7. I think it's important to make your films personal.
I don't mean to put yourself necessarily in the film or in front of the camera. Some of you, the camera does not like you. Do not go in front of the camera. And I would count myself as one of those. It was an accident that I ended up in Roger & Me, and I won't bore you with that story, but people want to hear the voice of a person. The vast majority of these documentary films that have had the most success are the ones with a personal voice. Morgan Spurlock, Al Gore, Bill Maher, Gasland, Shoah, etc. I know that most documentary films stay away from that, most don't like narration, they just put up a couple of cards to explain what's going on, but the audience is wondering, who is saying this to me?
You know when you see a Scorsese film who is saying it. I knew when I went to see Gravity, because it was made by Alfonso Cuaron, that I wasn't going to see a Hollywood movie, even though it was distributed by Warner Brothers. It was not an American movie. I was going to see a Mexican movie. He's a Mexican filmmaker, and if you have seen his films, including the one Harry Potter that he did that is so dark, I knew going in that I would not know what was going to happen in the film. And you didn't know. If no one ruined it for you, going in, it was very possible that Alfonso Cuaron could kill both Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and anybody else in space. He's a Mexican filmmaker! And that's what made Gravity to me so exciting because I didn't know what was going to happen in the next 10 minutes like I do in most Hollywood movies. You don't want your audience to know that either. In Gasland when they lit the water on fire, well, I'd never seen that before! I didn't see that coming. That's when people start telling their friends about it. They tell their friends at work, "You've got to go see this movie."
8. Point your cameras at the cameras.
Show the people why the mainstream media isn't telling them what is going on. You've seen this in my films, where I stop filming whatever it is that's going on, and I just turn my camera on the press pool. Oh, that is a pathetic sight, isn't it? They are all lined up with their microphones like the guy in Bowling for Columbine who is at the funeral of a 6-year-old, and he's trying to fix his hair out in front of the funeral home and he's yelling at the producer through the earpiece, and all of a sudden he realizes he's going live and, bam -- it's showtime! It really shows you how little they truly care, and how little REAL information you're getting about the issue.
9. Books and TV have nonfiction figured out.
They know the American public loves nonfiction storytelling. But you'd never know that by looking at the list of movies playing down at the multiplex tonight. But open up the book review section of the New York Times this Sunday. There will be three times as many nonfiction books reviewed as fiction books, three times as many. Nonfiction books sell huge. Nonfiction television is huge! Look at the ratings. The top 25 shows every week have a number of nonfiction shows, from the smarter ones like 60 Minutes, to stuff like "Dancing with the Stars." But there's also Stephen Colbert. And Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, and John Oliver.
These are nonfiction shows and they are hugely popular. They use humor, but they're doing it in order to tell the truth. Night after night after night. And that to me makes it a documentary. That makes it nonfiction. People love to watch Stewart and Colbert. Why don't you make films that come from that same spirit? Why wouldn't you want the same huge audience they have? Why is it that the American audience says, I love nonfiction books and I love nonfiction TV -- but there's no way you're dragging me into a nonfiction movie! Yet, they want the truth AND they want to be entertained. Yes, repeat after me, they want to be entertained! If you can't accept that you are an entertainer with your truth, then please get out of the business. We need teachers. Go be a teacher. Or a preacher. Or manage an eco-friendly Crate and Barrel.
10. As much as possible, try to film only the people who disagree with you.
That is what is really interesting. We learn so much more by you training your camera on the guy from Exxon or General Motors and getting him to just blab on. Talk to that person who disagrees with you. I have always found it much more interesting to try to talk to those in charge. Of course now it's harder for me to get them to talk to me, so I have to use a lot of techniques and methods that probably wouldn't meet the "standards" of most television networks. But they do meet my one ethic, which is, this country, this world, exists for the people, and not the few rich folks who run it. And those rich people in power have some 'splainin' to do.
11. While you are filming a scene for your documentary, are you getting mad at what you are seeing?
Are you crying? Are you cracking up so much that you are afraid that the microphone is going to pick it up? If that is happening while you are filming it, then there is a very good chance that's how the audience is going to respond, too. Trust that. You are the audience, too. I tell my crew that the audience is "on the crew." The audience is part of the film. What is the audience going to think of this film? And so many times when I'm filming, I find myself thinking, Oh man, I already know what is going to happen when people watch this! I can already see it. I am a stand-in for that audience. And that's what you need to be, too.
12. Less is more. You already know that one.
Edit. Cut. Make it shorter. Say it with fewer words. Fewer scenes. Don't think your sh*t smells like perfume. It doesn't. You haven't invented the wheel. People get it. People love that you trust that they have a brain. Even people who aren't that smart, who don't know about the bigger world, they can detect it when you think they are smart and they can also detect when you think they are stupid. And they're not stupid. Not the 220 million. They're just a little ignorant. We live in a country where 80 percent of the citizens do not own a passport. They never leave their homes to see the rest of the world. They don't know what is going out there. We have to have a little empathy for them. They want to come along. They will come along -- if they sense that we respect them for having a brain.
13. Finally... Sound is more important than picture.
Pay your sound woman or sound man the same as you pay the DP, especially now with documentaries. Sound carries the story. It's true in a fiction film, too. You've been in a movie theater where it's been out of focus just a little bit or maybe the frame is spilling over onto the curtain. Nobody gets up, nobody says anything, nobody goes and tells the projectionist. But if the sound goes out, there is a riot in the theater, right? But if the picture sucks, or if you had to run because the police are after you, and the camera is jiggling all over the place, the audience is not going, "Hey, why is that camera jiggling? Hey, stop the camera jiggling!" Let's say you didn't shoot something entirely in focus, you had to shoot it really quickly. The audience doesn't care -- IF the story is strong, AND they can hear it. That's what they're paying attention to. Don't cheat on the sound. Don't be cheap with the sound. It's so important, the sound, when making a documentary.
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