"When we tell a story in cinema, we should resort to dialogue only when it's impossible to do otherwise. I always try first to tell a story in the cinematic way, through a succession of shots and bits of film in between" - Alfred Hitchcock
While sound and dialogue are integral parts of film making, lesser films which fail to adequately exploit the visual possibilities of the medium could just as easily play on the radio.
Charles Chaplin was a master of visual storytelling and resisted the trend toward sound pictures well after sound technology had been adopted in Hollywood.
Here are the famous opening scenes from Chaplin's City Lights:
Chaplin seemed to relent in in the 1936 film, Modern Times. Yet even then the Tramp uttered only gobbledygook.
In the BFI Film Classics book Modern Times, author Joan Mellon writes: "For the first time on the screen, Chaplin's voice is heard, if only in mock-Italian gibberish...The song may be synchronized but it doesn't make any sense. Yet through pantomime, finger to his lips, slapping his rear end, circling his hand on his hip, moving his arms together, the tramp tells an entire story. You don't need words, Chaplin's final pantomime insists." (p. 63)
Two contemporary films exemplify fine examples of visual storytelling. One is Paul Thomas Anderson's 2007 film, There Will Be Blood. While the entire film relies heavily on visual language to tell the story, the opening fifteen minutes are completely devoid of dialog. Here's the trailer.
And here's the trailer from Steve McQueen's remarkable 2008 debut film, Hunger which was just released on DVD.
While the video industry provides a constant stream of new and improved production gadgets, cameras and software, little attention is paid to the craft of storytelling. The new eBook, Documentary Editing by Karen Everett makes a welcome contribution to this often ignored area.
Addressing documentary story structure Everett writes: "A story, in the screenwriter’s sense of the word, is not a profile (for example, a film about an eccentric uncle who farms nuts), a condition (human rights abuses in Haiti), a phenomenon (the popularity of multi-player video games), or a point of view (Social Security should be privatized). Robert McKee defines story as 'the great sweep of change that takes life from one condition at the opening to a changed condition at the end.'"
While the book is a useful textin its own right, Documentary Editing might better be referred to as a workbook. Everett leads the reader through a number of exercises to help craft and hone the structure of a documentary story. And since the book is delivered as an Adobe PDF, the reader is able to type directly into the included work forms. The eBook also includes embedded links to a number useful Internet resources.
The book also includes a discussion of the trend of funders to favor of character driven documentaries. This type of film has grown in prominence due in part to the reluctance of funders to underwrite vérité works which rely on the process of discovery to tell stories.
Everett writes: "the dramatic arc of a vérité film, in which life is recorded as it unfolds, is understandably difficult to predict. Filmmaker Fredrick Wiseman probably did not write a detailed, three act treatment for Titticut Follies (1967). Likewise, the Maysles brothers couldn’t have foreseen the dramatic arc of Salesman (1969) before filming. Sadly, these grand experiments in cinema verité would most likely not get funded today."
Documentary Editing also reviews essay style documentaries, three act structure, iring an editor and story consultant as well as producing a trailer. And while the book focuses on story structure, it also details the documentary editing process from logging to rough cut to finished film. Proper and improper cutting techniques are also reviewed.
Documentary Editing is an obvious choice for anyone interested in documentary film production. Here's a link to order the book.Don't miss the opportunity to browse all of the resources available at Karen Everett's web site,New Doc Editing.
