Sundance Documentary Panel--Working With Celebrities

                Listening to this Sundance documentary panel I learned a lot of good tid bits about making documentaries, though I feel like working with a celebrity in making a documentary would be far removed from where I am right now, there was still a lot of interesting information I gleaned. 

There was definitely an element of learning what to expect as far as the sometimes threads by which a documentary hangs, and also just some of the harder things that happen for a documentary to be made.

                Brett Morgen director of Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck talked about how he had a lot of issues with the family in what was shown.  He had to sit down and watch scenes of Kurt on heroin with his mother, and she was angry after watching it.  In fact a lot of the family was angry with him because they felt like Kurt was embarrassed about his heroin usage and he wouldn’t have wanted to have been represented that way.  Morgen said he was able to convince them by talking about how Kurt would have wanted to demystify heroin usage, and remove himself from the glorification of heroin use that had come to be a part of his celebrity.

                Another thing was just so many legal issues, which I’m sure comes more with the territory of the celebrity documentary, but it was interesting to learn about fair use law.  The only way to claim fair use is if the clip is used to inform, but not at all impressionistic and so a lot of clips that a filmmaker tries to claim fair use on may not be worth the hassle of inevitable lawyers breathing down their neck and so they had to use more budget for clips that they maybe could have fought for fair use on. 

                As far as structure and usefulness, I think these panels are great and I’m glad they are available, I want to listen to more of them.  They have interesting topics, the one thing I would say is, maybe at this point in what I’m doing, they are a little to minute in scope.  Meaning they are current and I’m not quite in the place where the panels are immediately applicable.  But that being said, they are for sure useful in getting a better idea of what is going on in the documentary world, and like I was talking about above, understanding more what it is like to be a documentarian. 

The Hunting Ground

                I found The Hunting Ground to be highly effective though I would not at all call it balanced.  There was no presentation of the other side of the issue, there were people in the film who were called out and that was about all that was presented of them.  Although that being said, I feel like sometimes it’s pretty common to jump on a film for being one sided, but if you look at it in a larger context, sometimes I feel like that is part of a dialectic, and also sometimes things just need to be said.  The appeals that were most stark to me were watching the victims tell their stories, but also the logic presented in the film was compelling.

                In the context of the larger conversation here, and I’m no expert, but with so little reporting done of rape on college campuses the lack of balance doesn’t disturb me.  And sure how do I know the stats presented in the film are correct?  I don’t but based on the sited research and the limited knowledge I do have outside of the film I do believe a lot of the statistics they presented.  But even that aside, sometimes something just needs to be said, and it doesn’t take all sides of the issue but adds itself to the national conversation or draws attention to an issue that needs it and stops there. In this case, I do feel like this approach is warranted for the reasons I already gave.

                What tools worked for me in the film? I think of Bela Balazs and how the human face is one of the most powerful tools of cinema.  So talking with the girls/boys and watching them tell their stories was compelling for me.  As was stated near the end of the film, something that started changing things was that people just started telling their stories.  We are given a taste of that in the film.  It is hard to come almost as close as possible to looking these victims in their eyes and tell them they are lying.  Sure I can’t completely trust what is shown, but seeing into these girls lives and hearing their stories, it is much more likely true than a fabrication.  Besides the point is to be a catalyst not prove absolutely.

                But that being said the way they present their logic is compelling.  Especially the common sense notions of what universities have to lose by reporting rape, from alumni donations, to fraternities, to privileging athletes, coupled with the women coming forward, it makes for a pretty compelling film.

                **One additional B-roll note, often when the girls talked about running into an indifferent system they would show a low angle shot of old campus buildings.  It evokes an image of a person standing proudly, but juxtaposed with the story it feels more like a whited sepulcher.