ethics... and lying

[emjen]

I don't know if any of you guys've seen Fargo. The film begins with text superimposed on black saying this is a true story, none of the events are fictional - everything you see really happened.

Which I guess sounds believable. But it's a cold hard lie. The makers of the film wanted to let the audience think that everything they see has really happened before, to get that absurd feeling the movie has even more bigger.

Can't really say it worked for me, except on a subconscious level perhaps. It does kind of change the atmoshpere and mood of the film.

Now for my next film I'm going to make a Documentary. A fake one. And I'm going to try to make it as real as possible. Which is probably very hard since the events will be very absurd, and I really don't expect the whole audience to buy what they see, but if only a small fraction of the audience will doubt what they'll see is real or fake (I actually expect all of the audience to think about it while seeing the small documentary some way or another) than I feel like I've done a good job.

And I"m going to lie, superimposed on black, telling that everything you see is real as well.

Now - is this wrong?

[GREATwarEAGLE]

No.

You have not established yourself as a credible source for facts and news reporting. Let's say you do indeed make this film, you are an unknown and it is up to the audience to rsearch the validity of your story with other established credible news/fact sources.

[richard.fisher]

As far as I am concerned Documentaries are no more 'real' than any other films. The documentatries I have seen contain so much emotive spin that if there ever was any truth there, it has been buried beneath layes of sentiment.

The visual/audio feel of documentaries can be extremly effective at creating a desired mood/response in the audience. From the documentaries I've seen, and articles/interviews I've read regaring the people who make them, I get the impression that the decision to make a documentary often had less to do with a desire to inform, and more because it is an intresting style of film-making, which offers a lot of scope for invention, can be done comparitively cheaply, and is particullarly en vogue at the moment.

The fact that Emjen, like many others is making a 'fake' documentary goes someway to reinforce my argument that it is the style of documentaries which many film-makers are attracted to. Emjen, please don't feel this is me having a go, in fact what I am saying is don't think your documentary will be any less 'real' than anything else you'll see this year.

[curtinparloe]

I watched a documentary last night, "Last Child of the Sixties" (11 minutes) and it took about a minute to realise that it was a spoof of "7 up". It was shot on DV for the "video diary" look and they had used an authorative voice for the narration to lend it that authentic feel. What spoilt it for me was that it was obviously staged; the minor actors were far too comfortable with the camera for it to look real. If anything, the makers tried too hard.

By all means put a caption at the beginning, but it might "give it away" before you even start.

Incidentally, I'm enjoying the Homegrown Hollywood series on BBC2, but 2am till 6am?

[jbridges]

Emjen, what you are talking about is mockumentary. Go for it. It's totally exceptable and can be a great laugh. Good luck [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

[jbridges]

Sorry acceptable. Blah!

[sn-films]

I don't know that Emjem is neccessarily talking about a mockumentary. Some fictional narratives try to suck you into the emotional plight of the characters by saying that they're based on actual events. Look at something like the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". The opening by John Laroquette states that the movie is based on actual police files, when is fact its a pure work of fiction loosely based on the attrocities of Ed Gein.

Incidently, Mr. Gein never lived in Texas.

[critical sid]

I've seen Last Child of the Sixties as well, in fact on the Homegrown Hollywood season.
I think the makers got it just about right with regard to it looking like a documentary.It would get very very very dull if every minor character was aware of the camera. You take it as read that they are used to it. And it's a mockumentary rather than a documentary so a bit of artistic licence is allowed. The film won a short film award so it must have been doing something right.