Trying to find that right reality in a well shot, unscripted Doc.

I prefer to shoot unscripted docs... what they used to call CinemaDirect or CinemaVerite. A technique well used by such great cameramen/director's like Richard Leiterman for Alan King and Quebec film maker Michel Brault. This is where the reality of an event is captured on film/video then the story line, the content line is made in the editing room - the footage determines the direction of the story/the theme. The footage is there and then the director sets out in the editing room to find the sequence of events that best tell than story - there is no script to follow except 'reality'.

Well i don't want to get into 'does anything have reality' arguement but let's say that the most reality of how the story is 'in the footage' is closer by far to reality than a scripted doc. where one has to 'make' the events fit the script. That's false sort of a Michael Moore way of making entertainment dramas wrapped in the wool of 'real docs'. Or the highly stylized techinque of Guy Madden in his 'doc.' on Winnipeg which isn't a doc. at all but a personal view of the drama, the fiction, surrounding his Winnipeg.

For this director/cameraman much of recorded reality depends not only on the camera's ability to capture the best reality but on the subject to be 'real' oblivious to the camera... Neither is an easy task...

Peter Evanchuck