It's an important, fascinating, and possibly revolutionary subject, but a maddeningly weak documentary.
Stop filming interviewees looking into camera. Stop writing documentary scripts with a pseudo-three-act, semi-thriller structure, and a catharsis at the end. Your audience is not supposed to feel uplifted by the finale, thinking they are now part of this wonderful movement to make the world a better place because they've sat on their behinds for an hour and a half, watching your documentary.
Your audience is supposed to feel intrigued, frustrated and furious! So they actually do something about the subject you want to make them care about!
It's the same cliche that permeates modern American documentary film making. First we spend an hour and twenty minutes talking about how things are messed up, only to be shown in the last 10 minutes that there is this huge and amazing movement of like-minded people doing their utmost to change things! The effect is that 9 out of 10 people who've watched such a documentary, are going to think: "Oh, dear. How terrible the world is. But I can sleep soundly knowing that somebody's already trying to fix it."
Spend less time on personal drama of the people featured in your documentary. Stop championing them as heroes, they don't need it to support their conviction. The strength of their conviction is what made you do the documentary in the first place! Unless it's the people that your documentary is about, which is not the case here, otherwise it would've had a different title. Instead, spend your 90 minutes of air time on giving us as much information as possible, and as clearly as possible. We don't need people staring us in the eye and enunciating every syllable of a five-word sentence taking 20 seconds to say it. Stop treating your audience like they're children! You expect us to understand complex matters in the world of global finance, and yet you sit us in front of people lecturing us like we're nine-year-olds in elementary school? Give us good narration writing. The documentary filmmaker is supposed to understand the subject matter well-enough to provide clear and engaging narration. The interviewees are there only to substantiate the narration! If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch some Adam Curtis.
Stop filming interviewees looking into camera. Stop writing documentary scripts with a pseudo-three-act, semi-thriller structure, and a catharsis at the end. Your audience is not supposed to feel uplifted by the finale, thinking they are now part of this wonderful movement to make the world a better place because they've sat on their behinds for an hour and a half, watching your documentary.
Your audience is supposed to feel intrigued, frustrated and furious! So they actually do something about the subject you want to make them care about!
It's the same cliche that permeates modern American documentary film making. First we spend an hour and twenty minutes talking about how things are messed up, only to be shown in the last 10 minutes that there is this huge and amazing movement of like-minded people doing their utmost to change things! The effect is that 9 out of 10 people who've watched such a documentary, are going to think: "Oh, dear. How terrible the world is. But I can sleep soundly knowing that somebody's already trying to fix it."
Spend less time on personal drama of the people featured in your documentary. Stop championing them as heroes, they don't need it to support their conviction. The strength of their conviction is what made you do the documentary in the first place! Unless it's the people that your documentary is about, which is not the case here, otherwise it would've had a different title. Instead, spend your 90 minutes of air time on giving us as much information as possible, and as clearly as possible. We don't need people staring us in the eye and enunciating every syllable of a five-word sentence taking 20 seconds to say it. Stop treating your audience like they're children! You expect us to understand complex matters in the world of global finance, and yet you sit us in front of people lecturing us like we're nine-year-olds in elementary school? Give us good narration writing. The documentary filmmaker is supposed to understand the subject matter well-enough to provide clear and engaging narration. The interviewees are there only to substantiate the narration! If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch some Adam Curtis.
