Theoretically, all independent documentary films can have a second or third part to them once the first version is released. Just like television documentaries and so-called reality television programs documentary films can easily be broken down in a chapter-like series or a sequential, multi-version episodic product. HBO, PBS, ESPN, CNN, and even Netflix have all aired documentary films in multiple succeeding parts or a television documentary program broken up in a series distributed as episodes airing in a given season. Documentaries in essence are long, continuous running storylines of a nonfictional subject matter captured loosely and vividly on camera. Filmmakers and producers of such nonfiction content are compelled to drive a clear story through film delivery in the most concise way envisioned and creatively documented for a targeted audience. Hours and hours of unused material is inevitable in the documentary filmmaking journey. Archival material, audio soundbites, captured footage, and long durations of interview clips are bound to happen in overabundance which leaves a lot of good (and sometimes great) stuff on the proverbial cutting room floor during post-production. Whether for marketing purposes or clear producer discretion a story-driven focus motivates a production team to construct a documentary film in a nice, clean edited version of a single piece of product or an ongoing series/multi-part, episodic product. Ken Burns’ landmark 1990 PBS documentary television programming Civil War was broadcasted in nine episodes ranging in about two hours each for five consecutive nights.

What makes a documentary an ongoing piece or a single film narrative beyond producer’s discretion? Besides, whether targeted audiences demand more material of the given documentary it’s all about what can sell based on a film’s theme. Selling in this sense is not necessarily monetary in pursuit. Oscar-nominated documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer delivered his initial award-wining film, The Art of Killing, a 2012 documentary about individuals who participated in the Indonesian killings of 1965–66. Two years later he followed up the film with the documentary, The Look of Silence, a companion piece on the same subject matter. The second part or follow-up version to his earlier film is that clearly Oppenheimer had plenty of material to work with. He can sell his original film story in new themes, broader perspective, and lucid summation in a second-part version. In it Oppenheimer and his team saw a flowing theme worthy enough of angling and constructing a whole new film with unused footage material. This is central to the sojourn of the documentary film expedition where a director and/or producer is pulled into a single, specific world with tons of potential storylines to capture and characters to follow. Oftentimes, most documentary film teams delve into such a world initially not clear what they will lucidly capture for an end product. With the pressure of taking footage material into a clean, edited, and marketable version of a full-length feature film with a running time between seventy minutes through two hours all material shot and sought will most likely not make it in the finished product readying itself for the marketplace and viewing public.

Part II of a documentary film may well be motivated beyond marketing purposes. New evidence to a crime documentary or science documentary may necessitate a continuance for a follow-up production to the first completed film. Updates in character development and storylines years later may contribute to the overall theme of a film worth expanding on by documentary filmmakers either to address a social issue, ground a moral theme, or substantiated earlier stated facts. Occasions of rebuttals to a documentary film may find its way toward another filmmaking team to debate and contrast what a single documentary film presented. For example, The Great Global Warming Swindle was a polemical documentary on climate change rebutting claims of the Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. One can see that a “Part II”-like version was initiated since a lot of the subject matter continued and extended the narrative of the first film. The documentaries: Manufacturing Dissent: Uncovering Michael Moore and Michael Moore Hates America and Michael & Me all came out of reaction to Michael Moore’s two acclaimed documentary films, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11. The independent feature FrackNation was documentary film created by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney that counter-argues the claims and focus of Josh Fox’s Academy-Award nominated film, Gasland. Only to which, Josh Fox returned with a part two version of his own film three years later in Gasland II. Moreover, two seasoned documentary filmmakers each embarked on a feature film on cyclist Lance Armstrong and and his 2012 doping scandal relatively at the same time—Alex Gibney’s 2013 film, The Armstrong Lie and Alex Holmes’ 2014 film, Stop at Nothing: The Lance Armstrong Story. Clearly both films are the case of a part two version in the making simultaneously and oblivious to both filmmakers. Yet, both films went on to reach a wide international audience, garner numerous awards, distinctions and acclaim through a successful festival and television run. While both Gibney and Holmes interviewed the same characters in the Lance Armstrong saga both astonishingly approached the subject matter differently yet honestly. Holmes tracks down some of Lance Armstrong’s cohorts and sworn enemies who knew him at the peak of his success to uncover the biggest fraud in sport history furthering the theme of his documentary of an athlete bent on winning at all costs. In 2009, Alex Gibney set out to film a documentary on the cyclist’s comeback year after a four-year retirement from the sport. Three years later, on October 2012, a doping investigation led to Lance Armstrong’s lifetime ban from competition and the stripping of his seven Tour de France titles. Thus, the documentary was shelved. This prompted Armstrong to go back to Gibney to set the record straight about his career. Alex Gibney’s film treats Lance Armstrong as a tragic hero that fell to his own hubris.

Rarely, do documentaries end with a second part needed to establish the focus, theme, and morale to the story of the initial movie. In the span of three decades the film team of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky produced a documentary film trilogy of Paradise Lost that documents the infamous West Memphis Three murder cases. Respectively released on HBO in the years 1996, 2000, and 2011 the trilogy was a clear case of a documentary film team following characters and storylines of a given topic followed up with new evidence, changes, and updates to the specific characters and their storylines. Since, the West Memphis Three legal cases continued to be a pending court case a documentary film story that was delivered in three parts motivated the filmmaking duo to keep going something that compels most—if not all–documentarians out in the field. With the average time span of independent documentary film production ranging from two through ten years in making rarely do the first part of documentary films get completed prematurely.

Documentary filmmaking is a tool to gauge the weight of truth in a story-driven format. It expounds on the reflection of examination of characters and their perspective to assay the who, what, where, when, why, and how of a given narrative. Documentary filmmaking is a platform for the exchange in ideas, opinions, facts, and evidence that carries a story from its nascent developmental stage to its final denouement. What else work in our global media-saturated abyss that encompasses us all, can you have a measure for something radical, bonafide, intellectual, didactic, engaging, revelatory, engrossing, and revolutionary? Key and fundamental to the documentary filmmaking pursuit is the tendency to delve into deep elements of a narrative that is enmeshed in the complexity of time, nuance, viewpoints, mindset, perspective, opinion, and understanding. This is a tall task for documentarians. A real reason few dare tread the troubled and often murky waters of documentary filmmaking.

In terms of truth, complexity is the reality of things, subjects, people, events, and places. It is the stuff that sets the foundation of how things work and operate, what motivates and inspires people to create circumstances, and the why and how such things come to fruition from a once-agreed upon thought. Shining a camera on the facets that make up the entire world is taxing in pursuit. It calls a director and producer and their engaged, dedicated team to peel back layer after layer of such realities. Given any historical context the same team must venture through interpretation and sided explanation to “get to the bottom” of such things, subjects, people, events, and places. The beauty and the challenge, the “beautiful struggle”—in other words, of documentary filmmaking is to deconstruct such elements of reality in a simplistic manner in visual-spatial form. Such a pursuit is a hit or miss.

Documentaries like Kirby Dick’s The Hunting Ground misses because it totes the line of informing and persuading. His team chose advocacy over accuracy. This is what happens in the creative undertaking of a documentary film project when all information is laid out in front and the manner in which one breaks down to the core the complex nature of human stories and its development. Couple this with a film addressing a social issue that carries heavy weight on both sides of an argument, a documentary like Kirby Dick’s ends up becoming a documentary that misses in its attempt at the complexity of uncovering the truth. Honesty and integrity to one’s work is essential—how exactly one ends up treading the complex aspect(s) to telling a nonfiction story on film is what is left to judge in merit and full head-on understanding. Documentary filmmaking serves its audience best when it does its homework to its fullest extent possible—delving through the exhausting nature of information, tidbits, the breaking down of the meticulousness that reality often always comes with, and exposing the hidden expressions and nuances of characters and human factors involved (i.e. feelings, emotions).

Think of documentary filmmaking as telling a nonfiction, true-life story as in a book but with piles and piles of impartial information from multiple—often varying perspectives—to sift through, all with the eventual anticipation toward entertaining a future audience. And, whether or not a documentary filmmaker and her team is closely engaged with the storyline(s) and character(s) of the documentary such a story will only hold up to water in how it can explain itself without misguided notions nor arbitrary whims. In other words, documentary filmmakers do not have the liberties to expand a story in direction as other art form do. Moreover, to construct a full-length documentary feature is to expound thoroughly on a journalistic approach with all the motivations of an artist willing to convey a message and a highlight a morale of a story creatively in a visual-spatial dimension. Every graphic utilized, every camera shot used, every soundbite articulated, every narration voiced all comes with the full anticipation that something complex is rendering itself comprehensible. This task can be met through an art-house, experimental filmmaking approach as seen in the recent 2015 film, Heart of A Dog, accomplished by performance artist Laurie Anderson. In the film Anderson delves into profound themes of love, death, philosophy, and religion by narrating a story of her relationship to her now deceased dog. With sketch illustrations, old film reels, and visual cinematography of random places she guides the viewer in a world driven by subtle wisdom worthy of philosophical undertaking.

It takes a certain character to pull of a well-constructed, thoroughly investigative, and profoundly revelatory documentary film for audiences near and far, today through tomorrow to resonate with. A person who is willing to engage in an impartial search for truth bent on explaining the complexity of a given story is worthy of being a documentary filmmaker. A person willing to delve deep into the arduous task of seeking necessary information on a given topic all with the hungry task of sifting through opinion and perspective one after the other is worthy of taking on the task of documentary filmmaking. If one is self-motivated in informing slightly more than entertaining, teaching and exposing rather than rendering laughter or sadness, and explaining more so than persuading than the power of documentary filmmaking is put in the right hands. Complexity is what should be anticipated, sought through, met all the way, and fully grasped in the documentary filmmaking journey. In the end, the best documentary films are complex in its simplicity.

I am confident that I am not the only big fan of ESPN’s award-winning “30 for 30” Films, a series on the famed network of outstanding documentary film original programming written, directed and produced by some of the best independent filmmakers around today. In fact, I am so much of an enthusiast that I am convinced that even non-sports fans would be and have been enthralled to such works ESPN has been distributing since their original series program began its run—back in 2009. And, as much as an enthusiast as I am to the stellar work of ESPN’s repertoire of nonfiction sports film storytelling is the very elements and production value the makers—executive producers, producers, directors, writers, and their entire production team—have continuously put out since the inception of the television series. ESPN Films’ “30 for 30” is marketed in the logline as: “The series that highlights important people and events in the sports world and in sports history.” This includes long-form documentary film content ranging in the full-length time frame of narrative documentary work but also docu-shorts ranging from as little as five minutes to as long as sixty minutes. For this blog entry I want to point out what I think makes ESPN Films—particularly their long-form documentary narratives—special and significant. Significant enough that we, documentary film enthusiasts, should commend and thank Bill Simmons and Connor Schell for creating and ESPN for assigning, distributing, and marketing. In doing so—they and company have pushed the bar forward in 21st century documentary film production—a gift worth cherishing and honoring.

ESPN Films’ “30 for 30” series is nothing new in sports journalism and nonfiction sports film storytelling. PBS Frontline is known to have dabbled into sports topics in long-form documentary format from time to time—including one of their latest in the documentary, League of Denial, that tackles NFL’s current issue on concussions and brain injuries. Fox Sports’ five-season run of “Beyond the Glory”—the sports version of biographical documentaries to VH1’s “Behind the Music”—did its part in a sports documentary television programming. Even ESPN’s earlier version of “SportsCentury” added to the slate of sports documentary film production with over 250 episodes of award-winning long-form content in an eight-year run. But, what is most impressive of this current run of ESPN’s growing volumes of “30 for 30” films is the use of great documentarians expounding on a range of interesting and powerful sports stories. Filmmakers from Brett Morgen, Alex Gibney, Morgan Spurlock, the late Albert Maysles, Steve James, Rory Karpf, Barbara Kopple, John Singleton, and Jonathan Hock—among many others, all add their expertise and talent to at least one of the slated ESPN Films to date. This steady flow of high caliber talent creates a dynamism of original programming that is both compelling and influential. Although while it is easy to create a television series of original content by employing seasoned, award-winning A-listers to go create and produce, ESPN goes even deeper in their approach. They take powerful documentary filmmakers and allow them to drive the nonfiction narrative only when the story itself is near and dear to their hearts. Tackling and documenting a specific story close to home is what brings out the lucid, powerful depiction of characters and their actions for a powerful and complete film one after the other.

What makes ESPN Films work in gifting stellar, award-winning documentary films is how they employ directors and producers who are so infused with the very story they are covering. Social critic Nelson George’s film, The Announcement, that profiled the events and aftermath of Laker great Magic Johnson’s sudden retirement after his revelation of contracting HIV serves as a perfect example of ESPN finding that director who can tell a vivid storyline simply by a filmmaker’s connection to it. What drove Nelson George—known more as a social critic, author, and columnist—to convey the topic of HIV and Magic Johnson’s story of an abrupt retirement to a storied NBA career was driven in motivation of losing his sister to AIDS around the same time. Here, the personal becomes filmmaking—a great and proven element in documentary film production. In The Announcement Nelson George brings the audience into his world of the impact HIV had on his family at the time of Magic’s retirement that paralleled America’s sudden connection to HIV as a national epidemic. Billy Corben’s documentary, The U, and his follow-up, The U Part 2, was rendered stellar because of his personal connection to the University of Miami being a fellow alumnus. All ESPN allowed Corben to do was take us back as viewers to the good ol’ days of “The U”—when the University of Miami’s football team dominated college football. Actor Kevin Connolly who took on the exploit of businessman John Spano and his fraudulent buyout of the New York Islanders hockey franchise in the film, Big Shot, worked well because of his childhood love affair with his neighborhood’s only professional hockey team. His memory of the Spano fiasco struck a chord with him as he laid out the film portrait of what exactly happened. At one point in the film Connolly confronts Spano in a sit-down interview where Spano retells the story of his high-stake scandal. Noticed the trend ESPN has directed and managed in their filmography of the “30 for 30” series—allowing the filmmaker to take on the personal space of their storytelling process making for a real, captivating film portrait of a sports character or sports event. The list goes on—Steve James, the standout documentary filmmaker known for his legendary 1994 masterpiece of a film, Hoop Dreams, produces the probing ESPN Films documentary, No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson, a film on the young Iverson’s high school arrest and subsequent trial. Steve James hails from Hampton, Virginia like Allen Iverson. This hit home for James who remembers all too well the events of the story that almost ended Iverson’s burgeoning basketball playing career. Coodie and Chike—the black filmmaking duo from Chicago leads the direction and production of Benji, the film about a 1984 Chicago All-American high school hoopster who was fatally gunned down his senior year. Only Coodie and Chike could pull off the story of Benjamin Wilson in light of on one of the most long-standing and egregious problems in the Windy City—gun violence. With intimate portraits of Wilson’s family members and close friends coupled with profound cinematography of Chicago’s fascinating and bleak neighborhoods the director tandem puts out a great yet tragic film story of the untimely death of a basketball prospect. Actor/comedian/director Michael Rapaport, a product of Manhattan, helmed the documentary, When The Garden Was Eden, a film that looks back at the New York Knicks’ championship teams of the early 1970s—when he was an impressionistic youth and newfound fan of the game of basketball being played at the legendary arena of Madison Square Garden.

The style of employing filmmakers on a personal journey to delve into quaint, powerful, and strange storylines for award-winning documentary filmmaking is the hallmark of ESPN’s “30 for 30” series. The vantage point of taking this documentary style is combining the emotion and feeling of the story with the characters involved through a lucid depiction and portrayal. This unique drive at storytelling lends itself to an exploration that may not go deep enough with different documentary filmmakers on board and their production team involved. Not to knock such talent that ESPN scouts for in their award-winning series but such assigning to filmmakers not totally invested personally to the story they are capturing ends up diluting the power and magnetism of a potent and vivid story worth documenting in film format readying for release to an engaging audience. Something should be said about this simple yet uncanny approach to documentary filmmaking—turning the personal into filmmaking. In the murky world of documentary film production an arduous journey encompasses all who embark. With challenges in access and budgets with limited to no return on investment through the even murkier world of film distribution documentary filmmakers need an even greater character trait and motive to pursue such projects. This character trait is only fully endorsed when a personal component is added to the documentary film process. Whether the personality or the personal story of a given filmmaker makes it into the final product of the film or not the personal engagement, nonetheless, renders a film unit to deliver a powerful effect in the film once complete. Television screenwriter Aaron Rahsaan Thomas, a graduate and professor of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, was the perfect insertion to helm the production team of this year’s ESPN “30 for 30” film, Trojan War, a film profile of the rise and fall of the University of Southern California (USC) Trojans football team during Pete Carroll’s coaching tenure in the 2000s. Here, Thomas’ intimate connection as a student-turned-professor during those years of Coach Carroll’s tenure brought out a great story-driven plot that only he could have delivered in a documentary. Documentary filmmaker Thaddeus Matula found widespread acclaim with his first documentary film feature entitled, Pony Excess, which tells a quintessential story of his native city—Dallas, Texas, chronicling the darkest hour of his favorite sports team, the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Mustangs. ESPN Films with the collaboration of MLB Productions granted access and space for Mario Diaz to produce and direct the film, Brothers In Exile. Diaz’s connection to the Miami community, Latino culture, and being of Hispanic Caribbean descent was enough for him and his team to powerfully depict on film the journey of Liván Hernández and his brother Orlando “El Duque” Hernández as Cuban natives who defected to the United States and, soon after, emerged as baseball, championship-winning royalty.

Poor Burundi. Landlocked. Small. Limited resources. Largely uneducated. Wholly overpopulated. Deeply impoverished. Lousy economy. Inept political leaders. Human rights abuses. Violence as legacy. Coups after coups. Is it a wonder that such a tiny country sandwiched between two giant African nations of Tanzania and Democratic Republic of Congo in the crossover region of east-central Africa is marginalized in name and thought on the global stage? And, if so much is written, discussed, reported about on the events of this corner of the world particularly in terms of civil war, genocide, and refugee flight why is Burundi on the peripheral when such a topic is brought up? Yes, Burundi has endured enough of a legacy of genocide, regicide, nepotism, factionalism, ethnicism, tribalism, paroxysm, discrimination, assassinations, violent uprisings, civil war, abrupt killings and military dictatorships that would turn away the average mainstream viewer if such a country did make headline news. Interesting enough—upon closer inspection in the midst of such a sordid reality lies something beautiful and important that Burundi can offer as an example for the world. Out of the tragic comedy that renders human life and human history lies Burundi—more particularly, Burundians—a society of peoples who forged, through the bitterness of the past and all its current marks and scars, to arrive at the sudden yet necessary realization of redemption, hope, reconciliation, peace, and unity. Such a people faced the elements of the ugliness of the human situation—fear, hatred, angst, and ignorance to arrive soundly on love, harmony, forgiveness, and wisdom.

Burundi is not unlike other countries of Africa much less its neighbors. Like Rwanda to the north Burundi shares a similar ethnic makeup among its citizenry in being of Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa descent. Both countries also share a similar native, Bantu language spoken by the vast majority of the country along with similar culture edifices in food, dance, clothing, music, vibes, and mannerisms. Burundi is often seen like its neighbors in the regions of east and central Africa as being scenically beautiful with lush rolling hills, verdant countrysides, and a vibrant ecosystem that mirrors much of Sub-Saharan Africa. So, in no way is Burundi strangers in the land or a marginalized, alien country of human beings placed through a vacuum in its current location from outer space. Like most countries on the black continent Burundi endured the cold, callousness of European colonization only to see it metastasize insidiously a half-century later into Western corporate greed. Burundi has had to like many African countries upon marking their independence the need to symbolically and literally forge a new identity for generations to come. Despite the conflicts that occurred since independence, Burundians are a very proud people. Pride is a limitation in that it makes Burundians think that no other people understand their plight. It is also an asset that unites them despite their historical origins, and the divisions intentionally created by their colonial ruler. Here, Burundi is dissimilar to many of its neighboring countries in the complexity on its arduous road to a free, democratic, and independent republic. Such a level of complexity makes the topic of Burundi much too difficult to “black and white” for truncated online reporting and media soundbites bent on being terse. As in the words of Dr. Rene Lemarchand, one of the leading scholars on Burundi politics and history, penned this year in an online news article:

“Yes, Burundi. Unlike Rwanda, the name has yet to become a household term among Americans. Nonetheless, this small, densely populated, ethnically divided republic has a lot in common with its neighbor to the north: both were once monarchies; they shared much the same language, ethnic map and social institutions; after being forced into the German colonial mold of East Africa, they were entrusted to Belgium as Mandates under the League of Nations and then, after World War II, as United Nations Trust Territories until their independence in 1962. Last but not least, they both experienced genocide.”

The 1972 bloodbath in Burundi sometimes referred to natives as ikiza, the “scourge”, marked the first recorded genocide in post-independence Africa. The first democratically-elected and civilian-ruled president of Burundi coming to office some 30 years after independence was assassinated less than 100 days in office. Even the decade-long civil war in Burundi was negotiated and overseen through the end by two stalwarts of 20^th century Pan-African political leaders—Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere (until his death) and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela. No where else on the continent for decades was violence and bloodshed so consistent than in Burundi. Rebellion after rebellion, blood for blood, uprisings after uprisings, and coups after coups marked the political trajectory of Burundi as an once-Belgian colony to a nascent African developing nation. Just as there exist victims and villains to the Burundian saga there also exist heroes and martyrs to this story. Ironically, the Byzantine politics of Burundi, which is as opprobrious as many older Burundians would like not to remember and many outside of Burundi would find hard to believe, does allow itself a glimpse to the sacredness of human will and the beauty of forgiveness.

It takes a high measure of forgiveness to put the weapons of war down. It takes a deeper level of human will to not avenge family members and friends slaughtered in mass violence. It takes a profound aspect of discipline to accept reality and what has happened and concentrate on peace-building and efforts at reconciliation. It takes an evolving character trait to teach lessons of the past and events in history to the next generation based on an accurate narrative. If Burundians had not collectively engaged in such efforts to rebuilding their country inside and out Burundi might as well have been wiped off the map. It is in these rebuilding efforts driven through the ever-consistent instability of the country as well as the region that Burundi is a shining light to what is possible. In a tense environment of poverty and lack of resources Burundians along the way continued on their path to harmony among its diverse class of peoples. Even for the cynics who still refuse to acknowledge the forward momentum of progress in the country–known today as the “the heart of Africa”–despite the recent political events that has occurred this year cannot help but be in awe toward the very little-to-no violence among its citizens. Here, a burgeoning light for mercy and grace shines on the land of Burundi through the darkness of violence and bloodletting.

No utopia exists on planet Earth. No country can right the way of another nation free from hypocrisy and double-talk. All countries throughout the world continue to find their way to the betterment of their respective countries. In fact, elements of “freedom”, “democracy”, “liberty”, “equality”, and “progress” among many others are felt by a number of countries in the known world but mean something entirely different across the globe. This is where countries can, indeed, be an example for others in terms of sociopolitical peace, economic mobility, democratic organization, and civil order. Burundi despite its apparent marginalization and disconnect to the world shares that up-and-down momentum to national prosperity. Some of the most gentle, caring, loving, and forgiving people in the world are of Burundian descent. Time will, of course, tell whether the project for reconciliation, healing, unity, redemption, and peace will transpire itself whole and be comprehensively completed in this tiny African nation. What is the hallmark to such a road to forgiveness and the measure in healing are the majority of Burundians’ character traits and the qualities they embrace—which seeks the need for psychosocial healing and convalescence.

“What is your greatest ambition in life? To become immortal and then die.”

(a line from Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film, Breathless)

There is a prime motivation for why artists including documentary filmmakers undergo the beautiful struggle of working on and accomplishing profound creative work. It is above the commonplace agreement of pursuing one’s passion and below the overly-rated notion of building and securing a legacy. Artists go out to reach greatness with their respective work for the continuing opportunity to be relevant. Relevancy goes a long way in today’s global internet sphere where platforms of endless communication are streamed by the second through unlimited and boundless avenues to disseminating and distributing variegated works of art and artistic expression. Relevancy brings a given work to it’s hallmark importance helping it establish a place in the current issues of the times as well as establishing a historic mark years down the road. Relevancy is about being pertinent to a valuing societal focus, the endurance of creative significance, a crowning artistic and innovative achievement that moves human potential forward, and the profound undertaking of goals that renders a person in positions of power and influence. Relevancy keeps one connected with the matter at hand or however long an issue, policy, movement, thing, conversation, and material is meant to occur in continuity. When a writer writes a novel or when a fashion designer puts together a fashion line or even a musician who completes a song they move with the intention of mattering to a mainstream audience and the status quo. Changing fads and shifting paradigms happen often in the world of art. This makes relevancy all the more relevant in perspective, action, and execution in works of art.

Errol Morris’ filmography is made up of a great collection of brilliant documentary work expanding nearly four decades. One of his earlier films, The Thin Blue Line, delves deep into the case of a wrongly-convicted man accused of murdering a Dallas police officer. This film pushed the envelope on the dynamism and terrain of where documentary films can go. In the film Errol Morris introduced his auteur style of the “Interrotron” for his interviewees allowing them to look directly into the camera when speaking. This effect establishes an intimate connection film subjects can have on the audience. Moreover, the use of re-enactments was the first time such an element was incorporated for a long-form documentary feature which ultimately led to the film being snubbed as a contender for an Academy Award nomination. The Oscars’ cited the film under the genre of “non-fiction”, arguing that it was not actually a documentary per se. Today, re-enactments are used all the time as a key element in documentary film storytelling. Errol Morris’ work in making The Thin Blue Line cemented him as relevant in the documentary film genre as well as in the world of television and film in North America. These are ultimately the reasons filmmakers, photographers, and artists do the inspired work of creating something out of nothing. Not necessarily to accumulate a lot of money or reach unprecedented levels of fame but to be relevant in subject matter, delivery, and conversation on a given topic. Relevancy shows that a given content creator has made an impact and a lasting impression outside of mere niche markets through their given work.

Greatness and not perfection is the course artists chart for themselves as they go to work. Greatness for excellence in quality and profundity that allows viewers and consumers of art to think, learn, gravitate toward, and connect. Such greatness is a matter of relevancy—the kind of thing worth dying for if not sacrificing prime years for. Relevancy is the opposite of mediocrity. In fact, mediocrity is the anathema to relevancy. Both cannot exist in the same context. Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 fast food documentary, Super Size Me, challenged the McDonald’s franchise service of value meals leading eventually to the giant burger corporation to abolish their super size value meals. To this day some ten years later Spurlock’s film stands as relevant in the growing conversation of healthy diets in America’s fast food culture. However, greatness in no way is fitted in the guise of the superficial—the ego. It is the securing and establishing a mark and impression on those the art has reached. It extends the possibility of imagination and leaves an inspiring impression for others to follow. Whether such relevant work builds into a lasting legacy after one’s death or retirement from an artistic trade is an add on—not the root of the motivation. Michelangelo in his painting of the Sistine Chapel, Vincent van Gogh’s prolific work in Post-Impressionist paintings, Stevie Wonder’s “classic period” albums of the 1970s and Ingmar Bergman’s auteur film works all place these figures in timeless categories of their respective art and industry. The timelessness of their work—the reason we are still talking about them today—is what makes relevancy the thing for creators—doing something meaningful; something that counts.

What is important to note here is the approach and mindset an artist undergoes to pursue his or her craft. The seeking to be relevant is not the very inspiration that fuels the artist to begin and finish. While relevancy is, indeed, a goal in mind they have the real inspiration in their approach and mindset is quiet simple—to create. But no novelist or sculptor, music producer or photographer wants to just simply create for added consumption to a diverse and growing audiences in the ubiquitous avenues of the world wide web. Instead, an artist wants to achieve the impossible, the different, the amazing, the profound, the brilliant. These are the components to relevancy in the impact of the completed project the artist sets out to pursue. Pablo Picasso’s mural-sized oil painting, Guernica, is believed to be a response to the bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country village in northern Spain, by German and Italian warplanes at the request of the Spanish Nationalists. Upon completion, Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed, and believed to have helped bring worldwide attention to the Spanish Civil War. Here, Picasso makes himself relevant to the changing times of his given society. Much could be discussed on all points of views on whether an artist creates with an audience in mind or not. What can be agreed upon, however, is that the artist–like his audience–is impressionable by the relevant creators of the past and mindful of how his or her creation would be received in the present and future tenses. Thus, an elaborate mindset in the creating of a given work shines throughout the artist in pursuit.

The backlash to relevancy can lead to career subjugation, ostracism, and even death toward the artist and his work. This is a result primarily to the catalyst of relevancy—truth. Truth is conveyed and expressed in an artistic accomplishment through one’s given style for delivery. In regards to the field of epistemology, the theory of knowledge, over the centuries there seems to be a corollary relationship between truth and works of art rendered in the aesthetics. There are those who argue that artists (and we are still using the word “art” in a wide sense to include film, literature, music, and other art-forms) have a special responsibility to convey the truth. This responsibility derives in part because the impact of their work gives artists uniquely unusual power and from the special position of art–the visual spatial dimension as well as the performing arts–transcends language toward truth or, at least, to what is real. This responsibility in turn produces relevancy. However, the connection to truth in content creation may not coincide with the changing times of a given milieu. If society is not ready for such a dissemination of truth through artistry then the artist is threatened, marginalized, stigmatized, and harassed if not, worse–jailed or killed. One of the most popular American novels that was initially banned after publication was Mark Twain’s masterpiece novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The novel was banned largely due to the fact that it contained information, ideas, and language that conflicted with audience members’ own values and beliefs. In clearly elucidating the racism of his time toward an audience too oblivious or ignorant to accept it through self-reflection Mark Twain made himself relevant at the cost of his reputation and career. Ultimately, he and his book prevailed as a historic mark in legacy–pushing forward a much needed conversation. However, not all great art or artists get accepted, congratulated or posited in favorable reception when his or her work produces the truth. Sometimes over time the art is eventually understood and accepted for relevancy. Truth comes with two sides–those who hold to interests in fragile institution(s) of power and those who work in finding, examining, corroborating, and then releasing it.

My Top 20 Biographical Documentaries of All-Time

1. Tupac Resurrection – Lauren Lazin (2003)
Brilliant exposé conveyed in the mind and thoughts of the slain rapper as his story is being unraveled on screen. Can one really top a music biopic of Tupac Shakur telling his biography in his own words?

 

2. Lumumba: The Death of a Prophet – Raoul Peck (1990)
Poignant look into the renowned Congolese leader and his significant work for his country’s independence. Filmmaker Raoul Peck delivers an introspective look into the legacy and political mark Patrice Lumumba left on others. This narrative is delivered with little to no music as to not embellish any sentimentality on the biopic.

 

3. Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals – Ezra Edelman (2010)
Easily could be considered a homage to two Hall of Famers who together saved the NBA in the 1980s. Instead, we have a profound sports film of polar opposite stars at the time of their reign.

 

4. Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life – Michael Paxton (1996)
A uniquely deep biopic on one of the most polarizing figures of the 20th century. Director Michael Paxton takes us through the life and times of Ayn Rand with a honest touch covering all her dramatic life events and characteristic nuances that made her who she is.

 

5. Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child – Tamra Davis (2010)
A fun, experimental biographical film that lucidly depicts the story of the famed artist from his humbling beginnings, pinnacled career success, and untimely death. It is enriched by depicting the very environment where the story unravels–NYC–and from those who knew him best.

 

6. Bukowski: Born Into This – John Dullaghan (2003)
Raw and thought-provoking portrayal of the famed and often misunderstood writer–which perfectly sums up the legacy of Charles Bukowski. This documentary dispels any of the misunderstandings to Bukowski and lets the story unravel as we walk in the footsteps of his life with limited commentary and the best picked archival material found.

 

7. Searching for Sugarman – Malik Bendjelloul (2012)
A different approach to a biographical film of a musician which reveals over time to us the mystery of the subject himself. Through the use of symbolic imagery, lyrical content, and an investigative approach this documentary reveals more to audiences than just a single narrative of a forgotten musician but rather the impact of music on political movements and the valuing of fame and talent across countries.

 

8. Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson – Alex Gibney (2008)
Fascinating piece of documentary film work on an enigmatic pop culture icon. No other filmmaker could’ve accomplished such a thorough and challenging task in lucidly capturing the character and work of gonzo journalist-writer Hunter S. Thompson. With interviews with President Jimmy Carter and narrated by actor Johnny Depp Alex Gibney puts together a masterpiece film.

 

9. Malcolm X: Make It Plain – Orlando Bagwell (1994)

Smart, well-conceived, and thoroughly researched biographical account of Malcolm X–which proves to be the most authoritarian film work some 20 years later. Orlando Bagwell brilliantly captures the cultural impact, sociopolitical stance, and global legacy of the beloved yet debated activist.

 

10. Bobby Fischer Against the World – Liz Garbus (2011)
Built with suspense and mystery Liz Garbus’ biographical film delivers an uncompromising look into the complexity of a chess genius. Commentary from close friends and relatives and those of the chess championship world breaks down all the nuances, convolutions, and challenges of the young and old Bobby Fischer.

 

11. Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony – Ken Burns (1999)
Nothing short of the term “superb” can be added to a Ken Burns’ historic film piece. However, with this documentary he takes it up a notch while still employing the same elements that has become his signature style. This award-winning film does one of two things–one, it brilliantly articulates the American women’s suffrage movement from it’s nascent stage to it’s final denouement and two, seamlessly interweaves the biography and activist work by the two stalwarts of the movement–who ironically didn’t live to see the day U.S. women were granted the right to vote.

 

12. A Brief History of Time – Errol Morris (1992)
Not necessarily his forte in documentary film work but the illustrious Errol Morris pulls it off in this brilliant documentary film on Stephen Hawking. The dynamism of the film is the parallel element of narrating Stephen Hawking’s biography with the theories and details of his bestselling book at the time–also the film’s title. Creative visual storytelling, wonderful cinematography and the powerful use of symbolic imagery does this film very well.

 

13. Marley – Kevin Macdonald (2012)
Powerful biographical documentary that reveals the other side of the story of the Jamaican music legend with all his faults. With never-before-seen footage coupled with never-before-heard songs Kevin MacDonald delivers a personable story of Bob Marley far from a homage or tribute film.

 

14. Mark Twain – Ken Burns (2001)
Ken Burns in his uniquely signature style brings to life the emotion, accomplishment, loss, frustration, and culture impact of the celebrated writer to viewers. In an amazing fashion of a biographic film portrait Burns is able to parallel themes of the writer’s life with that of 19th century American history.

 

15. Frederick Douglas: When The Lion Wrote History – Orlando Bagwell (1994)
An authoritative, biographical film on the first African-American impact activist in United States history. Thoroughly investigative and researched into the early life and career span of the elegant orator and provocative abolitionist. Nothing falls short in this film that assays Douglass’ life and work.

 

16. Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic – Marina Zenovich (2013)
Emotionally-driven and humorously-charged this documentary film brings to life the magnetic appeal and power of Richard Pryor–considered to be the best comic of his time. The director takes us into the life and nuances of Pryor’s life and the headline stories that drove it.

 

17. What Happened, Miss Simone? – Liz Garbus (2015)
Liz Garbus does not fall short nor shy away from the dynamism of Nina Simone’s character and life story. Her activist work and political commentary that tied so heavily into her brilliant musical work is portrayed profoundly in this engaging film.

 

18. Thomas Jefferson – Ken Burns (1996)
Another astounding historical and biographical documentary of a renowned filmmaker in a class of his own. Again–to his credit Ken Burns interweaves the accomplishment and legacy of an important figure in early U.S. history while detailing the most important events of the times.

 

19. Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer – Nick Broomfield (2003)
A vividly and chilling biographical portrait of serial killer Aileen Wuornos from her rough childhood upbringing to her state execution. Although this was a follow-up to an earlier documentary film on her Nick Broomfield employs his best auteur style in his repertoire–cinéma vérité and captures engagingly the life, mind, and behavior of a mentally-ill prostitute-turned-murderer.

 

20. Life Itself – Steve James (2014)
Touching, tribute-esque film portrait of the legendary film critic. Timely to the end of Roger Ebert’s own death, this film carries profoundly the lasting impact Rogert Ebert had on movie audiences for generations and the unique mark unto himself he had on Hollywood.

 

NOTEABLE SNUBS:

Maynard – Samuel Pollard (2017)
Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine – Alex Gibney (2015)
Quincy – Alan Hicks & Rashida Jones (2018)
The Beatles Anthology – Geoff Wonfor and Bob Smeaton (1995)
Whitney – Kevin Macdonald (2018)
Runnin’ Down a Dream – Peter Bogdanovich (2007)
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool – Stanley Nelson (2019)
Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser – Charlotte Zwerin (1988)
Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film – Ric Burns (2006)
Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown – Alex Gibney (2014)
RBG – Julie Cohen & Betsy West (2018)
Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold – Griffin Dunne (2017)
The Best That Never Was – Jonathan Hock (2010)
Jane – Brett Morgen (2017)
Grace Jones: Blood Light and Bami – Sophie Fiennes (2017)
Pavarotti – Ron Howard (2019)
Benji – Coodie and Chike (2012)
Frank Lloyd Wright – Ken Burns (1998)
Fela Kuti: Music Is the Weapon – Jean-Jacques Flori and Stéphane Tchalgadjieff (1982)
You Don’t Know Bo – Michael Bonfiglio (2012)
Pope Francis: A Man of His Word – Wim Wenders (2018)
Won’t You Be My Neighbor? – Morgan Neville (2018)
The Gospel According to Andre – Kate Novack (2017)
Big Shot – Kevin Connolly (2013)
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am – Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (2019)
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson – Ken Burns (2005)
Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck – Brett Morgen (2015)

 

Often subtly understood and wholly accepted a story being told orally or in writing is far more better in value to how short and “to the point” it is. Concision should be the primary factor in all storytelling processes whatever format the story is being delivered in or platform it is being disseminated on—be it a book, movie, internet article, symposium, or lecture series. Concision serves as the attention-getting approach to a media-saturated world flooded by information coming at all angles in today’s given society. Concision is also an effective means of communication where being articulate and creative serves in “hitting home” on the morale of the story and the story’s major and minor lessons. As in a book stories delivered through films are produced with the intention for concision entirely because of TRT (total run time).

Marketable audiences greatly consume a product that is carefully articulated and profoundly summed up in a concise, lucid way. The best YouTube videos—in the sense of viewership counts—are the content that is produced in a certain time-frame—2-5 minutes mostly. Catchy and quickly understood commercial advertisement works well in memory and—eventually consumer dollars. News pieces reported on through regional and international agencies and various media outlets come in around a minute or two in running time per package. Audiences bent on getting the news must attain it in clever soundbite reporting that often fits well in this era of Twitter one-liners. Meanwhile, diverse audiences that consume entertainment want it to be fast, quick, easy to get and understand and pin down without verbosity and long-run material just to get at a point. Thus, there is a place for brevity in media products.

In the growing and influential world of documentary filmmaking producers and directors must constantly yield to concision for the most effective impact on their work(s). Here, on-camera interview soundbites are quick and to the point, narration is terse in language organized with proper and profound diction, and even camera shots (b-roll material) and cinematography dare not be long and inundated. Editors working in this terrain under the watchful gaze of directors, producers, and even executive producers must shift to the highest common denominator for concision in their work by “cutting off all the fat” in documentary film material even if it comes down to frame-by-frame.

Concision is not easy to do nor does it come without harm to the art and the information of a documentary film. On the one hand, while concision is so effective in capturing the largest number of potential audience members on any given topic it often oversimplifies complex realities delivered through serious research and investigative work. Oftentimes sensationalized headlines in truncated one-liners and “to-the-point” soundbites by those who are interviewed on the storyline undervalue and under-report stories that are deep to understand. Besides the fact that much of documentary filmmaking intricately delves into the gray reality of complex stories shaped by through-lines whether historic in mark or psychological convoluted or even sociologically elaborate concision—if not done with the right measure—may do more harm than good. Filmmakers often must tread a fine line from the impetus of a new film project to its very end.

In a globalized world where most industries operate with the emphasis that “time is money” concision serves as the apparatus and conduit to effective storytelling and reporting. For documentary films to be an effective tool for learning and a key societal value for didactic, engrossing, revolutionary, bonafide, inspiring, educational, and intellectually-engaging, visual-spatial work concision is the only way to go. And, the attempt to be concise will begin as early for filmmakers upon the first draft of a written treatment or when the grant proposal is submitted for funding. Heck, even budgets are concise and to the point—leaving little room for overhead, contingency, or error.

There’s little doubt in today’s world that documentary films are a hard sell. It’s main target audience is niche yet diverse, expansive but particular, and growing yet scattered throughout. While there is a clear need and viability of where documentary films lives for consumption independent filmmakers have to become solid salespeople in distributing such content to a diversified audience seeking education and information along with entertainment. As a platform for advertising and marketing and a new means of effective and consistent communication social media has proven to be a common language source for independent filmmakers and their distributor’s to sell documentary film content regionally and globally. Moreover, selling a documentary is much easier when completed. So, in today’s media-saturated landscape the biggest challenge for new and old filmmakers is to sell a great documentary film idea to funders, organizations, executive producers, film production companies, nonprofit businesses, distributors, etc. with a target audience in mind prior to it being completed.

In pitch meetings, production/creative meetings, and marketing meetings the term “target audience” is the constant refrain for producers, directors, and distributors of documentaries. “Who is your audience?” becomes the primary if not only call to question in many of these kinds of meetings. But, just who exactly commands the tidal wave of the next big documentary to break through? How can each and every single documentary film reach the right audiences in due time? Can a business model exist for targeting a niche, diverse audience of documentary film enthusiasts for the right distribution stream for producers and directors alike? Target audiences is paramount in pre-production of a documentary film. It is the impetus of the motivation to begin a project, the prime inspiration to finish it up, and the selling pitch for a distributor to bite on it and take on the business risk of getting the finished work out to a targeted rather than a general, mainstream audience. Unless a documentary film at the start is a passion piece bent on fulfilling the ego, pride, and enthusiasm of a given person or group—most documentary film producers and directors must account for a target audience for their upcoming project through the whole filmmaking process on a given title.

A documentary film audience is much harder to pinpoint and narrow down than any other genre of films. The next Disney or Pixar animated movie has a generalized children audience that they consider. The Hollywood action-packed thriller movie with the big-name star that fills up movie theatres every season accounts for the teenage, young adult as a prime target audience. Even the comic book hero movie, slapstick comedy feature, and the coming-of-age romance film knows their potential audience for anticipated consumption. The same goes for television networks, cable TV channels, and the V.O.D. Platforms like Netflix and Hulu who have recently just started putting out original programming. The list goes on for a target audience for media/TV/Film/video content providers/creators to consider upon today’s numerous global platforms. However, documentary films with its appeal in educational markets, information-seekers, activist groups and their frontlines, nonprofit work, value in raising awareness on news issues and hot topics, and some who simply find such content suitable for entertainment and an easy-learning watch has a harder terrain in evenly prescribing a target audience. For a lot of producers and directors much is left to surprise to the new audiences who watch documentaries either in the theatres, film festivals, online, or the comforts of their homes. And, since documentary film interest and the production value of its completed work seems to be growing and greatly improving target audiences are more and more by the daily falling into the gray area of projected categories and avenues.

Every passionate filmmaker in all genres would love to say that their film is “for everybody”! But, years of market research, algorithms into demographics of target audience of movies often concisely come to the realization and understanding that indie films even Hollywood blockbusters are usually narrowed down to a set specific audience viewership—whether another group of diversified members spills outside the boundaries outlined. The stylistic look of camera angles, the color saturation employed in each frame of recorded video, the music selection and sound effects added to the film for emotional effect and even the language in narration and interviewees is the driving force of a documentary film bent on appealing to the most number of potential viewers. Of course, these elements are employed subtly and sometimes—consciously.

However, there is a thin line of appealing to eventual audiences that is to easily crossed for independent filmmakers completing a documentary film. On the one hand—mainstream appeal with suspense music, graphic design that helps plug in viewership, and standard documentary film camera interview setups are all beneficial if not necessary for a documentary to maximize viewers in an open market. On the other hand—too much of an overview appeal that extends niche boundaries may make storytelling too broad, vague, unnecessarily relative, and a product of solipsism. Michael Moore’s infamous documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, is a solid example of solipsistic work that bordered on propaganda in getting his overall message out. The popular, online 2014 documentary, The Culture High, is another example of appealing to a large audience of “everybody”. While the producers were attempting to tackle the widely popular topic of marijuana usage in American society today and the legal policies currently dictating it the elements used parlayed on an overview of the subject matter that went in multiple directions and off on tangents from its initial thesis. Examples of this was commentary and narration in the film went on to criticize the U.S. mainstream news media system, the “corporatization” of national politics, and the troubled U.S. Healthcare system—among other things. While it may have done solid in its distribution route once completed and compelled the viewer with solid graphic design and stunning visual, HD cinematography the documentary failed to grasp the very crux of the current issue for understanding the polarizing debate on the legalization of marijuana and its present and future government policy-making. This adds to another challenge documentary filmmakers come across in their works. As important as a return on investment is on their given project once complete—for the sake of pursuing future projects—documentary filmmakers want to leave an intellectual impact and tangible educational product that is engrossing, didactic, and informing. Brett Morgen’s 2015 HBO biographical documentary, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, fell in the limited guise of appealing only or largely to a targeted audience. The film flowed well for Kurt Cobain and Nirvana fans who knew all too well the minute information on Kurt Cobain’s biography—from his childhood upbringing to his ascendancy as the lead man in his music group. However, for the “new” audience of documentary film enthusiasts interested in learning the story of Kurt Cobain’s life a lot of holes were made and later unfilled by the filmmaker in not elucidating Cobain’s musical accomplishments and understanding more on the nuances in his character. Morgen seemed to be more interested visually on camera to articulate Kurt Cobain’s profound artistry rendered by a troubled childhood to early death rather than the wholesome work of a completed narrative on a complex man, his development and mainstream appeal. This could only be accomplished if Brett Morgen and his producers were wantonly appealing exclusively to a targeted audience. Clearly, for the sake of wide distribution a clean and profound dance between the lines of targeting audiences should be adhered to. While this is not an appeal to illustrate target audience projections as black and white producers, directors, and distributors of documentaries should not easily go too much in either direction in mainstream or niche in their storytelling process.

Some audience members may go watch a documentary or buy its DVD for the sheer sake of supporting an issue, cause, or filmmaker. Other audience members may be enthralled by the films’ overall message and appeal to raising awareness. A good number want to be informed and educated on a serious note as a break from mainstream film content. And, a growing number of audience members may just be “wowed” by a documentary film readying itself for mass appeal. All these scenarios are accounted if not thought of for producers and executive producers of such documentaries. Social media platforms of Facebook pages, Twitter profiles, and Instagram accounts make clear the following and potential if not realized audience of a given documentary film work. However, what is called into question is in formulating a business model to exploit the film for monetary profits by bringing distributors (networks, V.O.D. platforms, theatres, etc.) to take on the business risk of print & advertising, a viable social media push, and all other marketing elements to ensure success of a finished work. Perhaps, these are undefined areas that are still left to be explored or for the many working in the documentary film world– “uncharted territory” which the industry has “barely scratched the surface”. Nonetheless, film producers and distributors must operate in a trial experiment or a business-employed risk to varying markets for documentary film titles.

Remember that part in the award-winning documentary, Searching for Sugarman when “America’s zero and South Africa’s hero” folk musician Sixto Rodriguez aka Sugarman traveled to South Africa from the United States to perform at his first concert after years of being searched for. In the 1998 concert footage at the stadium where he was performing it was pitch black with only a single, bright stage light shining on stage. Rodriguez comes onto the stage from the darkness takes the microphone and under the bright lights tells the audience of tens of thousands: “Thank you, South Africa, for keeping me alive!” Or remember the ending of Errol Morris’ seminal masterpiece film, The Thin Blue Line, where the tape recording is playing of David Ray Harris, the real killer of a Dallas police officer, admitting that he not only committed the murder but felt bad that Randall Dale Adams took the fall for it and end up serving time in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Or take Brett Morgen’s new 2015 documentary, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, where Morgen inter-weaved candid, never-before-seen archival footage material—pictures and film—of the rock star to tell his story of a turbulent childhood to a convoluted adulthood before his untimely death. If it wasn’t for content like these documentary films and many others would fall short of their appeal and potential. Content makes and breaks a nonfiction story from the merits of vivid truth revealing itself on camera to what captivates viewers to plug in, resonate, and imbibe in the documentary film work.

Content is king in not only the revelation of invaluable material that helps films flow and drive home its theme and perspective but content is key in how valuable aged footage, old pictures or an interview soundbite could be in conveying the overall documentary film message and delivering lucidly the film’s storyline. Content is king because it is irreplaceable. It’s the glue that holds the thesis together. It’s the coming attraction for audiences to take in. In CNN Films’ documentary, Blackfish, the searing testimonial indictment of Sea World’s treatment of killer whales, we see several key incidents of past episodes where a single killer whale—held in captivity—attacked injured, and in several of the cases killed its trainers and performers. The producers of the film did a stellar job in not only driving the eyewitness testimony of how trainers die because of killer whales’ sudden behavior but it drew us in as a thriller of the caught-on-camera content. Sometimes documentary filmmakers may use content to highlight a point or carry on the leitmotif of the film’s portrayal of an issue, place, or person. In Michael Moore’s wildly successful documentary film, Fahrenheit 9/11, we see at the very end a video clip of one of President George W. Bush’s gaffes at a speech which comically questions the former president’s intelligence and understanding on serious issues. This comical capture on camera was the serving reminder and summation of how the former U.S. President’s “Bushisms” led to catastrophic and confusing foreign/domestic government policy—the documentary film’s central focus.

Content is king in also shaping a producer’s work, director’s filmography, and production company’s output of products. Up-and-coming creators behind the camera use content shot years ago as a means of leverage for publicity and making a mark in said industry. The more stuff one has at its disposal the more effective one has to pulling in audience members for a significant following. Imagine how the next budding filmmaker prior to getting his big break would be if he hadn’t added content to his social media platforms, or put out sizzle reels as a compilation of his work as well as director’s cuts of his previous projects. Consumers of media content want more and that more is the hefty wait of original content shot, produced, and edited.

Content is king in pretty much every aspect of media production. Marketing companies, reality television show producers, and even Broadway performers all know the high if not irreplaceable value that content delivers in their medium of expression. This is why—today many players in the game from documentary filmmakers to actors to showrunners to news producers flock around never-before-seen video footage and caught-on-camera content like never before. Imagine how such acts were reported and televised once content became central to the story—like Rodney King’s beating, Eric Garner’s choking death, etc. In our ubiquitous world of media saturation where platforms and avenues exist for video production content not only becomes king today but god. Documentary film storytelling now conveniently incorporates all aspects of video material which has overall evolved into a 24/7, around-the-clock reality. Content is king because without it video testimonials, documentary films, most news pieces, and police investigations will all fall short of its attempt at gathering and disseminating the truth.

It says a lot about a person to dedicate themselves to documentary filmmaking. One can argue a special ethos exists in those who venture the long, tedious, delicate, and enriching journey of documentary film production. From concept to completion energy and passion is required for the legwork required in gathering the necessary materials to tell a nonfiction tale. Dedicated and inspired personalities is a must have for producers and directors who must not only in the end entice viewers and audience members alike to care enough about a specific film story but must be inspired and self-motivated along the way from beginning to end to completing such documentary film projects. In short, the characteristics that make documentary filmmakers who they are is a unique blend of impressions at multi-layered and multi-levels of features.

While it’s true that documentary filmmakers are made not born—in the end, such filmmakers didn’t choose documentary filmmaking—rather, it chose them. Proverbially speaking documentary projects requires the kind of attention to details, charisma in conducting on-camera interviews, highly acute communication skills, and above average multitasking skillset really at all levels of media and video production. Even with major budgets flowing in the six figures documentary film producers and directors would still need to wear multiple hats while undergoing a project to its finished execution. Embarking on the pathway to unscripted narratives on camera where happy accidents are bound to come is a gift and God-given tendency that so few have.

Ideas in the world of film are a dime a dozen. A plethora of film projects time and time again go unfinished. Independent documentaries is the one unique medium of media expression that doesn’t really fit in any particular TV programming or film business model. Hence, documentary filmmakers must be the kind of overachievers determined to create nothing into something with the intention it resonates with a niche audience. Heck, even marketing of documentary films ranges in fascinating tendency that usually generates yawns in corporate boardroom meetings. Word-of-mouth, social media plugs are really the only consistent driving force to raising awareness on an upcoming documentary film ready to hit the open market. And, even that comes with no agreeable formula. Like the very reality of how funding for documentaries is often funneled in unfriendly time waves through the three phases of production—pre-production, production, and post-production—documentary filmmakers must be moved by a unique and often rare personality. This personality is harvested, channeled, and utilized as the project moves forward in development through production and finally editing.

The ones who tread into documentary film production particularly as first-time producers and directors bent on completing a single passion project or giving voice to a serious topic or issue usually move on once they completed the docujourney. Why? Ask that documentary filmmaker with multiple credits of producer and director roles to his or her name. He or she will tell you that this “crazy” career pursuit isn’t for anybody. But, one can argue—so is accounting? And, construction work? And, lawyering? Those professions and others require a certain brand of personalities to completing the job. Yes, however, the documentary filmmaker isn’t that unique career endeavor where others don’t fit in but has the kind of personality that is necessary in combination of others. In other words, documentary filmmakers—for good reason—are usually great public speakers, solid grant writers, strong leaders, efficient multi-taskers, stellar researchers, and so on. There isn’t a school of thought, collegiate programs, or training schools to mold the next documentary filmmaker where soon-to-be mechanics, nurses, attorneys, engineers, and doctors go for accreditation and learn adequately the tools of the trade. And, all them come with the characteristics to pursue such career endeavors. Instead, multi-layers and varying factors in character are vital for documentary filmmakers to perform.

Given the nature of the beast—documentary films don’t come with any set rule for execution and nonetheless fall into varied patterns of creative undertaking to “pull it off” as projects get completed. Here, spontaneity, resilience, focus, determination, insight, sagacity, and open-mindedness must all flow together in harmony as one. These tendencies and features all make for a special kind of persons daring themselves to take on the challenge of documentary film production. This is not, of course, to say documentary filmmakers are better than others or living incarnates of God. Rather, this is to show that documentary film personalities has a unique placement in the precarious film/TV industry and the benchmark to make real today’s documentary film art.