Developing style

P

pacey1800

I feel somewhat unsure talking about this, but I've been seriously considering trying to develop my style. I honestly think now that every documentary I do has to be something epic, something spectacular, something "outside the box". In other words, it can't look or feel like a conventional, "ordinary" documentary. I keep saying to myself that each film I make should be "as if Spielberg made a documentary", that it has to be cinematic in scope and not like some educational film or a History Channel special. I honestly don't even know how something like this can be done on absolutely no budget.

What I'm saying is that for every documentary I make, I don't want it to be something that's ordinary. I want it to be something greater, and I want what I make to mean something. I just don't know if I will ever get to that point, and I also wonder if doing something "outside the box" takes millions of dollars, just to make a documentary. I also wonder that if I take something that I learned from watching other films, that it'll just be a second-rate imitation of someone else's style, and that it won't be original. I'm literally putting pressure on myself to do something that's just impossible, I feel. Am I missing something here?
 
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Show me someone who has never failed, and I'll show you someone who has never tried anything new.
--Albert Einstein

Just keep trying new stuff, man. Nobody gets it on their first try. Nobody.

Also, make sure you watch lots of documentaries. There is plenty of variety out there. MANY different styles and feelings that can serve as inspiration. :)
 
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Thanks, Cracker.

I guess right now I just feel unsure of myself. I have a lot of expectations of myself, and I find myself doubting myself right now. I thought about making a documentary about "Black Friday", as a means of trying to understand why people do things like camp out in front of Wal-Mart and Best Buy, and then when the store opens it turns into a stampede, with people just running and tripping all over each other just to get STUFF.

When I thought of the idea, I thought of trying to take my camera and shoot my own footage of the atmosphere when the time came for the stores to open, but I couldn't, mainly because the stores probably wouldn't want me bringing a camera in there, so I ended up having to look for amateur footage of other openings on Youtube. I wanted to interview people who participate in Black Friday sales, as well as interview one of the sociology professors who teach at my school in an attempt to analyze why people behave the way they do over this kind of thing. Instead of feeling confident about it, like I was before, I'm now second guessing myself. First, the only person I know who may have shopped on Black Friday is my aunt (which will no doubt prompt me to write some kind of disclaimer saying that we're related), and then tonight I say things to myself like "this is more appropriate for '60 Minutes' than a short documentary", just out of frustration because I'm just not sure what to do.

I know it's good to watch documentaries, and to be honest a lot of the stuff I watch is either related to sports or music or anything involving filmmaking, which is what fascinates me. The last documentary I can remember watching, and I don't know if anyone here watched this, was called "Official Rejection", about these filmmakers who were rejected by Sundance and Slamdance and all of the other "major" festivals, and their experiences trying to show their film at other festivals, and all the ups and downs that followed. In terms of sports, I've watched so many NFL Films shows over the years that I'm very familiar with their style, not just in terms of cinematography but also sound and music, which is both cinematic and epic.

I guess right now I'm doubting myself because I'm wondering if I'm trying to emulate something I can't possibly create on my own without millions of dollars, and I guess I'm also frustrated because I'm not yet at the point where I can collaborate with anyone or learn more about filmmaking in general. Everything I've done up to this point has been done by me, and me alone, from the camera, to the editing, to the interviews. Sometimes I even second guess the work I've done in the past, like for example that film I did on Apollo 11. I wonder if it would have been better to merge the existing film and the on-board audio to create a sense of re-living the entire experience as it occurred, and not having someone on camera talking about it years after the fact, or some over-the-top poetry and narration in order to provide "context". I might decide to do that at some point, but it all depends on what's freely available.

Anyway, thanks very much for the response and support. I really appreciate it, and I'll do my best to hang in there. Thanks.
 
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For years (and years) I have tried to write the truly original story. Creating something "unique" has both brought me gain and pain. Tried hard to do something unique in my short film a couple years ago, and got this overwhelming response from audiences: "We don't get it." Now I'm trying an adaptation and what a breath of fresh air! But I'm also in search of a unique "look" to the film.

Try not to get stuck on this, coming up with something truly original is HARD. Discover the idea that won't let you go, develop what you think is a solid approach, and DO IT. It'll be more original than you may think, by virtue of the medium and you as a unique human being. Action is the best cure, coming from one who's been there...

Indeed-- hang tough and don't give up. Don't forget you can bounce ideas and scripts off us for a look-see before you get in deep.
 
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KJones,
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I've had so many ideas for stories, for scripts, and yet the actual process of writing them is a lot tougher than coming up with the idea, and I've just about given up pursuing a career as a screenwriter. Even when I decided that I was going to stop entering contests and just hoping that a producer would read my script, even when I decided that I was going to try to direct my own scripts, I couldn't keep going, because I honestly thought that I wasn't getting better as a screenwriter, and that there was no way I could even try to tie up whatever loose ends that came up in the plots I wrote. I tried reading every book and theory when I should have been reading scripts, and I feel that I just didn't do enough of that. I could never write effective dialogue with subtext, and my characters were never fully developed.

The only way I thought anything I could come up with would ever come to fruition would be to write the ideas I had in story form, i.e. treatments, in hopes that I would find someone to collaborate with who would write it. I asked about this on a message board and was criticized for it, and one person said I was being "lazy" for even wanting to just write treatments. A lot of people were just very critical of my writing, to the point where they just wanted to be insulting and demeaning, and offer no constructive criticism that would have helped. I tried for a long time, and it just wasn't fun anymore, and that's why I decided to focus on filmmaking, namely documentary filmmaking, because I didn't have to come up with a million ideas at once just in case a producer asked "what else ya got?"

I know that I've made a lot of progress in terms of the films I've made. I guess the style I want to put across on the screen is something that doesn't rely on narration or anything that makes the films I make more akin to what you'd see on a newscast. I don't see myself as someone like Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock, someone who plays a role as an active on-screen participant in the film. I guess the style I want to have my films be would be where the subject being interviewed speaks for himself or herself, where he or she would relay all the necessary information in order to advance the story.

I guess my frustration in all this goes back to seeing that film last year that aired on ESPN, that combined all the raw footage of the day of the O.J. chase along with everything that took place in terms of sports on that one single day, and just feeling that "I would never be able to make that kind of film". I can't begin to say how many potential ideas I've had that have been derailed for one reason or another, either because I can't afford footage or because the resources just aren't there, or if it's because it's a project that will take years to get off the ground. For example, I thought about making a montage of all the freely available news film that there is from the '60s, just to give the viewer a sense of how extraordinary and how eventful it all was, and I had to kill the whole idea because the "I have a dream" speech isn't in the public domain. I've had more than my share of frustration in the process of trying to make films, as I know all of you have. I just hope that it doesn't get to the point where it's too stressful for me to continue, like screenwriting was for me.
 
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Have you seen "Waltz with Bashir"? It's an absolute masterpiece, and just about as unique a style for a documentary as is possible.

But you don't necessarily need flash or style. At the end of the day, human-interest is where it's at. Check out "Dear Zachary". In most ways, stylistically-wise, it's no different from any other documentary. But their edit is rather clever, and the narrative takes a pretty big twist that delivers a wallop.
 
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I've heard of "Waltz With Bashir", but I've never actually seen it, to be honest. I might check it out, as well as the other one you mentioned. I know I saw it discussed on the Current TV "50 Documentaries To See Before You Die", and I saw some clips of it, which really made interesting use of animation as a means of reconstructing memories of what happened in Lebanon. There were a lot of interesting documentaries on that list that I might check out too. I know I saw one of them a few years ago, "Jesus Camp", which was fascinating and also very disturbing, especially to see how young children were being indoctrinated to being religious extremists, essentially. I also saw "Dogtown and Z-Boys" sometime earlier this year, which was also a very fascinating film. I know I saw parts of "When The Levees Broke", which was also on the list, but I couldn't watch the whole thing, because I survived Katrina and it just hit too close to home, to be honest.

I'll definitely look up "Waltz with Bashir", plus "Dear Zachary". Thanks for suggesting those to me.
 
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Don't try to develop your own style. What I mean by that is don't force anything, because quite often it comes over as forced. As you produce your projects your style will develop of its own accord and naturally flow out of you. Just keep working, the subjects you select, and the way you present them, will become recognizable as your style over time.
 
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Make films that are true to YOUR vision and it will happen organically. I think my films have a "style", not because I tried to give them one, but because I stick to my aesthetic and my principals. It may not be a "good" style, or even a style people like, but it is what it is and I think I am getting to a point where people who have seen my films would look at my work and think, "this looks like a gonzo film".
 
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Gonzo_Entertainment said:
Make films that are true to YOUR vision and it will happen organically. I think my films have a "style", not because I tried to give them one, but because I stick to my aesthetic and my principals. It may not be a "good" style, or even a style people like, but it is what it is and I think I am getting to a point where people who have seen my films would look at my work and think, "this looks like a gonzo film".
Click to expand...

That's a great point.
 
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First, are you able to name a few REALLY stylized documentaries and identify them by their director or producer?

Second, you'll likely need to shoot at least a dozen documentary shorts of your own before your own "style" emerges.

YOUR style will be when WE watch YOUR docs and can already anticipate WHAT kind of shots, pacing, and story content are going to be in it.

We might or might not like your shaky-cam.
We might or might not like your color grading.
We might or might not like your shot composition.
We might or might not like your subject materials.
We might or might not like your camera angles.
We might or might not like your narration voice.
We might or might not like your narration content.
We might or might not like your graphics.
We might or might not like your slides, dollies, pans, tilts, or zooms.
We might or might not like your style.
But we can predict it because we've already seen a dozen before and can predict your preferences.

It's kinda like being your regular hooker, and you're our regular John. :lol: ;)
 
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