Prior to this class, I had very little understanding of documentary filmmaking. My focus has always been towards narrative filmmaking, but I am now beginning to see that there is perhaps not such a hard line between the two as I had once thought.

One of my good friends and mentors, PJ Raval, is a filmmaker in the Austin community. He recently finished a documentary titled Before You Know It that explores three gay seniors as they navigate the challenges and surprises of life and love in their golden years.

This documentary is largely observational as Bill Nichols explains the mode to include the filmmaker “hidden behind the camera, ignored by the surrounding environment.” Although I know the topic of LGBT relationships to be one PJ feels strongly and personally about, his voice remains, for the most part, out of the documentary. Footage is woven to create parallel stories of men living in different parts of the country as they navigate a common time in their lives.

Most interestingly for me in my understanding of documentary filmmaking was the opportunity to see PJ’s process and gain insight into how much narrative understanding and creation has to be done to make sense of hundreds of hours of footage. Documentary is considered non-fiction as it depicts real events, but the line is blurred in the editing room when stories are crafted out of context and with a thematic goal in mind.

Another example of this story-crafting can be seen in the making of Agnes Varda’s The Gleaners and I . The footage gives people a space and time to talk, much like they are in PJ’s film. In both films, there are few questions and much empathy complimented by a feeling of mutual understanding. With this loose interview style, both films craft thematic relevance primarily through editing. As with PJ’s film, it is likely that Varda let hours upon hours of footage hit the cutting room floor, but still felt the documentary to be a truthful representation of her subjects despite the decision leave some documentation out of the final edit.

At the end of it all, the film medium is a story-based medium and there will never be a TRULY true form of filmmaking. The truth comes from the thematic messages and the heart behind the story rather than the unrestricted conveyance of filmic evidence to establish a message or point.