In factual film making there are many key issues and complications that a rise in regards to keeping the project unbiased and fair. As a documentary film maker one has a duty to fairly present their point and not manipulate their footage to show something that may not be true, its hard to be completely unbiased because everyone has an opinion but the documentary filmmaker should not try and use their footage to twist or warp what someone in the documentary has done or said. The truth should always be presented even if the documentary is performative and there is an emphasis of the filmmakers subjective opinion due to an emotional experience of the filmmaker.
Objectivity- Objective documentary filmmaking is where the filmmaker attempts to present in the issue in the most unbiased way possible in order to be non-judgemental and present a fair argument to both sides of what may be a controversial issue. Direct Cinema is a type of objective filmmaking, the idea behind it is that the documentary is made without the intention of manipulating the footage or having a specific direction or agenda to it. This is also sometimes referred to as cinema verite and the idea is that the camera records peoples lives as they unfold in real time, there is no interference from the filmmaker and the audience are suppose to forget the presence of the camera. There is no narration or questions coming from the filmmaker displayed on screen, there are also no interviews and nothing is set up. It is hard to create a truly objective documentary that is also entertaining as audiences prefer to drama and controversy. An example of a factual piece of content that is supposedly objective is BBC News. BBC News is trusted to be fair and unbiased presenting issues with no opinion on the matter in order to fairly give people a fair view of the world. however when things go through the editing or filming process the opinions of the filmmakers or editors may unknowingly slip into the piece as it is difficult when you have an opinion to not display it in your work. Due to this the news may not always be unbiased and sometimes leaves audience questioning weather they have been manipulated or not. People of sometimes accused BBC news of having an agenda on certain issues leaving us to question weather or not they are biased.
Subjectivity- This is the opposite of Objective filmmaking, this I where the filmmaker may have a certain agenda or opinion that they are trying to put across in their factual piece. They may use their documentary in order to try and change peoples opinions. They may do this by presenting footage in certain way, manipulating clips and interviews and using narration to push their opinion on to the audience. Most documentary's are subjective as it is near impossible to be fully objective. One of the most famously open subjective documentary filmmakers is Michael Moore who created Bowling for columbine and Fahrenheit 911 two controversial documentaries. In Fahrenheit 911 Moore turns his attention to George Bush and his connections to the Saudi government, not only very controversial but also subjective as he is choosing to focus on Bushes so-called inner circle and how they chose to rush into the Iraq war. This gives a message to the audience that Moore is very anti-Bush and he thinks we should be too. He imposes his message in bowling for columbine to, painting America as a fear country of so called gun nuts, referring to guns as Americas main problem when it comes to the cause of mass shootings.
Accuracy- If a documentary or factual piece displays inaccurate facts and figures that are not verified to be true or out of date in someway then this could effect the reputation of the filmmakers. Further more if information that is known to be inaccurate is being presented in order to sway an opinion then this is clearly unethical. Accuracy is so important to the credibility of factual programing such as the news that the BBC has whole guideline section to the concept of accuracy. Again using BBC news as an example without accuracy they wouldn't have the reputation that they do for presenting fair unbiased news. A lack of research may lead to inaccuracy as the facts you are presenting may be out of date or untrue, as a documentary filmmaker you have a duty to carry out as much relevant research as possible so that you do not present inaccurate facts as this would likely tarnish your reputation or unfairly present a situation. ''Accuracy is not simply a matter of getting facts right. If an issue is controversial, relevant opinions as well as facts may need to be considered. When necessary, all the relevant facts and information should also be weighed to get at the truth.'' This quote from the BBC guidelines highlights accuracy's importance within the industry.
Balance & Biased- The term balance is defined as 'an even distribution of weight' this relates to factual filmmaking as an even distribution of both sides of one argument should be displayed. This means that the audience gets to see the issue from both sides allowing them to make their own minds up and form their own opinions given the facts that are being presented to them. It is important to be balanced as an unbalanced argument will come across as being biased. Bias is when the film maker has a certain opinion on the subject at there for presents his side of the argument more than the other side of the argument. This relates to subjectivity however it is possible to use your opinion to guide a factual piece without being biased, you would just need to include the points that you disagree with and that go against your side of the argument but this may hard for an opinionated filmmaker. For example in Louis Theroux's latest scientology documentary he clearly has the opinion that scientology is a cult and maybe be dangerous. Despite that this is his opinion Louis tries to be Balanced and Unbiased by showing views from people who were once scientologists themselves and still believe in some of its practices, further more he also states all of the good things scientology claim to have done, giving the audience another view on them. As a documentary filmmaker you must stay as unbiased as possible in order to stay balanced and present all of the correct information to the audience.
Impartiality- This is about having no opinion at all, one can have an opinion and stay unbiased but being impartial means that you have no opinion on the matter at all and therefore cannot sneak any subjectivity into your piece. However it is hard to be totally impartial especially when you are working on what may be a controversial piece.
Representation- This is how a person, group of people and places are represented. In factual pieces it is important to represent contributors and locations in a fair manner. For example asking the contributor to say something that they would not normally say in order to make them look more or less intelligent is unethical as it is not an accurate representation of that person. Footage can also be manipulated to represent someone in a certain way for example interviews from contributors can be cut and taken out of context during the edit, this may make the contributor look like they are saying something that they didn't really say. In the short documentary 'the lift' the residents of the community reflected a poorer lower class type of people. The area itself was also shown as dirty and quite grimy although this may be an accurate representation of the area it does represent the community as maybe unfavourable members of society. During the lift we learn that the members of the community have more to them than just their appearance and representation, we learn about their life's through casual elevator conversation and some of the story's represent the residents in a way which makes the audience feel sorry for them. Therefor representation is important in order to get an audience to feel a certain way about a person or type of people but it should not be manipulated as this can lead to people stereotyping a group of people which poses a major ethical issue.
Privacy- When being a documentary filmmaker it is vital that peoples privacy is respected, harassing people or hounding them for interviews is immoral and unethical. It is important to have all the correct release forms for contributors in your documentary so that they cannot stop it from being aired. When filming on location it is important to respect the privacy of the people near by and the permission from the people that own the location otherwise legal issue may arise that could result in you losing money or having your documentary pulled. Sometimes contributors whom are giving revealing and intimate interviews about controversial subjects or events that they may have been a part of have the right to have their identity concealed if they want to. This may sometimes be for their own safety when talking about things that could leave them vulnerable to public ridicule or criminals seeking an easy target. For example in a documentary I recently viewed on Netflix about pedophiles where they interview a victim, the victim was just a silhouette on the screen in order to conceal their true identity. This helps the contributor feel more comfortable giving information that they may want to share but are embarrassed about being a part of . During the edit it is important to use the correct colour grading, contrasts or pixelation in order to hide someone's identity. If done wrong people may be able to up the contrast on a silhouetted individual and find out the true identity of the contributor.
When it comes to creating my own documentary I must stay aware of these key issues in order to make sure that my piece presents a fair and balanced messaged and upholds no bias. For me I don't think this will be difficult as my documentary is not very controversial and is not trying to put across a certain message. My documentary is more me and the audience learning about the subject rather than trying to find answers to topical questions or try and prove something. I will have to be careful with representation as if I represented my contributors unfairly then they wouldn't be very happy with me and may not want to work with me in the future. Asking the wrong questions may offend or upset them so I must pick these carefully. I will stay impartial to the subject (fishing) as I have no emotional link with the matter, my opinion shouldn't change the way the documentary turns out. If I presenting facts and statisitcs they will need to be fully researched as a huge pitfall of documentary filming is incorrect or out of date stats which may discount the credibility of the factual piece
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