Introduction to Documentary, Third Edition

Author: Bill Nichols
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253026903
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Book Description
The third edition of Bill Nichols's best-selling text provides an up-to-date introduction to the most important issues in documentary history and criticism. A new chapter, "I Want to Make a Documentary: Where Do I Start?" guides readers through the steps of planning and preproduction and includes an example of a project proposal for a film that went on to win awards at major festivals. Designed for students in any field that makes use of visual evidence and persuasive strategies, Introduction to Documentary identifies the genre's distinguishing qualities and teaches the viewer how to read documentary film. Each chapter takes up a discrete question, from "How did documentary filmmaking get started?" to "Why are ethical issues central to documentary filmmaking?" Here Nichols has fully rewritten each chapter for greater clarity and ease of use, including revised discussions of earlier films and new commentary on dozens of recent films from The Cove to The Act of Killing and from Gasland to Restrepo.

Introduction to Documentary, Second Edition

Author: Bill Nichols
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025300487X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 365

Book Description
This new edition of Bill Nichols’s bestselling text provides an up-to-date introduction to the most important issues in documentary history and criticism. Designed for students in any field that makes use of visual evidence and persuasive strategies, Introduction to Documentary identifies the distinguishing qualities of documentary and teaches the viewer how to read documentary film. Each chapter takes up a discrete question, from "How did documentary filmmaking get started?" to "Why are ethical issues central to documentary filmmaking?" Carefully revised to take account of new work and trends, this volume includes information on more than 100 documentaries released since the first edition, an expanded treatment of the six documentary modes, new still images, and a greatly expanded list of distributors.

Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Patricia Aufderheide
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199720398
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Book Description
Documentary film can encompass anything from Robert Flaherty's pioneering ethnography Nanook of the North to Michael Moore's anti-Iraq War polemic Fahrenheit 9/11, from Dziga Vertov's artful Soviet propaganda piece Man with a Movie Camera to Luc Jacquet's heart-tugging wildlife epic March of the Penguins. In this concise, crisply written guide, Patricia Aufderheide takes readers along the diverse paths of documentary history and charts the lively, often fierce debates among filmmakers and scholars about the best ways to represent reality and to tell the truths worth telling. Beginning with an overview of the central issues of documentary filmmaking--its definitions and purposes, its forms and founders--Aufderheide focuses on several of its key subgenres, including public affairs films, government propaganda (particularly the works produced during World War II), historical documentaries, and nature films. Her thematic approach allows readers to enter the subject matter through the kinds of films that first attracted them to documentaries, and it permits her to make connections between eras, as well as revealing the ongoing nature of documentary's core controversies involving objectivity, advocacy, and bias. Interwoven throughout are discussions of the ethical and practical considerations that arise with every aspect of documentary production. A particularly useful feature of the book is an appended list of "100 great documentaries" that anyone with a serious interest in the genre should see. Drawing on the author's four decades of experience as a film scholar and critic, this book is the perfect introduction not just for teachers and students but also for all thoughtful filmgoers and for those who aspire to make documentaries themselves. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

Introduction to Documentary Production

Author: Searle Kochberg
Publisher: Wallflower Press
ISBN: 9781903364376
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
Introduction to Documentary Production: A Guide for Media Students is designed for students in Higher and Further Education who are approaching documentary production for the first time. The book is written in an accessible style by Media staff at the University of Portsmouth all of whom have backgrounds in media production/journalism. The book covers the making of documentaries from concept through production to post-production, and includes close readings of documentary makers' intent and target audiences.

Engaging Cinema

Author: Bill Nichols
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393934918
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 11

Book Description
In what ways do films influence and interact with society? What social forces determine the kinds of movies that get made? How do movies reinforce—and sometimes overturn—social norms? As societies evolve, do the films that were once considered ‘great’ slip into obscurity? Which ones? Why? These questions, and many others like them, represent the mainstream of scholarly film studies today. In Engaging Cinema, Bill Nichols offers the first book for introductory film students that tackles these topics head-on. Published in a handy 'trade paperback' format, Engaging Cinema is inexpensive and utterly unique in the field—a perfect complement to or replacement for standard film texts.

Representing Reality

Author: Bill Nichols
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253013372
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
". . . a valuable and important book . . ." —The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory Representing Reality is the first book to offer a conceptual overview of documentary filmmaking practice. It addresses numerous social issues and how they are presented to the viewer by means of style, rhetoric, and narrative technique. The volume poses questions about the relationship of the documentary tradition to power, the body, authority, knowledge, and our experience of history. This study advances the pioneering work of Nichols's earlier book, Ideology and the Image. "[Nichols] has written a road-block of a book which reconfigures the debate on the documentary at a new level of sophistication and complexity which can only be ignored at the risk of ignoring the whole area of documentary film." —Sight and Sound " . . . the most important book on documentary film yet published." —Canadian Journal of Film Studies

Introduction to Film Studies

Author: Jill Nelmes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136777156
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 558

Book Description
Introduction to Film Studies is a comprehensive textbook for students of cinema. This completely revised and updated fifth edition guides students through the key issues and concepts in film studies, traces the historical development of film and introduces some of the worlds key national cinemas. A range of theories and theorists are presented from Formalism to Feminism, from Eisenstein to Deleuze. Each chapter is written by a subject specialist, including two new authors for the fifth edition. A wide range of films are analysed and discussed. It is lavishly illustrated with 150 film stills and production shots, in full colour throughout. Reviewed widely by teachers in the field and with a foreword by Bill Nichols, it will be essential reading for any introductory student of film and media studies or the visual arts worldwide. Key features of the fifth edition are: updated coverage of a wide range of concepts, theories and issues in film studies in-depth discussion of the contemporary film industry and technological changes new chapters on Film and Technology and Latin American Cinema new case studies on films such as District 9, Grizzly Man, Amores Perros, Avatar, Made in Dagenham and many others marginal key terms, notes, cross-referencing suggestions for further reading, further viewing and a comprehensive glossary and bibliography a new, improved companion website including popular case studies and chapters from previous editions (including chapters on German Cinema and The French New Wave), links to supporting sites, clips, questions and useful resources. Individual chapters include: The Industrial Contexts of Film Production · Film and Technology · Getting to the Bigger · Picture Film Form and Narrative · Spectator, Audience and Response · Cinematic authorship and the film auteur · Stardom and Hollywood Cinema · Genre, Theory and Hollywood Cinema The Documentary Form · The Language of Animation · Gender and Film · Lesbian and Gay Cinema · Spectacle, Stereotypes and Films of the African Diaspora · British Cinema · Indian Cinema · Latin American Cinema · Soviet Montage Cinema of the 1920s Contributors: Linda Craig, Lalitha Gopalan, Terri Francis, Chris Jones, Mark Joyce, Searle Kochberg, Lawrence Napper, Jill Nelmes, Patrick Phillips, Suzanne Speidel, Paul Ward, Paul Watson, Paul Wells and William Wittington

Documentary Storytelling

Author: Sheila Curran Bernard
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1135015821
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 379

Book Description
Documentary Storytelling has reached filmmakers and filmgoers worldwide with its unique focus on the key ingredient for success in the growing global documentary marketplace: storytelling. This practical guide reveals how today’s top filmmakers bring the tools of narrative cinema to the world of nonfiction film and video without sacrificing the rigor and truthfulness that give documentaries their power. The book offers practical advice for producers, directors, editors, cinematographers, writers and others seeking to make ethical and effective films that merge the strengths of visual and aural media with the power of narrative storytelling. In this new, updated edition, Emmy Award-winning author Sheila Curran Bernard offers: New strategies for analyzing documentary work New conversations with filmmakers including Stanley Nelson (The Black Panthers), Kazuhiro Soda (Mental), Orlando von Einsiedel (Virunga), and Cara Mertes (JustFilms) Discussions previously held with Susan Kim (Imaginary Witness), Deborah Scranton (The War Tapes), Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side), and James Marsh (Man on Wire).

Documenting the Documentary

Author: Barry Keith Grant
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814339727
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 604

Book Description
Documenting the Documentary offers clear, serious, and insightful analyses of documentary films, and is a welcome balance between theory and criticism, abstract conceptualization and concrete analysis.

A New History of Documentary Film

Author: Betsy A. McLane
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 144118998X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Book Description
A New History of Documentary Film, Second Edition offers a much-needed resource, considering the very rapid changes taking place within documentary media. Building upon the best-selling 2005 edition, Betsy McLane keeps the same chronological examination, factual reliability, ease of use and accessible prose style as before, while also weaving three new threads - Experimental Documentary, Visual Anthropology and Environmental/Nature Films - into the discussion. She provides emphasis on archival and preservation history, present practices, and future needs for documentaries. Along with preservation information, specific problems of copyright and fair use, as they relate to documentary, are considered. Finally, A History of Documentary Film retains and updates the recommended readings and important films and the end of each chapter from the first edition, including the bibliography and appendices. Impossible to talk learnedly about documentary film without an audio-visual component, a companion website will increase its depth of information and overall usefulness to students, teachers and film enthusiasts.