Francine Pelletier – The Concordian

Workshop series invites students to explore documentary filmmaking

The Department of Journalism held a workshop on Nov. 18 led by Julian Sher, veteran of investigative journalism and former senior producer at the CBC, on making crime and war documentaries.

The workshop was the second of a visual series organized by Francine Pelletier, the department’s journalist-in-resident. The focus of the workshop was on using documentaries to tell stories of unfamiliar persons and nations and demystifying their lives.

Although Sher has been making documentaries for 35 years, he still finds it challenging.

“Every time you do a documentary, you get into this hellish situation in the edit room,” he said, “[where you tell yourself,] ‘This is the worst piece of crap I’ve ever made.’ And then somehow, miraculously, it turns out usually well.”

Sher analyzed three of his TV documentaries during the workshop. The first one was Steven Truscott: His Word Against History. When he was 14 years old, Steven Truscott was convicted of murder and spent 10 years in jail. Thirty years later, in 1999, Sher made a documentary about his story. “I said, ‘Steven, I’m a journalist, I am here to dig for the truth. I’m not here to prove you innocent,’” Sher said. “And [Truscott] said, ‘I have no trouble with that.’”

In 2007, Truscott’s conviction was overturned.

The film starts with scenes from the actual prison where Truscott spent 10 years. “The visuals of the prison are stunning,” Sher said. “It was one of the most — no pun intended — arresting scenes.” The film recreates some scenes from 1959, but Sher said it’s best to avoid recreation, because it would look fake. “Avoid it at all costs,” he said. “And if you have to do it, then do it in a minimalist way,” adding that, in this case, they had no choice but to recreate.

“The music should never tell you what you’re supposed to feel,” he said.

“Music is one of the trickiest things in documentary,” Pelletier added. “One of the most frequent errors is overusing music.”

The second documentary, A Mother’s Ordeal, narrates the story of Brenda Waudby, a mother accused of murdering her toddler. Sher said that to have a story, the character must go on a journey. In other words, they must grow and change over time. The difficulty is that when the documentary is being made, the character is usually at the end of their journey. So, to illustrate the journey, the trick is to ask the character to talk about their story from the beginning to the end.

“So in the pre-interview, when Brenda said ‘I was a bad mother,’ I said, ‘We have a story,’” said Sher. “We take you on a journey too, where you thought she was guilty until the end of the movie.”

The third documentary analyzed was Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear, filmed in Afghanistan. Sher filmed the parts which take place in Kandahar. It was particularly challenging because of what he called the 20-minute rule.

“You can never be outside for longer than 20 minutes. Because that’s when … you could get kidnapped,” Sher said, so he had to make a very detailed list of exactly what shots he needed.

Documentaries that discuss an issue — war in this case — and have no specific protagonist are called issue documentaries. “I hate issue documentaries,” Sher said. “They can be exceedingly boring. They’re a nightmare to make.”

For character-based documentaries, you follow the story of the main character, but for issue documentaries, it can be difficult to know where to start, he explained.

Sher encouraged workshop participants to start making documentaries. “You can do your own filming and put your stuff on YouTube,” he said. “Just keep doing it until you get better.” To make good documentaries, you have to think about what makes you special, Sher said.

“[For example,] you come from a certain community that nobody has access to,” he said. “Or leave Montreal and go somewhere nobody has gone to. Think how you can be a foreign correspondent in a way nobody else could be.”

Pelletier added that there is a huge appetite for documentaries.

“There are documentary film festivals. People want to see documentaries,” she said. “The problem is it’s hard to finance”

“It’s a nightmare,” Sher agreed. “It is really hard to get financing, even when you are an established filmmaker. But don’t give up!”

The workshop was the second in a series of three. The last one will be on Dec. 9 with David Gutnick about radio documentary and podcasting.

Photo credit: Julian Sher

Documentary journalism workshop series invites students to become creative storytellers

The Department of Journalism held a workshop on Oct. 21, led by Francine Pelletier, the department’s journalist-in-residence, about different forms of documentary making, what makes a good documentary and what makes it a unique form of storytelling.

The workshop was the first of a visual series, through which Pelletier plans to increase the profile of documentary journalism within Concordia. Documentary filmmaking lies at the intersection of journalism and arts, where the artist uses creative storytelling to raise awareness and make an impact in the world.

“Documentary filmmaking combines the best of journalism, telling great stories, and the best of you, finding the creative side in you,” said Pelletier.

After leaving her job at CBC in 2001, Pelletier became an independent documentary filmmaker and has made 11 films so far. She made the switch because documentary making “had exploded” in the 1990s and was a hot medium. She also found it to be a more creative type of journalism and more satisfying to work independently.

Pelletier said the oldest feature-length documentary is perhaps Nanook of the North (1922), which captures the struggles of an Inuk man and his family in the Canadian Arctic. It established the cinéma vérité form, where the filmmaker is but a passive watcher. Pelletier said the film Harlan County, USA (1976), which narrates a coal mine strike in the US, is a notable example of this form. She emphasized that this does not mean the filmmaker is neutral.

“In fact, documentary filmmaking is often called point-of-view filmmaking,” she said. “In this case, [the filmmaker] is definitely on the side of workers and not employers.”

Michael Moore, with his first documentary Roger & Me (1989), invented a new documentary form, in which the filmmaker is the main character. Another documentary form, which is simply an extended television news item, shows an orthodox correspondent who represents the audience and interviews affected people of the story. An example is the Canadian film Just Another Missing Kid (1981), which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1982 (Pelletier said it is “too corny” for today’s taste and would never win an Academy Award today).

Pelletier said that the 1990s was a wonderful decade for documentaries, as the equipment required to make one became more accessible, causing the number of independent documentary makers to explode. Digital cameras were invented, which are much smaller and lighter than analog ones.

“[So] little women like me can go out and actually use a camera and not die from the 50-pound weight of the television cameras,” she said. Also, many documentary film festivals, like Toronto’s Hot Docs festival, the largest documentary festival in North America, started in the 1990s.

Today, documentaries have various ways of reaching people; they appear on newspaper websites and services such as Netflix. Pelletier said the first documentary she watched on Netflix was Blackfish (2013). It is about the consequences of keeping whales in captivity, and narrates the story of Tilikum, a captive whale at the marine park Seaworld, who was involved in the deaths of three people. The film was quite impactful, and in 2016, SeaWorld announced it will end its live performances involving whales.

“What’s amazing about documentary filmmaking is that anyone can do it; if you’re really passionate about something, it’s possible to do a great story and really make a difference,” Pelletier said. “I always joke that it is the easiest way for a nobody to become a somebody.”

Another reason to make documentaries is to keep the light shining in the right direction, Pelletier said.

“There is a truth in the documentary because you aren’t telling people what to think; they’re seeing it for themselves.”

To make a good documentary, “The story is key,” Pelletier said. “The essential ingredient to any good story is conflict or tension.”

One does not need a huge scandal — even telling a personal story compellingly can make an effective documentary. For example, Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020) describes the decline of the filmmaker’s old father in a creative, playful manner.

Pelletier said that another ingredient of a good story is a strong character.

“Any story is carried by a character,” she said.

Finally, she stressed that there are many ways of making a documentary about a given story; the filmmaker needs to be creative and find a suitable form for their message.

The workshop was the first of a series of three. The second will be on Nov. 18 with Julian Sher, about making documentaries amid conflicts and wars, and the third will be on Dec. 9 with David Gutnick about radio documentary and podcasting.