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Truly Free Film

A Participatory Documentary, Is It Possible?

By Mike Hedge

Every summer, deep in the Nevada desert, a temporary city is created by tens of thousands of people. This week-long celebration is known as Burning Man. Radical participation, gifting, self-reliance, and self-expression, are a few of the core principles.

After many years of post production, we have finally finished our huge participatory documentary, As The Dust Settles, which was shot out at Burning Man during the summer of 2008.

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Truly Free Film

Tell Me Something: Advice from Michael Moore

Our final excerpt from Jessica Edwards’ new book Tell Me Something: Advice from Documentary Filmmakers comes  from Michael Moore: 

Photo by
Photo by Gary L Howe

Here is my advice for those who want to make a documentary film that people will flock to the movie theaters to see:

The first rule of making a documentary is, don’t make a documentary. Make a movie. Nobody wants to see a documentary. To the often-posed question “Hey, honey, what do you wanna do tonight?” nobody responds with “Let’s go see a documentary!” People do, though, want to see a movie. And when they go to the movies, they want to be entertained. I know. I said the E-word. No serious documentary filmmaker would claim to be making something “entertaining,” because that would not only pack the theaters but also diminish the Seriousness and Importance of the Message he or she is trying to impart to the audience. 

Well, guess what—nobody wants to sit in a movie theater and feel like he’s being taught a history lesson or preached to or scolded or told he must care about the plight of this or that. People don’t want the invisible wagging finger of the “documentarian” (a word invented for us because we don’t make movies) pointing at them and telling them to take their medicine. That’s why the theatrical audience for documentaries remains so low. It’s Friday night, you’ve worked hard all week, and now you want to relax and go see a movie about … Fracking! Pedophile Priests! My Father Who Deserted Me When I Was 9! Don’t get me wrong—we need to be alarmed about the first two, and the third one, well, I can’t help you with that. I got my own problems. 

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Truly Free Film

Tell Me Something: Advice from DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus

Another except from the new book edited by Jessica Edwards of First Film Co. — Tell Me Something: Advice from Documentary Filmmakers. This week it’s DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus:

Photo by Gary Hustwist
Photo by Gary Hustwist

Work with someone you love. Love what you do. Listen to your partner, but stay true to the voice inside. It’s not always easy, but why easy? Take a deep breath. If you’re lucky, it’ll be the best adventure of your life. And you’ll share it with your love.    

We got a dog. A big black dog.

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Truly Free Film

Tell Me Something: Advice from Morgan Spurlock

Jessica Edwards of First Film Co. gave us some excerpts from the excellent new book she edited Tell Me Something: Advice from Documentary Filmmakers. This week’s advice is from Morgan Spurlock: 

Photo by Jon Pack
Photo by Jon Pack

I feel like it was junior high when my parents REALLY started giving me advice. Maybe it was because they thought I desperately needed it, or maybe they believed I was finally smart enough to actually absorb some of it. Whatever it was, from the moment I became a “teen,” my folks bombarded me with a deluge of southern-fried logic that helped deep-fry my brain and make me the crispy human I am today.

When I turned 13, my mother said, “You’re officially a little man today, time to start acting like one.” What exactly she meant by that, I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure I did plenty of stupid things before that, but come on, Mom, when you say something like that, you’re only setting me up to do even MORE stupid things afterwards! Parental logic is confusing to me sometimes—speak up but don’t run your mouth, do your best but don’t try too hard, have fun but not too much fun.

Is there really such a thing as “too much fun”? For my parents, that essentially meant “Don’t do anything stupid,” a.k.a. “Don’t do anything that would get you arrested.” 

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Truly Free Film

Tell Me Something: Advice from Martin Scorcese

Jessica Edwards of First Film Co. has kindly offered us some excerpts from a new book she edited Tell Me Something: Advice from Documentary Filmmakers. Look forward to more excerpts in the weeks ahead, and for now enjoy these words of wisdom from Martin Scorcese:
Photo by Brigitte Lancomb
Photo by Brigitte Lancombe

The only thing you need to make a film is to not be afraid of anybody or anything. John Cassavetes said that. John was inspiring, but he was also direct. He knew that there was no time to be indecisive, or to worry about whether the decisions you’ve already made were right or wrong, good or bad. I think that for John, there was no such thing as a “mistake”—you can only move forward, you can never move backward, and you can profit from absolutely everything.

Many times in my life, I’ve told the story of John’s advice to me after he saw a cut of Boxcar Bertha, a picture I made for Roger Corman. In essence, what he said to me was: Just concentrate on making the movies you need to make. Of course, many directors have approached this in many different ways—Claude Chabrol, for example, who never stopped working and made many, many movies, personal and impersonal. Even John made pictures like Gloria and Too Late Blues. The point is this: Protect the ones that you need to make, keep them alive for yourself, and then make them.

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Issues and Actions

Where Does All Of That Footage Go?

Think of every great documentary you’ve seen.  Multiply it times thirty.  At a minimum that is probably the amount of footage they shot.  Think of the films on revolutions, political figures, innovators, criminals, world leaders.  That is some archive, right?  But what happens to that footage?

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Truly Free Film

Hey Filmmakers, You Guys Are Next: A Word of Warning from the Music Industry

I feel most filmmakers are looking at this moment in time as an age of opportunity. But having gone through this revolution already in the music business, I feel compelled to tell you why right now we should be questioning everything.

There are countless comparisons between the music and film industries. On the critical side, both traditionally have had an extremely insulated network of good old boy executives who know little or nothing about the creative process, yet try to tell you how to make your art. Both have a history of obnoxious fat cats living in excess. Both still have an endless string of gatekeepers that have a stranglehold on the means of distribution, and who rarely showed much love for independent creators except with lip service at the cool film festivals.

But the internet revolution is changing all of that, so I decided to take the past 2 years away from my career as a music producer to make a documentary about this fascinating and often misunderstood subject that is near and dear to us in the creative world. The film is called Unsound, and it uncovers the dramatic collapse of the music industry and its impact on musi­cians and creators of all kinds. The film reveals the larger story of how the unintended consequences of the internet revolution go well beyond the music industry, impacting creators of movies, books, software, journalism and more. Although there are so many positive changes in both the music and film industries, what is more interesting to me is what most people don’t know. So I decided to take a more critical look in this film.
 
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The music industry was perhaps the first to go through the digital transition. For better of for worse, the smaller file sizes of music made it a primary target for piracy over the much larger sizes of films. By watching the mistakes made by the music industry, and having a few years head start to prepare, the film business has really had an enormous advantage over the music business. But this does not mean all is well.