Filming the 'Chasing Chuck' sizzle reel and a little advice for people filming an "on the street" documentary.

For the past two days I’ve been filming for a sizzle reel for a documentary that I’ve wanted to make for a long time called Chasing Chuck (See previous posts for the full expose; but basically we want to take aspiring comedian Dave to prove his manliness by fighting Chuck Norris and writing his set for this year’s Edinburgh show and in the process examining what it means to be a modern man.) The shoot went amazingly well, the crew were great what we got in the can was perfect and everything seemed to run smoothly, I just can’t wait to see the edit now.

But instead of praising everything and everyone that was involved with the adventure of getting the thing made (which would be easy, everyone that we ended up working with and actually interviewing was a blast it’d possibly be a little boring to read) I’ve decided to talk about just a few things that I noticed while filming during the day that might be of use to people who are looking to make an “on the street” documentary.

Firstly, this experience has made me realize that “people” are a funny bunch, and it seems that without any prompting they have a predisposition to hate me. I’m sure that in normal circumstances I could get on with just about anyone; crazy racists and shoe bombers aside I would quite happily have a pint with anyone and enjoy their company but when I have a camera in my hands all of a sudden it seems that I have the inability to like anyone because of the way they seem to behave around it. I’m not talking about the nice people who agreed to be filmed in the interviews, they were great, (thanks again to everyone who did get involved) but “the general public” that we harangued off the streets of London for just a few minutes of their time to talk about something.

It seems that people no longer trust anything that can make an exact replica of their face and record precisely what they’re saying. They seem to think that once the magic box has recorded reality we’re going to somehow doctor it to make it appear that they’re stupid or alter things around them to take the mickey. Not only was the box going to capture their soul and make it look ridiculous but I was the one operating it and I should be ashamed of interrupting their busy day of going from the trainport to their desk to ask them some very simple questions. In one case it was even me asking politely for them to sign something after the interview to say that they were happy to be filmed because it would obviously lead to more interaction with me and potentially have them agree to supporting genocide if you were to believe the questions I got asked for what was simply making a mark on a piece of paper.

After some deliberation in my own head I realized that it wasn’t anything that we’d particularly done; we were approachable, friendly and polite to anyone that we found and didn’t even start the camera rolling until we’d got the all clear from any subject. The blame solely lied with the TV crews that have been before us and how popular a certain media sharing website with more videos of cats on it than a crazy old ladies phone.

For years now we have slowly seen the creep of more and more shocking reality TV that ‘forces’ the viewer to watch the camera pan across various scenes full of mostly idiots arguing in grunts, slurs and half-finished sentences with one another; that with some “clever” editing make it “appear” that they aren’t awfully bright (one could argue that the damage had already been done and no amount of pre-warning could make them anything other than what appears on our screen). Anyone that we went up to seemed obsessed with the idea that they were going to fall victim to this curse and they would just be the next in a long line of people who would have scorn heaped upon them with witty twitter hashtags and even possibly a full page spread in some red top paper if they tried particularly hard to say something moronic.

What was also of interest was that some participants that we found were entirely genuine and often insightful into the issues when off camera, or didn’t know that they were being filmed (but had agreed to it). When they saw the little red light flickering they became a “character” of themselves, either deciding that this was going to be their chance of a fifteen minutes of fame or again wanting to ‘play’ and idealised version of themselves where they would come across how they wanted to be seen rather than how they actually are when nothing is being made into a permanent record.  There was a strange mix of a hatred and distrust of the camera to a longing to be in front of one, sometimes within the same person. This distrust ranged from the suspicious: “Where’s this going to be shown?” to the outright indignant: “F**k you putting that camera in my face.” (At this point the camera was trained on a rather attractive looking pigeon on the floor that at least one hundred meters away from the aggrieved party). My favourite of the day was one Dave approached one “yoof” and introduced himself and told him the project was all about masculinity, the wittiest and most charming response that he could utter was: “Well that’s gay.”

But it wasn’t just the people in front of the camera that sometimes wanted to ‘play’ at being themselves. Sometimes people couldn’t help but wander behind the interview to flick a hearty and well-earned finger at the camera, after all they had altered their route to do just that for all the banter that it was worth. I wondered about the Lumier brothers when they first filmed workers leaving their factory after a hard day’s work completely oblivious to the birth of one of the greatest inventions of the last century, and now I had someone dancing behind my shot who given the chance would expose his genitals if he had more beer in him. For this I again entirely blame the rise of reality TV.

Although there seems to be some vitriol being poured on the general public my beef is not with them but society in general. We’ve made us like this. In the age of the sound bite and constant access to information the image lives on regardless of how small the screen you’re watching. This project will most likely end up on a website and Youtube with additional footage shot when/if we get the cash to turn it into a feature documentary that will be a great success for everyone involved and be the first feature film that I will have made, but it will at best make the festival circuit and get a limited release on DVD.  However, even then people seem uncertain at how they might be portrayed and what responses they might possibly receive from even the lowliest of internet trolls.

Another possibility of this distrust might be the rise of the mockumentary where a presenter starts proposing questions of an altogether irrelevant nature that are designed to make the participant look silly. Borat, Trigger Happy TV, however Keith Lemon is trying to entertain people who watch ITV 3, the list goes on. Is it that this brand of humours stunt has spoilt the possibility for other filmmakers to gain genuine and insightful comments from the man (or woman) on the street through fear that this might all be a set up?

It may also hark back to previous statements that I’ve made about social media. Our life online is something that we like to keep as an idealised version of ourselves; detagging unflattering pictures on nights out, affiliating only with groups and pages that will further our online persona (regardless of how far from our real-life one) and only talking about things that will further convey the “idealised” us. If well in the future finally an alien race descends on the charred remains of our planet with huge “B&L” logos littering the landscape with the lone Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth class being there to welcome them, and the only records they have of our existence are the servers at Facebook they might think that we lived a life of complete hedonism and blissful happiness, and just happened to enjoy pictures of cats being amusing as a side gig. Those who were none participants in our documentary might have wanted to ensure that although they might (most likely would) have never see the collected footage of them they were uncertain if anyone else might have a chortle of their representation. 

So after this little rant how would I advise you dear reader on getting the most out of on-street interviews when filming your own documentary?

1 – Be professional at all times. This includes what you wear, who you bring with you and how you act. If you have some kind of uniform wear it (just a polo shirt with the logo of your production company on will do or even simply the word “crew”). Don’t bring your mate who’s a bit of a dick on the shoot, only have the people around you that you trust and know will act responsibly and respectfully around people. Finally, act like a film crew. Most silently watch the monitor and let the presenter do their job while you do yours.

2 – Once you’ve got permission to film just start rolling. Brief your presenter that once they’ve got someone agreeing to be filmed get them to start asking a few questions that seem entirely innocent but are actually more to do with the documentary than first appear, just a: “What do you think of…” will do, it’ll come across as more of a chat than an interview. On the flip side of that make sure that once permission has been granted you need to start rolling straight away. Dave would often have some brilliant back and fourths with some subjects about the project before we’d even hit record that we missed. We got everything that we needed but there were some nuggets that would have been nice additions to the piece.

3 – Get a production manager/assistant that will do the release forms for you. On the shoot we had an amazing PA called Elspeth who we could not have done the shoot without. She was able to get all of the legal stuff done as we were off filming the next interview that we had secured so that we could maximise our time filming.

4 – The three “R’s” Reassure, Reassure, Reassure – Make sure that your participants know what they’re getting into but keep telling them that this is something serious that you’re doing, you have passion for the project and are not out to make them look silly. After the interview be entirely transparent, give them your details and ask them to get in touch so that you can send them the link of the finished thing and ask them to contact you if they’ve said something that they’d rather not show (you might decide that it’s gold and you’re not going to take it out but at least have the dialogue with them and practice the 3 “R’s” again.

5 – Get more than you need – It’s better to have and not need and need and not have. You might interview twenty people in an hour period but only some of them (3 at most) might have some golden lines that drive the project forward and give you insight into the topic that you’re looking at. Don’t settle for someone just muttering a phrase that you want to hear get that extrovert that will talk at length about a topic that’s close to their heart!

6 – If the topic is something risky start with a few warm-up questions and then hit them with the biggie in-between another set of easy ones. It’s called “the shit sandwich” in management terms I believe.

7 – Get someone amazing in front of the camera to begin with. I cannot stress how important this is. We had Dave on camera for two days and he didn’t put a foot wrong. He was professional, passionate and a great performer. We could have had him narrating paint dry and it’d be interesting.

Anyhow, I think that I’ve ranted enough for today. I want to thank everyone who did end up speaking to us and hope to get the edit done by the end of August. Watch this space.