![]() It's worth noting that truthfulness in a documentary is based not on an absolute standard, but on the rules established and made clear to the audience by the filmmaker. They must guard against the possibility of cutting factual material together in a way that leads audiences to a false conclusion. They may play with the order in which they present the chronology, but may not misrepresent cause and effect. Filmmakers may select details for inclusion or exclusion, for example, but they may not "cherry pick" details in order to mislead viewers. In making these choices, however, filmmakers must be careful not to violate the story's overall factual accuracy. Multiple story threads might be interwoven. A film about science might be shaped as a mystery or an adventure. A documentary might open at the middle or end of the event being covered, and then work its way back to the chronological beginning. (For an interesting example of this, see Peter Watkins's Culloden, in which he adopts a black-and-white television reporting style to "cover" the 1746 Battle of Culloden.)Ĭreative arrangement broadly describes the use of storytelling tools available to documentary filmmakers, from an initial choice of subject and focus to decisions concerning tone, point of view, style (including recreations), and more. This is a complex subject, but the practice is usually accepted in documentary filmmaking as long as the recreations are done responsibly, the viewer is not misled about the nature of the recreations, and the recreation is used in service of a story that is otherwise factual. Arguably, the use of actors to recreate history might be seen as creative license. In general, the term "creative license" doesn't apply to documentary filmmaking, because documentary filmmakers-who are something of a hybrid between artists and journalists-may not take liberties with the facts as they're generally acknowledged to be true. Linda Seger has noted in her book, The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film, there may be ethical and legal considerations involved, especially when portraying recent events and featuring individuals who are still living.) Invented characters may have been added, or the timeline of actual events shortened. Multiple actual characters may have been merged to simplify the storyline and reduce cast size. Even when a dramatic feature is said to be based on actual events, audiences are generally aware that some liberties have likely been taken. ![]() From William Shakespeare to Peter Shaffer ( Amadeus) and beyond, history has inspired, but not controlled, artists. What's the difference?Ĭreative (or "artistic") license is generally understood to mean the freedom artists may take when handling factual material. Nonfiction filmmakers can't take creative license with factual stories, but instead must limit their artistry to what media historian Erik Barnouw described as the creative arrangement of factual material. A key area where they differ, however, is that while storytellers working in fiction are free to invent characters and scenarios, those working in nonfiction are not. They both serve audiences that don't want to be preached at or talked down to, and they both seek to enthrall viewers by transporting them to new worlds and bringing them on emotional journeys. As I wrote in an earlier article, Documentary Storytelling: The Drama of Real Life, both groups need to worry about protagonists and antagonists, rising stakes, and viewer investment in the outcome of a story. To explain: Fiction screenwriters have long borrowed documentary techniques, and documentary filmmakers rely heavily on the tools of dramatic storytelling. ![]() While these might prove useful, I knew they wouldn't adequately convey the work ahead, or reveal important differences in the scripting process. He didn't know where to start, and was trying to locate some completed scripts to study. ![]() A teacher of screenwriting emailed me recently because he'd been asked to write a documentary. ![]()
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