Documentary Production Quotes

I would love to have been a documentary filmmaker; I just didn't have the resources to do that.

There was no model how to make a documentary production company work. I figured it out as I went along.

My plan was to stay in Canada to make films.

I've been producing documentaries on global warming for 20 years and have seen the early warnings of extreme weather events come true.

We're trying, despite having done research and having obviously preconceived ideas, we try our best to be as open-hearted as possible, and try to create context. So that's always going to be the challenge, making a program like 'Gaycation', and we are always thinking about it, reflecting on it, and doing our best to show the whole picture as much as possible in a 45-minute span. Hopefully that comes across.

I really do try not to emote. I don't like seeing it on documentaries - it seems a bit unprofessional. I also need to be human being and be a kind of sympathetic presence for the contributors I'm with, so there' a line you have to walk.

Documentaries sometimes can be shot over 10 years. You plan to stop in two, but you still gotta catch more.

I don't know if I'd mastered that documentary format, but I wanted to move on from it.

It's hard not to want to become Ken Burns at times. I'm interested in being a Ken Burns who reaches that 17-year-old who goes to the multiplex just to see a good story well-told. And if there's history in it, all the better.

Ten years ago I was not heavily involved in the film world but on reflection it was a boom time with the mineral boom happening, so there was immense growth for industrial training films, documentaries to do with the mining, and the outback world.

I'm a documentary filmmaker by training. You got to start with the real people and the real place.

Reality television hasn't killed documentaries, because there are so many great documentaries still being made, but it certainly has changed the landscape. There is this breed of gimmicky documentary that is basically a reality show.

A lot of filmmaking is an endurance contest between you and the people you're filming. Every time that you relax, I promise you, something interesting will happen.

There's a wide range today of documentaries on politics. The central mass of it is made by networks, and nothing's changed.

I got five kids, and my oldest is a documentary film maker and camera man, and still photographer.

I have learned that documentary makers are incredibly sneaky people.

I came from a background of directing behind-the-scenes documentaries.

With documentaries, what's beautiful about them is that you capture something unique in a shot, something that will never repeat itself.

The relationship between a director and an editor in documentaries is so important.

Doing a documentary is about discovering, being open, learning, and following curiosity.

My background is sociology. Combined with my graphic approach, if I could do some film projects, I think I'd be very good at making documentaries eventually, but people don't think of me for that, of course. But dialogue is something I know I can be good at.

When I'm filming a documentary, I feel like I should be the straight man, watching with a raised eyebrow.

Documentary films have always been my passion, I have done documentaries.

I did documentary film for a long time, and I spent a lot of time behind the camera, fervently wishing that the reality I was filming would conform to my narrative propriety. But you can't control it.

I'm not trying to acquire a reputation as serious documentary maker for its own sake.