Developing Story Ideas Page 18
I have never made a documentary proper, so I would need to do miles of leg-work before diving into this project. It seems to me that this story might be able to tell itself, but I have a feeling that this is a common delusion of people making documentary films. Interviewing would need to be very intimate. Ideally, I would like to spend as much time as possible with the B——s so as to achieve ultimate comfort and ease within the interviews.
My particular moral stance on the subject of antidepressant drugs is quite simple. I think they are dangerous and unnecessary. That would have to be the moral slant the film would take, because I am very adamant and passionate about this subject. Going with the grain of the story, as I understand it, would be demonstrating a positive message in the minds of the participants, leading me to [hope for] further cooperation from the family. I tend to despise negative exposure in documentary subject films and plan to avoid that style at all costs.
Angela speaks truly when she says, “This story might be able to tell itself, but I have a feeling that this is a common delusion of people making documentary films.” Nevertheless, her strategy is quite practical, involving as it does dividing her account into three parts that mirror the classic three-act drama:
Backstory and exposition. That is, life before using the drug, the boy’s developing school phobia that led to his needing therapy.
The struggle with a larger issue emerges. A minor problem now turns into a much worse one as he begins taking the drug. His problem changes from school phobia to wildly fluctuating mood swings and violence. The story develops to a crescendo in the hostage-taking situation and culminates after his arrest in the rigmarole of a court case. The court decision probably represents the climax of the whole story.
The resolution. This is the only present-day section. It shows the after-effects on the boy’s daily life of the negative publicity and notoriety, and it questions whether the drug should be given at all, let alone to children.
Here is a main character so out of kilter that he probably denies he has any problem until Act III. So where is the conflict that will make this piece dramatic? It exists between Timmy and everyone else. Other options would be to locate Timmy’s antagonist in the doctor who took the risky decision to use an under-tested drug on a child, or in Timmy’s parents who discovered too late that they had been naïve to trust the experts. We might switch between all three POVs, whoever would be most effective from scene to scene. Whatever the solution, the implications are far-reaching and transcend Timmy’s individual case. Consider:
How desperate do a patient and his family have to become before a doctor resorts to risky treatment? AIDS patients, after all, had to wait in anguish while the Food and Drug Administration toiled in slow motion through its testing procedures.
When should we trust experts, and when not? In the infamous Tuskegee experiments, poor southern black farmers were studied by the U.S. Public Health Service for forty years without either being told they had syphilis and without being given any treatment. For sheer racist cruelty, this rivals the Nazi medical experiments, and may be why African Americans have been apt to delay seeking medical help.
Angela’s scars motivate her and lend authority to her convictions. However, depending on the user and the circumstances, every drug has side-effects and can be a blessing or a curse. To avoid making a film that falls into partisan simplification, I would recommend that Angela include those helped by the drug as well as those hurt by it.
Going Further
Available at the website www.routledge.com/cw/rabiger are the following additional assignments: Assignment 19–2: Simple Voice-Over Personal Film and Assignment 19–3: Simple Voice-Over Historical Film. If documentary or docudrama call to you, here is more guidance:
Aufderheide, Patricia. Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction. 2007 (Excellent, pocket-friendly introduction to the history, types of, and one hundred best documentaries).
McLane, Betsy. A New History of Documentary Film: Second Edition. 2012 (A history that also includes the Experimental Documentary, Visual Anthropology, and Environmental/Nature Films).
Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary, 2nd ed., 2010 (Ethical issues, documentary as a genre, its history and work in the world, and how to write about it).
Rabiger, Michael. Directing the Documentary, 6th ed. Focal Press, 2015 (Deals with the history of the form, developing proposals, shooting exercises, getting an education, and developing a career in documentary. Handles research procedures and the many conceptual/aesthetic dilemmas on the way to a final film).
Rosenthal, Alan. Why Docudrama? Fact-Fiction on Film and TV. Southern Illinois University Press, 1999 (An anthology of essays about the history, practice, and problems of docudrama).
Rosenthal, Alan. Writing, Directing, and Producing Documentary Films and Videos, 4th ed., 2007 (Experienced in television journalism, Rosenthal stresses the importance of writing prior to filming).
Rosenthal, Alan. From Chariots of Fire to The King’s Speech: Writing Biopics and Docudramas. 2014 (Rosenthal is a highly experienced veteran of the documentary production, and an authoritative, committed proponent of the docudrama and biopic).
20 Thirty-Minute Original Fiction
An effective short fiction film is a potent and economical way to establish your abilities. Like a full-length work it demands a plot, characters, situations, style, and a substantial thematic purpose. Three classic shorts you can find on YouTube will dispel any doubts you may have about this. In Norman McClaren’s classic pixillation (stop-frame animation) film Neighbours (Canada, 1952), two identical householders repose in their adjoining yards. When a flower springs up between them, they compete almost to the death for whose side of the fence it belongs. In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (France, 1962) the American Civil War is the backdrop for Robert Enrico’s haunting adaptation of an Ambrose Bierce short story. Through the central character’s fantasy of escape, we feel how desperately the accused man wants to continue living at the very moment of his death. In less than thirty minutes, Chris Marker’s La Jetée (France, 1962), working almost entirely through stills, gives us an eerie underground world of time-traveling lovers in a ruined Paris after World War III (Figure 20–1).
The authorial point of view is the singular attitude that authors (or film directors) take toward the characters and events in their narratives. A strong, trenchant, authorial POV gives a work individuality, urgency, and vitality.
There is a perennial shortage of excellent short fiction films, in spite of their being the very best calling card to writing and/or directing as a professional. Like a feature, a short film must have an authorial point of view with something concise and arresting to say about the human condition, and this is what makes it a full test of a writer or director’s authorial abilities. A short film, like a short story, usually:
Sets up a main character rapidly and economically in a particular world
Shows that character facing a problem, and having something special to accomplish, get, or do
Pushes the main character to a point where he or she must take action
Focuses on how that character tackles his/her problem
Enlarges our sense of his/her main issues, vulnerability, and capacities through watching the central character handle one difficulty after another
Makes the audience learn something, and maybe the main character too. Thankfully, not all stories are about winners, especially in comedy
Figure 20–1 Chris Marker’s La Jetée evokes the desolation of a World War III survivor, repeatedly visited by the memory of a beloved woman in a once-perfect world (frame from the film).
This is how effective storytellers typically use their limited time with an audience, but short films, like any story or poem, can be endowed with almost any narrative vertebra, depending on their mood, special events, or other concerns.
Why do these elements so often appear? Probably because stories are rituals that bind us to someone with whom we can identify
. We hope things will work out for him or her, but many stories end unhappily—and yet still feel satisfying. We recognize the truth that life is a gamble, and that unhappy outcomes are as true as happy ones. This, both beautiful and sad, is called catharsis.
Behind this lies an ancient and unchanging human need, which Michael Roemer describes thus:
The connection between story, or myth, and ritual has long been noted and debated. Ritual too constitutes a safe arena in which we can encounter the sacred or “real,” acknowledge our helplessness and limitations, abandon our weapons and defenses, surrender control, forgive others, and be ourselves forgiven. Both ritual and plot conjugate the particular to the universal. Moreover, in ritual as in comedy and tragedy it is largely our fear, weakness, and failure—the very secrets that keep us apart in daily life—that bring us together.1
By invoking the troubling forces in our lives—the clashes of morality, the contradictions in human desires, and the battles against the forces of the universe—stories help us live with what remains unfinished and perhaps insoluble in our own lives.
While developing a short film idea, consider:
What do you feel about this story at a gut level?
What genre does this story belong in?
What moral forces is the story handling and what work is it trying to do?
What does its central character represent in the story’s world?
Are the stakes high enough for the central character? (You can often raise them without impairing the story’s credibility.)
What is the story’s crisis, and how do you feel about it?
Does anyone develop, and if they do, is it credible and satisfying?
How would you rate the originality of the story?
How would you rate its overall impact?
Assignment 20–1: Treatment for an Original Short Fiction Piece
Write an original treatment for a thirty-minute fiction film. Make it center on a single main character and lead us to understand his or her subjective point of view. It need not be one we necessarily agree with or like. Try to base the story on something you have closely observed or lived through, but avoid fictionalizing anything current. This would face you with too many questions about fidelity to the real. Write:
Step 1: A scene outline summarizing the story.
Step 2: A working hypothesis defining the story’s meaning and purpose.
Step 3: A “shopping list” of the sequences with their intended running times. Estimate running times by acting out each sequence as you time it, playing all the parts yourself, and visualizing each shot (but warn those within earshot—or risk being carted away in the rubber bus).
Examples
Example 1: Thirty-Minute Original Fiction Idea (Michael Hanttula)
Scene Outline. It is the forced-retirement day for the president of a major, but anonymous, corporation. Many people, especially a team of vice-presidents, are set to gain from the president’s retirement. However, he has refused to comply and has turned his office into a bunker where he has been fending off would-be intruders, slaying anyone making an attempt to oust him from his position. One by one, lower-ranking employees have made their way up to the top floor and tried to charge his makeshift bunker. Each time, they are terribly wounded or in some way incapacitated. Over time, the vice-presidents have run out of secretaries, assistants, and coffee people to send. Before giving up, they remember Farrago, the mailroom boy in the basement.
They send a message down to tell him that his assistance is greatly needed and that his help will undoubtedly result in the grand promotion he has been hoping for. Farrago hurries up to the lobby of the building, where the vice-presidents and heads-of-departments have established a headquarters. Tables are overturned, facing a bank of elevators on the far wall. People are busy scurrying around, looking over reports, yelling into communication devices, plotting maps and missions.
The main vice-president quickly briefs Farrago on the situation, telling of the evil actions by the president and the severity of [the need to remove] him from office. As she does this, one of the elevator doors makes a beeping sound and begins to open. Everyone dives for cover behind the tables. A secretary slowly crawls out of the elevator on his hands and knees. Many people rush to his assistance. He is clearly dying of undefined wounds. In his last breaths he is able to give the latest position of the president and warns that it will be impossible to take over the president’s stronghold. He dies and Farrago becomes discouraged. However, the head vice-president reminds him of the promotion that will be his if he can dethrone the president. He agrees to the mission, collects supplies and maps, and heads up the towering building by elevator.
Inside the elevator Farrago dreams of the power and prestige his promotion will bring him as he is hailed slayer of the president by the rest of the staff. On the top floor, he gets out and finds a labyrinth of office cubicles before him. He searches through the maze, running into dead ends, fallen adversaries that have attempted this mission before him, and various traps that impede his journey.
Along the way he runs into a guard who has decided to protect the president. They get into a scuffle and the guard is close to winning. But Farrago manages to escape the guard’s grasp and, fleeing back into the labyrinth, stops short of one of the traps and takes refuge down another corridor. The guard, in fast pursuit, barrels around the corner, and flings himself into the trap. As Farrago closes in to finish off the guard, he discovers that the guard is himself. He stops, the guard begs him to help the president—praising the president’s goodness and condemning the evil staff that has been trying to usurp him. [The guard dies.]
Farrago, now quite confused, travels further into the labyrinth after the guard’s death, still in search of the president. Eventually, he happens upon his office and finds the president looking out of the window. He is aware of Farrago’s presence, but not taking action.
The president states what Farrago is here for and simply asks that certain affairs [be] taken care of by the corporation after he is gone. The president tells of his initial hopes for the company and how he had wanted to do so much good. But when he tried, his staff revolted and have [since] been trying to get him out.
These are surprisingly humane desires for someone declared a “villain of the people” by his staff. Farrago looks about the office, seeing awards and letters of gratitude from charities and other signs of his “good deeds.” The words of the head vice-president and of the loyal guard echo through his head. The president knows about the offers of promotion that his staff will have made to Farrago and agrees that this is the best way for him to advance. However, Farrago’s dream of the life of luxury that promotion offers is darkened by visions of the type of person he would become (like the staff is now) if he had such power. He moves toward the president, drawing the weapon that the staff gave him.
Back in the staff’s headquarters, many are waiting anxiously, while others are still in a great deal of commotion (making deals with other companies, assuring [them] that the president is being replaced). The elevator begins its descent from the top floor and the tension in the control room becomes greater with each floor the elevator descends. Eventually, it reaches the ground floor and the elevator bell rings, the doors burst open, and Farrago and the president come charging out together.
Meaning/Purpose of the Story. This is about the corruption of power and the struggle to do good. Michael’s central character Farrago wants promotion above all, and will do anything to get it, thus giving no thought of the actions he’ll have to take. At first the staff manipulate him with promises of promotion and power. Then, as he searches for the president, the guard confronts him by stopping him to make him consider what he is doing. Arriving at the president, he finds the head of the enterprise is only a person like anyone else, not the monster that the staff described. Farrago loses his eagerness to aid the vice-presidents’ struggle against the “dictator” on seeing that the president has the more appealing morals. However,
he realizes that by helping the president, he loses his opportunity for promotion. His conflict is, therefore, the choice between advancing his career and trying to be a good person. In the end, he sides with the embattled president against the insurgent forces of the staff.
Shopping List of Sequences
1 Photomontage under titles of actions occurring in the headquarters. Use of voice-over and sound design to give the backstory (previous attempts to usurp the president, staff’s decision to call upon the mailroom attendant)—45 seconds.
2 Farrago in mailroom (basement) amidst piles and piles of unsorted mail, working diligently, message drops from above with request to come above and see vice-presidents about a promotion—45 seconds.
3 Farrago entering the lobby/headquarters, being briefed, witnessing failed attempt emerging from elevator, agreeing to go, being sent up the elevator—4 minutes.
4 Farrago in elevator, dreaming of his prosperous future. He is shaken out of dream when elevator arrives on the top floor—30 seconds.
5 He sees the labyrinth before him and begins to proceed through it. He runs into dead ends, dead secretaries, and pitfalls—2 minutes.
6 He runs into guard, battles, flees, hides, guard is injured, they talk, Farrago continues on—3 minutes.
7 He finds the president, enters his office, and listens to his story. He dreams [about the choice] between the “good life” and leading a “good” life. He makes his decision—4 minutes.
8 Farrago and the president return to the lobby, surprising the staff, they attack—1 minute.