll of some sort of visual asset was the period when the key character contracted polio.


Understanding Story: Research• During a pre-production

interview with the subject, I learned he was hospitalized at a place that no longer existed in Hartford.

• That eliminated the chance for contemporary b-roll of the place. I needed archival stills or film.


Understanding Story: Research• I emailed an archivist at the

Hartford Public Library for help, and she answered: yes, the library had a single exterior photo from the 1950s and a single photo of a patient room from the same period.

• Covered.


Understanding Story: Research• In summary, think of all the

places the research into an idea drawn from a single newspaper article took me.

• And this is just for the first phase of story development and acquisition of b-roll and visual assets.


Understanding Story: Research• Town library• U.S. Census Bureau• Ancestry.com• Connecticut State Library• National Archives• Hartford Public Library


Understanding Story: Research• Please note that all of the

research into the visual assets occurred in the realm of public domain, meaning the production would not have to license any footage.

• That saves an expense that can add some $30 per second to a film.


Understanding Story: Research• The lesson to be drawn is that

research is a task that must be methodically pursued and ruthlessly organized.


Understanding Story: Research• Here is a site that lists sources

for archival footage:

• http://www.movingimagesource.us/research/guide/132

• The National Archives is the most useful source for historical footage.

http://www.movingimagesource.us/research/guide/132



jrn 572de - news documentary - lecture five

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