Making Documentary Films and Reality Videos: A Practical Guide to Planning, Filming, and Editing Documentaries of Real Events

Making Documentary Films and Reality Videos is the perfect text for students of filmmaking who would like to make a documentary. Barry Hampe, who has made more than 150 documentary films and videos, traces the two main approaches to documentary--recording behavior and re-creating past events—and shows students how to do both effectively. Covering all the steps, from conceptualization to completion, the book includes chapters on visual evidence; documentary ethics; why reality is not enough; budgeting; and casting, crew, and equipment selection.

Three years ago I dragged my EOS 600 film camera out of the cupboard, and took it on holiday along with the Canon S45 digital that I’d been using previously. It was a revelation. Suddenly I had control back of what I was photographing, and could see what I was doing. I enjoyed the experience very much, but even the little 4MB S45 was capable of cleaner nicer images than my film camera, so I bought a 30D ...and started taking awful images.

There was definitely a learning curve, so I joined the local Camera Club, became obsessed with sites like DPReview, and generally started to relearn photography with a passion. I was not a beginner, and many years ago I did several years formal training (part time), and was later part of a team that made two award winning dramatic film productions (the second as assistant director). I was also OK with PhotoShop.

Now three years later, I work as a Community Photographer with the same access as the local PJs; I am the vice president of the local Camera Club, and took four trophies home from the Club’s Christmas dinner this year.

From top left:
B Grade Print Trophy – Accumulated points throughout the year in normal print competitions. You have to get three Honours to go from B to A grade. I managed that early in the year, but remained B grade until the end of the competition year. None of the other competitions are grade dependant.

Enlargement Trophy – Accumulated points in Enlargement competitions.

Colour Print of the Year – Best print throughout the year, won for ‘Ploughing the Hard Way’

Brian Thwaites Memorial Trophy – Best natural history print of the year, won for ‘Laughing Kookaburra’. I am not really a natural history photographer, and there are some blown pixels on the top of the birds head, but it was pin sharp printed at A3, and I guess I was lucky on the day.

BTW Those cups and trophies were a total bugger to photograph!!!

'Yes, there are cameras and cameras. Cameras costing three to four pounds and those costing between three hundred and four hundred pounds. Beginners will do well to start with an easily operated camera, like one of the film cartridge or 35mm. types.'

A complete catalogue of motion picture techniques for filmmakers. It concentrates on the 'storytelling' school of filmmaking, utilizing the work of the great stylists who established the versatile vocabulary of technique that has dominated the movies
since 1915. This graphic approach includes comparisons of style by interpreting a 'model script', created for the book, in storyboard form.

Film Directing Shot by Shot offers a good introduction to the rudiments of film production. Steven D. Katz walks his readers through the various stages of moviemaking, advising them at every turn to visualize the films they wish to produce. Katz believes that one of the chief tasks of filmmaking is to negotiate between our three-dimensional reality and the two-dimensionality of the screen. He covers the number of technical options filmmakers can use to create a satisfying flow of shots, a continuity that will make sense to viewers and aptly tell the film's story. Katz provides in-depth coverage of production design, storyboarding, spatial connections, editing, scene staging, depth of frame, camera angles, point of view, and the various types of stable compositions and moving camera shots.