232 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding Mediaendowments, and foundations. In addition to public support, one of the most
common sources of documentary funding is through television.
Broadcast media projects are developed as a result of expressed interest
by investors, a group of producers, or wide cross-sections of society. In some
cases, public television networks run thematic series that follow a formatted
design employing a specifi c creative team. Conversely, other programs can
feature projects that are pitched by independent fi lmmakers and produced
for inclusion as a segment of a show. Cable networks, particularly HBO, have
proven to be major sources of investment in documentaries.Across the World and Back Home for Stories
One of the most enticing attractions of the early cinema was to bring far away
places to one’s local theater. In fact, the word “documentary” comes from
the French word documentaire, which was used for the earliest travelogue
shorts. Later, when non-fi ction fi lms began to be made in lengths over fi ve
or ten minutes, movies that served as voyages to foreign lands continued to
be the norm. Audiences were interested in seeing exotic locales and cultures.
Merian Cooper and Ernest Shoedsack, who later made King Kong, fi lmed an
enormous migration of people and animals through the Zardeh Kuh mountain
area in Grass (1925) and shot Chang (1927) about a family living in the jungles
of Siam. Many of the fi lms in this genre refl ect intensely stereotyped views
of foreign cultures. Oft en they were made by fi lmmakers who represented
colonizing nations and who wished to reinforce attitudes of ethnic and cultural
superiority towards various peoples of non-European ancestry.
As documentary fi lmmaking traditions evolved, certain fi lmmakers saw
the value in depicting topics closer to home. In Great Britain, John Grierson
headed a documentary fi lm unit which produced many fi lms in the 1930s
that were funded by various British corporations and marketing boards.
During travels and studies in the United States, Grierson had been inspired
to use fi lms to teach and inform societies about important issues and facets
of contemporary life, and he organized a team of fi lmmakers who pursued
topics that met commercial demands but that also were guided by signifi cant
personal interest. With fi lms of this period such as Drift ers, Song of Ceylon,
Night Mail, and Housing Problems, the personnel under Grierson’s supervision
craft ed a series of fi lms that strove to employ striking images, inventive sound
work, and the recording of footage that depicted their subjects in a vibrant
but honest manner. Grierson said he wanted to “bring the citizen’s eye in
from the ends of the earth to the story, his own story, of what was happening
under his nose... [to] the drama of the doorstep.”Contemporary Examples
In contemporary documentaries, subject matter continues to be fueled by
personal interest, topical relevance, and commercial potential. When Steve
James, Peter Gilbert, and Frederick Marx set out to produce a documentary
about inner-city teenagers trying to succeed as professional basketball players,Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).