A film editor's approach to story in documentary film
Like most people who practise this art or sullen craft I recognise the importance of something called story; but it has always been what I could recognise but not easily define satisfactorily to myself and I have found little consensus with others. Obviously the concept must be a broad one to encompass the entirety of what we humans call stories. Those things that somewhere we associate with fireside full tummies and the start of comfortable night.
Aboriginal cultures such as Native Americans traditionally have a variety of story genres which include story maps, romances, adventures, descriptions of how things work in nature, lessons, survival accounts and so forth. If you have no writing then a relatively easily learned story is a very good vehicle to use to preserve both knowlege and philosophy.
But what unites all of these disparate forms? Of course I read the Field, Vogler, McKee body of knowlege but although enlightening the theories seemed somehow constrained to narrative and I wanted something that would fit other genres of story. Like documentary for example.
Attempting to find coherence I thought about and researched the very small. I attempted to discover something about very small stories. Dr Renee Fuller wrote interesting stuff about what she calls story engrams - a noun and a verb. For example 'dog barks'. But this did not seem to be a story. It's just a statement and stories are so much more than that.
Quite by chance I came across a theory that says that a complete story is an argument for dealing with a problem. Now this seemed like it might also apply to documentary. The fact 'Dog barks' needs more to become the stub of a story, documentary or otherwise. Try adding some more words. Dying dog barks. This begins to engage my sympathy but it's still not really a story.
A clever chap I spoke to suggested that the smallest story would be a quad comprising a noun, a verb, and adverb and an adjective. His quantum story was: ‘Dying dog barks defiantly’. And the light came on. This statement engages not only sympathy but also interest. This really does seem to be the core of story. We start to want answers to questions because it's gone beyond what News calls a story, a collection of statements occasionally concluded with a consequence.
The chap was Chris Huntley and he along with Melanie Phillips devised a theory of story called Dramatica in which a complete story is defined as being an argument for the solution to a problem. It's not a trivial task to learn Dramatica but I have found it massively rewarding. And the majority of the learning aids are just free on the site.
So returning to the topic of this thread, I have found what I think will be an intriguing way of teasing the story out of the raw material that, as we have noted, scares the willies out of most editors.
To illustrate the approach I need to explain a very brief piece of essential Dramatica theory. The central problem will exist in one of four domains. These are an Internal or External Activity or Situation. To clarify, an external activity might be an invasion. An external situation might be an occupation. An internal situation might be prejudice and finally, an internal activity might be manipulation.
So with this quad in mind I suggest that highlighting phrases in the transcripts that have to do with internal or external situations or activities. This will tell you quite a lot about the central problem that has actually been filmed.
If the film is ostensibly about a war then you'd expect the majority of those phrases to be about an external situation. If it is about the drug trade then you'd expect to see an external activity cropping up. If it's about racial intolerance then you'd expect evidence of an internal situation - prejudice. A political film might contain much that is internal activity or manipulation.
This process will also tell you about the issues and concerns of the interviewees. Now it might not be quite what you expected, the same area as the one that the film was meant to address. But if we are honest this is often the case with documentary. And so often the conflict between the material actually shot and the film's desired perspective means that the dissonance has to be forcibly held together with voiceover.
Of course this post is a trivial and over simplified description of a comprehensive theory of story and for that I apologise. But I thoroughly recommend you to at least gloss over the comic book which you will find on the Dramatica site. This is such a good tool.
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