The great documentarian must challenge her thesis throughout the journey of exploration, discovery, and intrigue. She must excavate the landscape of her sojourn to dig up all aspects of her thesis seeking the counter points of views and counter arguments. The documentary filmmaker with her dedicated team should not just be comfortable in making sense of her thesis for articulation and regurgitation. Instead, the documentarian should be disciplined to the core in challenging her mindset, perspective and insight. It’s the kind of open-ended journey W. Kamau Bell, comedian/TV producer, went upon in re-examining the complex legacy of Bill Cosby in his docu-series We Need to Talk About Cosby. In his revelation to inform viewers on Cosby’s impact in the entertainment business for over three decades Bell had to take on his own predilection on what Cosby meant for up-and-coming black standup comedians. After all, it was not long since Bell himself was a struggling standup comic. Bell’s work proves that a general thesis can expand to the very nuances that deliver perspective and truth on a single documentary narrative.

Throwing your thesis to the fire and seeing what comes out is an effective way to carve out a singular, concise approach to documentary storytelling. Such recourse in highlighting and conveying a subject matter would help drive documentarians and their team to establish truth and relevancy on a given topic. The journey in documentary filmmaking involves the creative expression of nonfiction storytelling as well as the personal outlook in seeing the world in a different light. We put ourselves in the shoes of our subject and make sense of their voice in articulating passions and tribulations. Take my approach in my documentary short, High On Heels. As a man covering a wholly female fashion item I went outside of my normal personal element to gain new insight to the everyday effect of the high-heeled shoe, which to this day still dominates modern women’s livelihood. In challenging my thesis I set out to dare my limited view on a highly personalized accessory from a woman’s vantage point.

Challenging your thesis takes homework and focus. It’s more about rolling your sleeves to do due diligence on creative and intellectual approaches to subject matter. It’s less of opining about varying perspectives on philosophical tangents on what could or could not be. It’s like the Master’s and Ph.D’s student who takes on a given academic thesis for completion of coursework. The student delves back and forth on the angle of her proposal which serves as a guide navigating through the research phase to deliver a sound argument-proven theory.  Challenging your thesis in this guise also can flip the direction of a film project from what it initially began as. Producers and production teams make a solid pivot to where the truth guides them and is under pressure to disseminate it in a creatively visual way. Searching For Sugarman is a great example of challenging a thesis to a documentary storyline because the producers’ journey began with two South Africans who set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero, the mysterious 1970s American rock n roller, Rodriguez—-whom they initially presumed was dead. The film’s main characters along with the director and producers went on an unwinding road that took them across three continents while reflecting on three decades for their source material. In the end they found their living legend alive and well in obscurity. Hence, in similar fashion as an archaeologist who investigates a dig or a journalist who works her sources challenging your thesis pushes the documentarian to redirect and shift their approach from concept to completion.