Why Amateur Documentaries Feel Preachy (And what I learned from Jackie Chan)

12.04.2022

I was walking through Hong Kong airport, about to make a documentary about Jackie Chan, when I went to find my cab and was greeted by… a life‑size cut‑out of Jackie Chan.

He was the ambassador for the city, and the significance of who I was going to be hanging out with struck me for the first time. I should probably have known more about him, but something interesting was happening in my career.

They Are Lying to You

12.04.2022

Hollywood storytelling is quietly destroying documentaries, because it’s lying to you about what success looks like. It has taught us to misunderstand what success means in a story – and in life. Its lessons are so ingrained that potentially great documentaries are abandoned or “adjusted” to fit into a broken story structure.

When you accept the limitation is you

12.04.2022

I distinctly remember when I got my first drama documentary. I'd wanted to do drama for such a long time, and I'd been preparing myself for it. I'd been out of work for a while, so I had time on my hands to watch a lot of films, get my pad out and analyse the hell out of them. Those DVD commentary tracks were also fun. So I tried to copy it, and realised the real limitation in my work - me

Lessons from "Iron Maidens": What Documentary Subjects Really Think

12.04.2022

We rarely get to hear from the people at the heart of documentaries about what it's actually like to be filmed. When we do, it can completely shift how we think about making films.

From confusion - to clarity

12.04.2022

Every documentary starts with an idea. And for the filmmaker, that idea matters.

But then comes the hard part. Turning that idea into a story.

"I'll know it when I see it" - If you hear this, run a mile...

12.04.2022

The scariest phrase in an edit is “I’ll know it when I see it”. And its the same problem with AI in filmmaking (as in image generation) — you are always the audience, and never the author.

Always. And fundamentally, that’s a huge problem.

Two shows in the Netflix all time top 100. Here's why.

12.04.2022

The other day, The Times of London produced an all-time list of Netflix's best 100 shows, and two that I had a big role in made the cut.

How it happened is not really that complicated - simple but not easy. It's just that we told the stories in Sunderland 'Til I Die and Formula One: Drive to Survive...

...really, really well.

Why to avoid the three act structure

12.04.2022

There’s a problem when you attempt something but fail. There are only two conclusions.

It's either down to it - or you.

Are there rules to documentary storytelling?

12.04.2022

There's a story in one of Nassim Taleb's books on chance and finance (and many other things) where he talks about having skin in the game. The example he gives is of builders who were made to sleep overnight under their emerging bridges, viaducts and cathedrals.

Everything is Illuminated!

12.04.2022

One of the most important things for succeeding in the DocFix program is realising that everyone who has come before you, all the clients with their testimonials, and every single student of storytelling (including me), have all been bad at something in our life - including storytelling.

Influences - and the secret to being 100% original

12.04.2022

I want to talk about what is one of the most essential skills of a documentary maker - but the hardest to get right.

Which is being original by separating yourself from other influences.

How the BBC mentored its filmmakers - what we've lost

12.04.2022

When I started out at the BBC, I was put onto the popular science TV show, Tomorrow's World. It ran for over 50 years and was a staple in the TV schedule, Thursday night just before Top of the Pops!

"the story . . . the intellectual frame on which all artwork rests"

12.04.2022

If you've ever liked comic books but had to call them graphic novels to convince others of their seriousness, then Will Eisner is to blame. He came up with the term.

When I was a younger man, by chance, I found myself part of the social world of comic book writers and artists.

A lightbulb in a glass of milk - Hitchcock's mind control

12.04.2022

As part of my self-education by learning from the greats, last night I watched a documentary about the conversation between the great directors Alfred Hitchcock and François Truffaut.

Writing a script for something that hasn't happened yet

02.04.2023

There are many different kinds of documentaries, but a simple definition might be a film about a real event. In this case, documentary makers are obviously working on something where the ending isn't clear - as it hasn't happened yet.

The worst advice I've ever seen

12.04.2022

The very fact that I have chosen to teach storytelling seems to offend some people. This comment came from an experienced documentary maker:

I can save you all a lot of time and money - the way to make your documentary work is simple. "Get a good camera operator, get a good sound recordist, get a good editor. Then don't get in their way way". Works for me.

One Diagram to Rule Them All

12.04.2022

My very direct son recently asked me if, now that he's gone off to university, perhaps I might stop doing stuff and just... I'm not sure what, but I think he felt my productive days were numbered.

Middle, End, Beginning...

12.04.2022

“A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end…but not necessarily in that order” - Jean-Luc Godard.

Karaoke Culture

12.04.2022

My piano teacher, Phil Best, coined the phrase "Karaoke Culture". He is obsessed with teaching his students to be fluent musicians, and he has a very specific problem with how music is currently done.

Our 9/11 Doc Emmy Nominated - the success trap

12.04.2022

I've been lucky enough to have a few Emmy nominations for my films. The latest was a couple of days ago (the second award nomination for the same film). I've also had a few wins in other well-known competitions and a few which I had never heard of….

How to shoot an interview

12.04.2022

The back drop of the circles - what do they mean to you? The passing of time, the circularity of life?

Learning by analogy

12.04.2022

Analogies. Elon Musk hates them:

"The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy," he said. "[With analogy] we are doing this because it's like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths … and then reason up from there."

The Perfect Story

12.04.2022

If I were a perfect writer and director with a perfect documentary, then every choice would make a difference. If not, then why decide to do it in the first place?

Film making and mental health

12.04.2022

Mental Health is obviously a broad issue that can occur for numerous reasons in numerous ways. I just want to talk about one area - the challenges it can present when working in the media.

Elon Musk, Twitter & the culture of shame

12.04.2022

It seems Elon Musk has bought Twitter. That’s a lot to take on.

Unsurprisingly, I often see the problems with social media in terms of how we tell stories

The Fear of Working Alone

12.04.2022

One of our new students was very honest when introducing herself to our community. She told us that she had moved from the city to upstate New York and “was a bit isolated at times”.

This can be a disadvantage in a number of ways.

9/11 Life Under Attack, nominated for an RTS Award

24.11.2021

The film I produced, 9/11: Life Under Attack, has just been nominated for a Royal Television Society award.

What does it mean to be 'professional'

24.11.2021

I regularly listen to a film podcast where the interviewer always asks the interviewee about writer's block.

It's a problem in drama. Writers create their stories out of thin air. By that, I mean they might take the ideas from real life, but they have to construct scenes from that material that feel convincingly like real life in all respects. That's hard.

It's not really an issue for documentary makers.

"Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing" - W Shakespeare

24.11.2021

What if you want to make documentaries with meaning, with the potential to reach a huge audience, that feel authentic and real? Can it be done ethically in a world that seems to praise and promote facile nonesense?

Is there a way through it?

How caring too much can make things worse

24.03.2022

One of the hardest things to do is separate your subject matter from the telling.

Sharing your idea can seem everything to you. After all, this is why you are investing so much into making it in the first place. You think, if only the audience understood this or that, if they could only see how things really are, then the world would be a better place.

Why this program might not be for you

24.11.2021

As I was designing this programme, I had in my mind an 'ideal' student. Someone who I could understand as I had gone through the same things.

Fix your story problems in hours, not months. Weeks not years.

24.11.2021 Filed in: Testimonial

The Doc Fix is designed to give you the skill of storytelling as efficiently as possible. As one of our students, Matt Earle, told me:

"We have something that we can grasp and that we can use in every single story, whether it's, you know, a five-minute video, or a 30-minute episode that we can use... So yes, definitely been life-changing. We've made so much progress in maybe two months - more progress than we've made in the last three years".

The Power of Dramatising Your Ideas

24.11.2021

In the foreword to a book exploring the work of the great Polish drama director (and documentarian) Kristof Kieslowski, Stanley Kubrick wrote:

I am always reluctant to single out some particular feature of the work of a major filmmaker because it tends inevitably to simplify and reduce the work…

"How do you write a script for something that hasn't happened yet?"

24.11.2021 Filed in: Testimonial

Sharon, one of our students recently spoke to me about what she is learning from being part of The Doc Fix. For some background, she has a three-year post-graduate degree from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), one of the world's most respected film and theatre schools.

You know you are winning when you’re being copied

02.04.2023

Copying is extremely natural. You see something you like, recognise how it made you feel, and decide to create the same effect in the documentary you are making.

What if you never run out of ideas? A sprocket story

02.02.2023

I've said before that there's no such thing as writer's block in the documentary. You are dealing with reality. You can always find something for your story - shoot some new actuality, interview, archive and so on.

The point of a documentary is that it's NOT real life

24.11.2021

I was watching David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, and there’s a famous scene where Lawrence hold a lit match which then cuts to the sun rising over the desert.

“The simple concept is not always the best, but the best is always simple.”

24.11.2021

That's a quote that struck me as being essentially true but from an unlikely place. Gitta Sereny's remarkable biography of Albert Speer, Hitler's architect (and much more)

"The simple concept is not always the best, but the best is always simple" is from Speer's first architecture professor, Heinrich Tessenow.

It's been my consistent experience in the edit.

The interview technique that can get you an Emmy nomination

24.11.2021

I like making films about difficult people.

It’s not a conscious decision and something I go looking for, but it’s worked out that the people who have done amazing things (and also some awful things) are challenging in some way.

They push against convention and often are seen as trouble.

This is how the BBC trains it’s documentary makers

24.11.2021

When I started out at the BBC, I was put onto the popular science TV show, Tomorrow's World. For those of a certain age - and it ran for over 50 years - it was a staple in the TV schedule, Thursday night just before Top of the Pops! At the time we had a regular audience of around 13 million a week, one of the biggest in the UK.

I was 21, and it was a remarkable experience, something I can only truly appreciate looking back.

Peter Jackson’s Beatles mistakes - “Eight Hours of TV so aimless it threatens your sanity!”

24.11.2021

Successful stories don’t require a great structure necessarily. There are many reasons for them working - timeliness, wonderful characters you want to spend time with, astonishing imagery.

And era-defining music emerging before your eyes.

These story elements, combined with passion, can take you a long way.

The Power of Imagination

24.11.2021 Filed in: Mindset

I recently saw Jane Campion's new film, The Power of the Dog. To be honest I was disappointed. Not so much with the performances, but with the very slow pace and heavy handed symbolism. But, that said, there's a fascinating piece in The Guardian about the coach who helped the director and actors to discover the meaning and approach to the work - through dreams:

A Simple Technique to Sell Your Idea

24.11.2021

Sometimes a simple idea can contain a huge amount of information. I came across one from the 'design guru', Stephen Baily, and it is wonderfully simple.

When you pitch, you need to both reassure and excite.

Do You Believe In Yourself?

23.11.2021

Many years ago, probably well into my twenties, I had a desire to direct drama. Of course, I'd been directing documentaries for a while. But it seemed to me that drama directing offered me something more.

I enjoyed watching drama for sure and loved working with actors when I had the chance (usually on low-ish budget docudrama). But my desire was to do more - direct big dramas, work with great talent, make a big film.

What I was lacking was self-belief.

Squid Game - Korean storytelling as I see it

23.11.2021 Filed in: Genre |Theme

As I write most days about what occurs to me about narrative, sometimes I need to go back to an idea.

What I’d like to do is add something to an email when I said that what makes Korean storytelling distinctive is the desire to highlight the emotional narrative over and above the overall story.

It's a little more interesting, and complex, than that.

A Perfect Structure in 28 Seconds

21.04.2020 Filed in: Perspective written by: Nigel Levy

In just 28 seconds this TV commercial for The Guardian - Point of View - brilliantly manages to include all four points of view necessary to tell a complete story. The reason is the power of perspective in storytelling.

Hard science - the stories of ideas

23.04.2020 Filed in: Genre

One of the most interesting applications of these techniques is in areas where more conventional story telling theories have very little to say. Subjects include factual TV programmes about abstract concepts such as space, the universe, hard science and so on. Even esoteric art films need a workable structure to hold your audience's attention beyond their aesthetics.

The Siren Song of a Complete Story

01.05.2020 Filed in: Perspective

Most of us know the story of the Sirens; how Odysseus had his sailors block their own ears with wax so they would row on past, deaf to the song and safe from the rocks, while he had himself lashed to the ship’s mast so that he alone could hear it and live. But what was it that had lured so many other sailors onto the rocks?

Jack of All Trades

01.05.2020

Very early on in life, I think we make a choice about being a specialist or generalist. Unfortunately being a generalist has always had an image problem. Jack of All Trades, Master of None has never been seen as a positive. Thank goodness for Wikipedia, to show me how off the mark that judgement can sometimes be - very soon after the term was coined.

Is a perfect structure essential?

22.04.2020 Filed in: Structure

Yes, absolutely. And no, not really. There are many successful programmes that don't necessarily have perfect structure. They are lucky to have some of the other elements that can make a programme a success. Some of these are inherent in the production - amazing access, astonishing events, great characters and timeliness. Some of these are out of your hands - the backing of the channel, great promotion and, of course, good luck.

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