Documentaries I Have Loved

I admit, I love documentaries. I find them very moving, all the moreso because they are so based in realities. This was also my professional genre for many years. Here's a few that I loved...

"The Way West" - a series by Rick Burns on the westward expansion and it's impact on indiginous peoples. Very cool, very comprehensive.



"Ishi: the Last Yahi" - very haunting story of a man who wandered of the wilderness, the very last of his tribe. The story is both heartbreaking and noble.

"The Donner Party" - another by Rick Burns. Sparse, haunting visuals and beautifully narrated entries from journals.

"The Johnstown Flood" - felt almost as gut-wrenching as if I were there.

I could go on...what docs have you enjoyed??

 

I guess I do tend to gravitate towards the historical...some interesting and vivid insights can be had from a more distant perspective, insights that I find easily applied in today's world.

Recently a series on the U.S. experience in WWII aired...it was like a seven episode series. I decided, out of respect for those facing inhuman circumstances and very troubled times, to stay up and watch the entire series as it initially aired. It was almost like being on a retreat being immersed (both visually and via sound) in one subject for many nights. I was glad I did that.

 

I did mostly (but not excusively) short form (10-15 minutes) human interest type stories, where each piece centered on a person and some facet of their life. In the later years we worked on an international program that was produced out of three production hubs on different continents. I cannot sufficiently explain the many things I saw and experienced, but the range of subjects ran from artists to partical physicists, to leper communities and people living on garbage dumps...and everything between. The interesting thing was that we spent a lot of time working on these pieces from a story-telling perspective and got to know the subjects of stories very well...this all tends to give one a lot to think about. My group was very connected with circumstances preceding and surrounding fall of the Berlin Wall and many projects came out of the experience in Eastern Europe. I think the one thing that stood out to me from all this was a sense of the unique human dignity and spirit seen in people within varied circumstances/conditions. In some cases this was quite a surprise. I have to say, for lack of a better word, that it was a beautiful thing.

 

I did this professionally for twenty years. This specialization (I got started when handheld broadcast TV cameras were fairly new) got us into a variety of other projects because this straightforward style was the look clients wanted. Still, docs always came first. It was even more interesting because, since we were a working production facility, we also agreed to take on a steady stream of international interns that we worked side-by-side with. Good friends, interesting folks, unbelievable stories.

Anyway, the company I was with folded and, rather than do something less interesting, ten years ago I took a position with the U.S. EPA....I now hire and/or work with a variety of producers on various video projects (we shoot hi-def now)....that and a good bit of graphic design work which I've done all my life. I use what I had done earlier by helping communities, tribes, and local government to address environmental priorities. As an old producer, I find it to be very interesting work, and a good bit less taxing than weekly broadcast deadlines and travelling with 12 suitcases of gear.

They were special times....and they changed me and how I look at the world. And it was all very real.