Creative Documentary

Theory and Practice

Wilma De Jong, Jerry Rothwell, Erik Knudsen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317863892
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Médias et arts de la scène
• Subtopic: Film et vidéo

What does it mean to be a documentary filmmaker in today's world? How are new technologies changing documentary filmmaking? What new forms of documentary are emerging?

Recent technological developments have made the making and distribution of documentary films easier and more widespread than ever before. Creative Documentary: Theory and Practice is an innovative and essential guide that comprehensively embraces these changing contexts and provides you with the ideas, methods, and critical understanding to support successful documentary making. It helps the aspiring 'total filmmaker' understand the contemporary contexts for production, equipping you also with the understanding of creativity and visual storytelling you'll need to excel. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, it outlines the contemporary, institutional, practical and financial contexts for production - always encouraging innovation and originality.

Key features:

• Five sections covering creativity and creative documentary and the contemporary creative industries: strategies for developing documentary ideas; the art of documentary narrative; digital production methods; new documentary forms; distribution and financing.
• Provides a comprehensive overview of critical thought and techniques in digital documentary filmmaking.
• Authors and specialist contributors combine the experience, knowledge and skills of academics and media professionals working in the industry.
• Practical case studies support analysis and reflection.
• Exercises, checklists, interviews with professionals and further reading materials accompany each chapter.
• A historical overview of world documentary.

Creative Documentary: Theory and Practice is an essential guide for those engaged in the study and practice of documentary theory and making, as well as key reading for those more broadly interested in video, film and media theory and production.

Part 1
The creative documentary

Still of dancer Seol-Ae Lee, as seen in KIMJONGILIA directed by N.C. Heikin. Photo courtesy of Green Garnet Productions

Chapter 1
What is creativity?

Wilma de Jong

“Creativity depends on interactions between feeling and thinking and across different disciplines and fields of ideas.”

(K. Robinson, 2002: 20)

Introduction

This chapter will offer you different ways of thinking about the magical word ‘creativity’ and of examining the creative process. Like the concepts of ‘freedom’, ‘free choice’ or ‘democracy’, ‘creativity’ is a word that has an inspiring yet also an obscure quality. It is frequently used loosely, without a precise definition. The most common notion of creativity is in relation to the creation of art. Those who are creative are considered to have innate personal qualities which other people lack. Those few gifted, creative souls are different from the rest of us mortals.

The notion of creativity as an individual gift, possessed by few, is still very common. This ‘gift’ seems to express itself in the arts and in our dealing with the hurdles of simply living or, for instance, the sciences. At the moment, much of the literature on creativity incorporates activities such as problem-solving, new inventions or innovations relating to existing products and ideas or problems. Inventions or innovations often refer to a commercial, scientific or technical environment. For instance, the much-used description: the ‘creative industries’ links creativity to a commercial environment. Florida (2000: 5) states: ‘Creativity . . . is now the decisive source of competitive advantage’. Where once quality or availability were a decisive source of advantage in competition, this has now been overtaken – according to Florida – by creativity.

Until recently, it was considered that creativity could flourish anywhere but in a commercial environment. Industry’s demands would undermine ‘real’ creativity. But it could be argued that new media entrepreneurs and games developers, new technological inventions such as the iPod and iPhone, and the successes of ‘creative’ films in an industrial environment, have challenged this idea. Conversely, Hollywood blockbusters, reality TV and game shows may confirm that creativity in this context means ‘creative ideas that attract big audiences’, a creativity that could be described as a ‘commercial’ creativity. The term ‘creativity’ on its own seems almost meaningless when it is divorced from its environment or the cultural field to which it is applied.

Creativity: 'novel' and 'value'

Contemporary psychological research has taken ‘creativity’ away from the context of the gifted and talented few who create masterpieces. It is increasingly described as an innate human capacity which can be developed through education or creativity-enhancing environments. A continuum approach might be helpful to allow for exceptionally creative people and for people who show very few signs of creative ability. Creativity can be developed or stifled by teaching or social environments where conformism and the regurgitation of existing knowledge or vision are most appreciated.

The two following definitions might help you think about creativity creatively. ‘Creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel (i.e. original, unexpected) and appropriate (i.e. useful, adaptive concerning task constraints)’ (Sternberg, 1999: 3). This definition is the result of about 30 years of research in psychology. A society needs creativity to solve its problems in social, economic and political terms. The ‘creative leader’ or ‘creative management’ are commonly used words in today’s world. The word ‘creative’ is now used in a much wider context than just referring to the production of art.

Dewulf and Baillie define creativity as ‘shared imagination’ (1999: 5): ‘Imagination’ is novel. It is ‘shared’ with an audience: colleagues and other students or teachers who become part of it.’

The two most important aspects are novel and value or purpose. The latter aspect might not be familiar, or might even meet resistance among artists or filmmakers, but a documentary, or a piece of art are parts of certain fields of cultural production (Jenkins, 2002) in which certain traditions prevail and norms and values exist, against which these creative products are being judged. We all know the stories of artists whose work is acknowledged as original and novel only after they have died. Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was only identified as original and maybe even revolutionary long after he had painted it. But the essence seems to be that a product tends not to be considered creative because an individual thinks it is creative. Creative products are part of a field of cultural production. They are not islands in themselves, neither are they produced in a vacuum.

Notwithstanding the importance of the social and cultural environment of a creative product, a work of art, a film or a music composition is at the same time also a product of an individual mind. It is an expression of individual creativity and therefore has an intrinsic value which is not influenced or changed by the field of cultural production. In this context, it is also important to realise that creative people tend to be driven by intrinsic motivation. This means that extrinsic motivators, such as money and recognition, are less important than their individual driving forces of wanting to create. This might also explain why creativity for such a long time has been considered a non-commercial activity.

In today’s workplace, and certainly in media production, a team is also expected to be creative. Production teams engage in brainstorming, associative discussions or use other structured discussion techniques to generate new ideas, to improve existing ones or to find unusual combinations of ideas. Comedy series or soaps tend to be written by teams of writers who come up with the jokes or dialogues. In these situations there is no one ‘source’ of an idea; team members bounce ideas off each other and build up ideas brought in by other group members. The same is the case with documentary production in which a production team – even if it is just a director and an editor or a camera person – bounce ideas off each other.

Synergy between people and the courage to think what one should not think as well as a resistance to thinking what one should think will create possibilities to explore and imagine the novel. But it is important to realise that ‘creativity’ is neither a magic wand nor a gut feeling; one needs a certain level of knowledge and intelligence to create the novel. To know the old is certainly necessary to create the new.

Bourdieu defines a field of cultural production as:

‘a series of institutions, rules, rituals, conventions, categories, designations, appointments and titles which constitute an objective hierarchy and which produce and authorise certain discourses and activities’.

(Jenkins, 2002: 21)

Aspects of creativity

It may not be possible to teach creativity, but it can be stimulated, nurtured and fostered

In order to help you to develop and be aware of your own creative abilities and not merely rely on divine inspiration, we have listed some aspects of creativity. At the end of this chapter you will find also some exercises with which to practise all kinds of aspects of creativity.

Research on creativity (Sternberg, 1999; Dewulf and Baillie, 1999) concludes that a combination of characteristics defines creative potential. The following aspects of creativity potential are described:

• Good memory – The ability to retain information, and to access that information when needed, is important because it will give you the possibility to use and evaluate information from varied sources and to recognise new patterns or unusual combinations.
• Flexibility – The ability and willingness to approach situations, concepts and problems from a variety of angles, and not to be hindered by your existing point of view, will open up more playful avenues.
• Visualisation – This is the ability to visualise a concept, idea or situation. In creating the visual image, knowledge, experience and images are needed. Filmmaking is visual storytelling, so a feeling for what images can mean and how you can change their meaning when you change the order is important.
• Positive attitude – We all know that when we are negative about our own abilities, we will not write the best essay, give the best presentation or come up with ideas for films. Negative attitudes will close off new avenues of thinking and imagining.
• The environment and hierarchy – Abra (1997) suggests that, in order to nurture creativity, a hothouse environment is needed: stimulation, reinforcement, persistence, recognition, respect. A creative culture appreciates and nurtures new ideas. Charles Leadbeater (see http://www.charlesleadbeater.net) discusses innovation within institutions and identifies a need for non-hierarchical places for people to meet and talk who would not normally do so, e.g. Nokia’s single canteen for all employees. Unusual combinations of people might spark off new ideas.
• Collaborative creativity/synergy – The shift away from notions of creative individuals is accompanied by a great deal of interest in and funding for cross-disciplinary collaborations. These partnerships are thought to be good at producing creative and innovative results. The idea is that bringing different perspectives together is more likely to generate something new. Charles Saumarez Smith (formerly of the National Portrait Gallery and National Gallery, now Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts) emphasises how much time and effort has to be invested in partnership activities. Partnerships are hard work; groups of practitioners often develop their own language and value systems. A certain level of translation and understanding of each other’s creative world needs to take place.

The creative process - give inspiration a chance

After looking at creativity and its characteristics, we want to examine the creative process.

The term ‘creativity’ can be used to describe not only a product but also a process. The latter is important in education and media production because it allows us to identify different stages and their characteristics. This insight will help you to create the optimum conditions to come up with the best ideas. From the variety of approaches we can distil the following stages:

1. Preparation
2. Generation
3. Incubation
4. Verification

(Dewulf and Baillie, 1999: 17)

1. Preparation

A well-prepared job is a job already half done.

At this stage, the idea for a film is redefined and reformulated. It is the stage from ‘I’m going to make a film about homelessness’ to ‘How do young people become homeless?’ It can take the form of a question or it can be bold statements. Techniques include:

• Formulate the question in five different ways.
• Use de Bono’s hat method to approach the issue or problem in different ways. You can find this method of analysis at the end of this chapter.

2. Generation

If you want to get a good idea, get lots of ideas.

(Linus Pauling, winner of two Nobel prizes)

The essence of this stage can be formulated as the ‘collection of ideas and the postponement of judgment in the first instance’. Techniques include:

• Brainstorming – This technique leads to a list of ideas, or possibilities, or aspects of an idea. The next step is to arrange the list either in order of importance or as a structure with key themes and sub-themes.
• Mind-mapping – There are two ways to start a mind map.
  In the first method, you draw a tree and put the core idea in the trunk, subsequently creating branches which represent aspects of the core idea. If you come up with another core idea, just start another tree.
  Alternatively, you can draw a circle in the middle of a piece of paper and draw new circles for different aspects of your idea. Link related circles either by coloured pens or different arrows or lines.
  These two ways of analysing and interrogating your ideas are a quick method of obtaining a visual representation of all kinds of aspects of a concept of a film. Mind-mapping is a really efficient and easily executed method of working for documentary filmmakers.
• Hitch-hiking; building on other people’s ideas – One person comes up with an idea; the next person adds another aspect of the idea or a new idea, and so on.
• Free wheeling; associative thinking – This is the stage at which you collect information and use it as a springboard into the imagined world of new ideas and approaches. For instance, start with single women or premature babies and just associate, and then associate with the associations. After 20 minutes, stop and see if you can make groups of ideas and identify one specific angle that would be inspiring and interesting and does not conform to existing stereotypes.

3. Incubation

The idea that people come up with ideas while putting out the rubbish or having a shower is not a fantasy or a myth. Research has demonstrated that time to let ideas sink in and be digested is essential. Our unconscious data-processing abilities outweigh the conscious ones and can be seen as the source of our hidden natural creative abilities (Gelb in Dewulf and Baillie, 1999). Periods of rest and dreaming, including daydreaming or doing totally different and distracting activities, will allow the incubation of your ideas to take place. Trust your own unconscious data-processing abilities.

Techniques: at this stage, let it happen. Don’t push it.

4. Verification

At this stage, you analyse the different ideas, the different angles and evaluate. The next step is execution or implementation.

We hope that this chapter has clarified and demystified ‘creativity’. There seems to be an element of the unex...