I'm pretty much a documents reporter. I'm a public records geek.
I have learned that documentary makers are incredibly sneaky people.
Our job is to get as close to the verified truth as is possible.
I research the role, and if it's a literary character, I read the book, and if it's an historical figure, I research documents and biographies. If it's a fictional character, I work off the script.
After I read all the medical journals and watched all the documentaries, I still didn't understand the physical sensation of ticking and where it comes from and what it feels like.
So I do tend to do documentaries where I can move in and out of them.
I think that when you're making a story... that's based on somebody, the filmmaker has his duty to do his research.
In documentary films, you're a storyteller using found objects. You still have to have a story arc and all the elements that make a good story. It really helped me mature as a storyteller.
I love the idea of documentaries. I love seeing documentaries, and I love making them. Documentaries are incredibly easy to shoot. The ease with which you can hear something's going on, somebody's going to be somewhere: That sounds so interesting. Pick up your camera and go.
For a documentary filmmaker, I do very well.
I don't think there's so much difference between making documentaries and feature films. I think it's even harder to make documentaries.
The initial research will be very indiscriminate. I do a lot of reading, buy a stack of books and read and digest them, and then I start doing phone interviews and archival research and then the travelling.
I suppose making documentaries is like doing journalism on film.
I'm not a documentarian. I'm not a photojournalist.
When I do feature films, I usually have a very strong sense of what I want to do. I have topics and subjects, so I go for it. I even know technically what I want to. But in the case of documentary, the story comes to me.
The making of the documentary is an involving and collaborative process where you go deeper unlike in movies where you just borrow someone else's script.
I didn't realize that, in doing a documentary, there is this process of discovery. It's not like a film or a play with a set script. It sort of reveals itself.
The key fact missed most often by social scientists utilizing documentary films for data, is this: documentary films are not found or reported things; they're made things.
A lot of preparation was needed to play the character of Omar Sheikh in Omerta. I watched a lot of documentaries and hate speeches to cultivate anger in me.
You have so much more time to observe and learn with a documentary because of the time between the shoots. You get a much deeper understanding of day-to-day life and its themes. It's also much more of a mess after three years; you have to comb it out carefully and see what fits together and makes sense.
