Robert “Bob” Schubring is a Producer, former Libertarian Candidate, and resident Curmudgeon at LongTale. His titles includes TWIST, one of the most viewed documentaries on Hulu—HIGH, and is currently developing The Body Pain with fellow LongTale Producer/ Managing Director, Omar Kaczmarczyk and holds the honor of being the Inaugural Contributor to THE FORUM.

The New Literacy

Texan Naturalism in the Documentary

“The golden rule of filmmaking: He who has the gold, makes the rules” – Alexander Salkind

My first acquaintance with the Austin Film Society, was through a program of theirs, called “Docs in Progress”. Paid-up members who agreed to secrecy, so as not to spoil the element of surprise for other first-time viewers, would meet over some California sangria, Texas Shiner Bock, fruit, cheese and networking, screen a rough cut of someone's documentary film, answer questions posed by the filmmaker, as to what they followed and what needed clarification, then have a freewheeling discussion about the topic at hand. With one documentary under my belt as a credited producer, I paid my 35 bucks membership dues, attended my first screening, and fell head-over-heels in love with the new trend in documentary work that has taken root there.

Those of us who grew up since the 1960's, at least, know the propaganda-style documentary, having seen them by the dozens in grade school, usually shot on 16mm film and screened from well-worn prints, that occasionally left a class in titters when the projector malfunctioned and chewed up several feet of film. The structure of the propaganda-style documentary is as old as Leni Reithenstahl's Hitler biopic, Triumph of the Will. The filmmaker sets out with a preconceived notion of what the documentary is intended to prove. Then identifies ways to make the point, writes a rough script and a budget, gets financed, and takes a camera crew on the road to shoot scenes “proving” the point. All is edited, voice-over narration is put in, along with suitable mood music, and voilá, cinematic proof of the thesis is ready to be duplicated and shown to sway the uninformed masses.

Frequently, documentaries of the propaganda style, do not age gracefully. Woe to the teacher with a class of bright students that includes a well-read astronomy buff, who shows something filmed pre-Apollo 11, speaking of the theory once in vogue, that the Moon was a piece of molten rock that separated off from the Earth, leaving a gigantic hole where the Pacific Ocean is now found. That pesky astronomy buff with upraised hand, eagerly gushing to the class about how all the new science learnt from actual moonrocks, shows the Moon couldn't possibly have been part of the Earth, and that the Earth wasn't originally molten, but was a cold lump of dust, ice, and pebbles that grew warmer from radioactive decay and eventually fused together under the pressure of its' own gravity, will completely trash an entire year's set of lesson plans with a few good daily questions, and ultimately, will have to be put into “gifted child” classes somewhere, so as not to undermine the more-gullible students' belief that the school system knows what to teach, and that all of it must be believed without question, as well as dutifully regurgitated during exams.

Nobody watches propaganda-style documentaries for entertainment. They're simply too polemical and short-sighted to entertain anybody. Despite the capacity of a camera and film, to capture vastly more raw data than can be assimilated in the initial viewing, the polemic commands the audience to ignore extraneous data not germane to its' preconceived conclusion. An audience must be paid to watch this stuff, or be bribed into it. (“Miss Fields' class won't have homework today! She's showing a movie.”)

So What is Texan Naturalism?

The documentary tradition that has developed in Austin, is vastly more adventurous that the work of the propagandists. Rather than set out to prove a point, the documentarian goes into the field with a camera and a subject...usually one or more persons of interest...and collects footage. As the subject interacts with the surrounding community and natural environment, a story begins to emerge. What is unique about this person? Why? Why do others imitate this person in some way? Or admire him? Or find him revolting? Threads of a plot begin to present themselves. And ultimately, a central conflict arises, that results in a profound change. The person learns something and changes for the better. Or for the worse. The surrounding community learns, and changes itself, as well. Ultimately, a story with a three-act format presents itself for the editing. But unlike a scripted narrative with actors, the story is entirely authentic. Moreover, like a Shakespeare play, it leaves enough unanswered questions to encourage repeated viewing.

An odd cast of characters has drawn the attention of Austin's filmmaking community and been screened at Docs in Progress. Among the most memorable: A brain-damaged Vietnam veteran living in upstate New York's Catskills, who bought a decrepit trailer, buried it, and built a camp of it, a few blocks from his home. And then added onto it. And kept adding. And adding. Ultimately, the filmmaker got the man to verbalize, why he did what he was doing: In case of nuclear war, he wanted a fallout shelter big enough to accommodate everyone he loved. So each new friendship he would form, led him to add more rooms to his underground maze. Meanwhile, his stark terror of war and mass destruction, was held at bay, well-camouflaged by the orderly work of building a human-scale anthill.

Then there was the Texas wild man. The film opened with a closeup of a rabbit chewing on something, and a voice-over by the wild man himself: “That one summer, my girlfriend and I decided to do nuthin but raise Chinchilla rabbits and do cocaine.” Provocative stuff if it came from a screenwriter. More so, coming from the horse's mouth. Even more shocking was how swiftly an infant tamed this tempestuous force of nature.

On a less provocative note, there was Austin's monkish, and frequently homeless, Duct Tape Messiah. This ardent anti-materialist fought his intellectual battles by mockery of excesses. To satirize the 1990's fad of silver toe-tips on cowboy boots and silver tabs for shirt collars...he made similar fashion accessories from grey duct tape. The manner of his death occasioned the telling of his tale...and the film challenged the community's view of homelessness.

Two documentaries by Austin Film Society members had noteworthy commercial success: Werner Campbell's Hell on Wheels, about the 2003 revival of roller derby that began in Austin, has sold globally, mainly to collectors who've spread the sport into other nations. A sport revival that began among a few Austin professional women who wanted something a bit more challenging than the health clubs offered, but didn't want to enlist in the Marine Corps, now has 55,000 active participants worldwide, who have director Campbell to thank, that they can observe the first, baby steps of their favorite sport, by purchasing the documentary.

Another success: The Horse Boy, Michel Orion Scott's work on a professional family's struggle with autism, is not to be missed. Particularly so, if one is fond of either horses, shamanism, ancient/tribal healing practices, transformative journeys, or what the late Dr Walker Percy called, “the ability to get better, with a little bit of help from you”. Where is the boundary between disease and self? The Horse Boy will reframe that question in ways that alter one's view of health, illness, and how they interact. The yin and yang of life, demand that we open minds to what the sick try to teach us, rather than burden ourselves with unnecessary duties the sick prefer us not to do. Overcoming illness is like any other form of human teamwork. The process is completely unforgiving, of those who forget that the family and the community are teams...and, just like an athletic team, function best, by dividing the teamwork amongst the available pool of talent, so as to demand the best efforts of all its' members.

The Future of Media?

In a day when most people have cameras in their cellphones that can capture video, filmmaking has become the new literacy. Some folks practice communicating with the moving image and create interesting views of everyday life. The Texan naturalist documentarians blazed the trail into what is possible, if one keeps a media record of events, then finds the thread of a story in it. Because the raw recordings are personal, so are the stories. The choice to record, or not to record, is personal. The telling of a story from it, is personal. The choice to view the finished product, is likewise personal, but is made by the prospective audience.

20^th Century propaganda films required sizable budgets and staffs of people to make them. They required political parties, governments, or corporations to fund them. Texan naturalism can be practiced by anyone with a camera, a subject, and an inquiring mind. Those media of yesteryear drew viewers, because there was nothing else to watch. The proliferation of media today, bring about the opposite challenge. In a world of five billion cellphones, most of which have cameras, it has become easier to collect images than it is to find anyone to view them.

With the number of people with Internet access exceeding 1 billion, it could be argued that the world has a billion potential novelists, with the power to self-publish their work electronically. Similarly, the argument is sometimes heard, that everyone could create the next Blair Witch Project and become famous, using the camera equipment at their disposal. Interestingly, that's not happening.

The ingredients of a Texan naturalist documentary are a camera, a subject, and an inquiring mind. The creation of artful imagery requires more than mere hardware. It requires purpose and resolve. It requires the full human experience of pathos and empathy. A camera and a white table and an actor sitting across it, were necessary preconditions to the making of Rashomon, but were insufficient, by themselves, to complete the directorial vision of Kurosawa...without Kurosawa's work, there would be no Rashomon.

And therein lies the tao of filmmaking. Wanting to be seen, and having something to show, are rarely coincident. The rise of electronic media has put the tools of the filmmaker's art in everyone's financial reach. But the talent and resolve to create great art, remain a rarity.

Those of lesser resolve and talent, create mediocre art, that still acquires the interest of specialized audiences. The TV program, America's Funniest Home Videos, rarely contains video that was shot to professional standards. Still and all, it draws an audience.

In forthcoming columns, I shall present some of today's visionaries, who are cultivating the future of video literacy.