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Lark Spartin
Professor Denise Kenney
VISA 371
April 12th, 2018
Documenting Life
After making my documentary, reVive, I have learned that the most important element of

creating a good documentary is to have good narrative arc, rhythm, and structure. It takes a

tremendous amount of work to successfully capture behavior on camera, and facilitate a good

relationship with the community around you. The way you structure your documentary can greatly

affect how the film is received by the audience. As the filmmaker, I was responsible for the tone

of the piece, and had an ethical responsibility to the women I was interviewing. Structuring the

documentary to be respectful to them, as well as create a tone to captivate my audience, was my

main challenge throughout this process.

Structuring your documentary is important throughout the whole process, however it

becomes most important in post production. The biggest learning curve came with organizing the

statements and sound bytes into smaller sequences. During pre-production, I thought the

documentary would serve as more of an homage to the women and their friendships. I also played

around with the idea of having the video be more informational, as a way to spread awareness.

However, Hampe suggests, “Ideally, (your documentary) will consist of a well blended

combination of factual information, dramatic events, and human emotion” (Hampe, 175). After

hearing these women speak, I believed it would be more impactful to structure the documentary

as an in depth casual conversation about their relationship with their bodies.

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When figuring out the order in which to place the statements, I realized that I could change

the tone and could elicit a different feeling in viewers, depending on where certain shots were

placed. Placing a somber statement back to back with a joking statement can either be received as

a break in seriousness, or unempathetic to the woman expressing her emotions. This became my

ethical responsibility to represent the interviewees respectfully. I had to be sympathetic to their

needs, especially when it came to representing one of my interview subjects, Paula. I followed her

statement about distrusting her body, with Amberlee talking about how breasts are a part of our

womanhood and sexuality. I made sure not to discount Paula’s statement, but instead shed some

light on the topic and provide some hope for the future and resolution. I also realized that while

this documentary was a conversation, not every woman had to agree with each other, and not every

statement had to be followed up with one similar to it, either in subject matter or length. Placing

long statements with short statements can make a punchier impact, as well. I counterpointed

statements without disrupting the rhythm, and this also allowed multiple opinions to be explored.

I agree with Hampe when he writes, the “structural tension keeps the outcome of the film

somewhat in doubt, and keeps the audience interested” (176). For example, when Rachelle said

“she just wanted her shape back,” that was followed with Amberlee saying, “I have 60 inches of

scars…they aren’t boobs anymore, they don’t feel apart of my body…there would be a tremendous

amount of healing to do when going into a new relationship.” Learning about different ways to

exploit conversational flow became an asset in creating a good story, as “organizing the

documentary so that it seems to flow effortlessly from one interesting topic to the next is what

structure is all about” (178).

Each of the women in my documentary symbolized a character. Amberlee was the voice

of wisdom, Rachelle represented a positive outlook on the future, Erin represented the ethnic
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community, and Christine represented comic relief. I also kept in mind, that by placing them in

certain parts of my documentary, it allowed for breaks in the serious conversation. It also enriched

conversation during emotional parts. My documentary was “voice of the people” style, and by

putting the women’s statements back to back, it made it seem as if they were having a conversation.

With the plethora of footage and heartfelt statements that I had access to, it was easy for

my audience to reach a saturation point. By placing the statements in corresponding acts, a

beginning, middle and end, I was able to shape the tone of the documentary, especially near the

conclusion. Having new information presented before this saturation point, allowed the

information to soak in and not just go over the audience’s head. When there is information

repeated, there is a chance the information will not be heard at all, so I had to be selective with

picking the best statements from some of the women. It was similar to writing a novel. If you

repeat the same point over and over, it can be lost in translation. The ending of my documentary

was similar to the falling action after a climax in a story, except it served as uplifting.

The choice to have the documentary be from a young woman’s perspective, and having it

be me, a daughter of someone who has gone through this traumatic experience, was a stylistic

choice and one that was very important in communicating the purpose of the documentary.

Choosing to have me introduce and conclude the documentary was a good way to show the

perspective of another generation, and communicated that we can learn something from these

women. The documentary was really about listening to their stories. The introduction narration

served as an exposition, and gave a brief summation of the documentary’s theme. After talking to

someone after the screening, they shared that having a family member’s perspective of someone

going through illness made it hit closer to home. I believe that my perspective was important in
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establishing the idea that this was more than a disease, it is about how this trauma affects how we

live our lives. I wanted my documentary to be structured in a way that could relate to people.

The relationship between the form and the structure is also very important. For my

documentary, the importance of visual evidence took a back seat and it became somewhat of a

“talking heads” documentary. However, I believe because of the way it was structured, seeing the

emotion on the women’s faces, was valuable in feeling empathy.

As we have heard many times in class, the documentary you write is not the one you shoot,

and that one is not the one you edit. reVive is not the same film as it was during pre production,

mostly because you cannot plan exactly what the women are going to say during shooting. The

creation process itself influenced the structuring of the documentary. Having a clear idea of the

emotion and ideas I wanted to capture in pre-production made it much easier to develop a structure

in post production. I believe the film turned out better than I planned, because I could not plan the

emotions I captured on screen. Without the proper structuring, and choosing the correct heartfelt

moments as well as the joking moments, I do not believe my documentary would have resonated

as well with others. Even though my documentary is not the same as the one I planned in pre

production, the structuring I did in post production allowed me to truly hone in on the main

message I wanted to impart to people. Instead of spending my time trying to figure out what it was

about, I was able to dig a bit deeper and focus on structuring it with emotions and human behavior

in mind. As Hampe so perfectly states, “In many ways a film is like a mosaic, made up of many

little bits and pieces, which when put together properly, let you see the big picture” (180). Seeing

the perspective of a young woman whose mother is going through cancer is rare, and makes the

documentary more accessible and digestible to others who have not gone through this. My goal
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was to capture the audience’s attention, but what I truly took away from it, was that these women’s

voices actually captivated me.

Work Cited

Hampe, Barry. Making Documentary Films and Videos. 2nd Edition. New York: Holt Paperbacks,

2007.