by Marissa Woods
Documentary’s growth both in popularity and profitability has been accompanied by a rise in questionable production practices. At the same time, Americans are watching more documentaries than ever before and, as a Pew Research Center survey demonstrates, audiences look to the medium as a trusted source of information and a means of learning about the world.
I highlight the problem of lack of accountability for ethical problems in The State of Journalism on the Documentary Filmmaking Scene, co authored with Patricia Aufderheide, which delves into the ways ethics problems plague the field. A strong source of accountability is lacking in industry. Director Morgan Neville raised eyebrows when he casually admitted to using artificial intelligence to mimic the voice of Anthony Bourdain in his 2021 film Roadrunner. Streaming catalogs are packed with titles marketed as documentaries including Operation Varsity Blues (2021), a fictional docudrama loosely based on true events, and Tiger King (2020), a series more reminiscent of reality tv than documentary. Though these ethical fault-lines might seem removed from questions of diversity and equity, it only takes a little imagination to see how the conflation of fact and fiction in a body of work audiences rely on for evidence-based factual information becomes even more dangerous when documentaries portray people who have been stereotyped because of their race, disability, class, gender, sexual orientation or religious belief.
In a documentary landscape where no professional body has articulated standards, film professors have a variety of hacks. The Edit Media 5 and 10 have become ethics anchors for teachers. Another is the No Film School resource, Code of a Filmmaker. Some look to journalism ethics, for instance, the Society of Professional Journalists’ code.
Now PBS, America’s most trusted brand, has for the first time released publicly a resource-rich website describing six core ethical values that inform their standards, and many ways these values are implemented. Case studies offer advice about navigating the standards in situations that may arise in the field. To ensure that these standards and practices are a meaningful and practical resource for filmmakers, PBS has committed to engaging filmmakers in transparent and ongoing dialogues about their on-the-ground experiences and interpretations of the standards in action.
The PBS code, grounded in journalistic practice, is adapting its interpretation of its core values, in recognition of the concerns from a field-wide conversation made more urgent and public by the racial reckoning after Ferguson and re-ignited after the murder of George Floyd.
That conversation has centered on the phrase “non-extractive filmmaking.” Eager to alter the trajectory of extractive documentary filmmaking set in motion 100 years ago with Nanook of the North, concerned documentarians are laying the groundwork for values-driven film practices that center participant care and level the power imbalance between participants and filmmakers. Ongoing conversations at film festivals, in a variety of filmmaker organizations, and in film schools have demonstrated field-wide engagement with the challenge. For instance, the HBO Tiger Woods documentary from Jigsaw Productions was called colonialist for being helmed by two white directors. The film Sabaya created scandal when Yazidi women featured in the film said they had not given permission to have their identities revealed. And Jihad Rehab reignited dialogue about authorship, participant harm, and islamophobia when it premiered this spring at Sundance.
The two-year old Documentary Accountability Working Group, in which I participate, has developed a set of core values to honor in making non-extractive documentaries. We developed these values in discussion with filmmakers at festivals and conferences, and through conducting conversations with filmmakers and with participants in documentary films in small groups. Now, expanding on these concepts, a framework for values-driven filmmaking is forthcoming in fall 2022, and the Documentary Accountability Working Group will be seeking endorsements for that statement.
Editor’s note: For readers who are attending the 2022 UFVA Conference, Patricia Aufderheide and I will be discussing all this on July 26, Tuesday, at 1:30pm in Science Center #117, on our panel “Whose ethics? Whose rights?: Values-informed Filmmaking in a Streaming Era,” presented by UFVA’s Documentary Working Group. Marcia Apperson from PBS Standards and Practices will introduce the PBS Standards site and share future plans, and Natalie Bullock Brown from the Documentary Accountability Working Group will discuss the group’s efforts. UFVA Doc Working Group Chairs Augusta Palmer and Bart Weiss will be there to moderate a discussion .We are all hoping to hear from you what you’d like to do, both as members of UFVA and as film production teachers, towards developing shared ethical values.
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Marissa Woods is a graduate student, filmmaker, and arts researcher completing a Master of Fine Arts in Film & Digital Media at American University.
