From the triumph of love in the Antarctic to the tragic fall of
Enron, documentary films have lately proved they can be just as
dramatic and successful as Hollywood fare.
“It is just the most amazing time right now for
documentary film,” said Joan Churchill, who recently became
the first pure documentary cinematographer inducted into the
American Society of Cinematographers, and received the Lifetime
Achievement Award for Cinematography from the International
Documentary Association last December.
Churchill is also the first documentary filmmaker and the first
woman to be selected as UCLA’s Kodak Cinematographer in
Residence. Her work can be seen at tonight’s screening of
“Punishment Park,” for which she was the director of
photography; the screening will be followed by a Q&A session.
Her other credits include over 50 nonfiction works, including
“Jimi Plays Berkeley,” a music film made with Jimi
Hendrix, the award-winning “Aileen: Life and Death of a
Serial Killer,” “Soldier Girls” and “Lily
Tomlin.”
“(Current documentary films) are starting to show that
documentaries can be entertaining; they don’t have to be
boring films,” she said, citing Michael Moore
(“Fahrenheit 9/11″) and Morgan Spurlock (“Super
Size Me”) among the filmmakers who have begun to demonstrate
the money-making power and popular appeal of documentary features
in recent years.
Since the Kodak Cinematographer in Residence program was
initiated in 2000 by William McDonald, chairman of UCLA’s
cinematography department, the slate of cinematographers has
included prolific greats such as Roger Deakins (“Shawshank
Redemption,” “The Big Lebowski”) and Laszlo
Kovacs (“Ghostbusters,” “Say
Anything”).
“The goal is to help bring together the worlds of
professional and academic cinematography, which have historically
been very divided,” McDonald said. “When I was a film
student, access to professional cinematographers was almost
impossible.”
A graduate of UCLA’s undergraduate film program, McDonald
was also the first student to achieve a master’s in
cinematography from UCLA. After working in the field, including
documentary work, he returned to UCLA in hopes of bridging the gap
between professionals and students.
“I want to not only bring the top cinematographers to
UCLA, but also to give the opportunity for these top-ranked
cinematographers to see the talent and passion of the next
generation,” he said.
Churchill began her residence Saturday, starting off a series of
workshops, screenings and seminars discussing the role of the
cinematographer in nonfiction work. Students figure to gain
exposure to the techniques and philosophy of the ever-expanding
genre of documentary filmmaking.
According to McDonald, with the steady rise of the documentary
film and reality television markets, there has been a larger demand
for cinematographers able to shoot unscripted material. Students
more familiar with and skilled in vérité, or documentary,
filming techniques are thus more prepared for job
opportunities.
As the first woman chosen for the program, Churchill also
represents a dramatic shift in the cinematography profession. When
she attended and graduated from UCLA’s film program in the
1960s, female shooters were unheard of. Now, more than half of the
UCLA cinematography students are women.
“I didn’t think of myself as being a shooter because
there wasn’t such thing as a female shooter in those days. So
it just didn’t seem like an option to me,” she
said.
Despite a background in photography and obvious talent for her
craft, Churchill first pursued an editing career before becoming a
cinematographer.
“My teachers said, “˜You have a good eye; you should
keep doing this.’ And it was my friends, fellow UCLA
students, who started hiring me to shoot their films,” she
said.
After working with her colleagues as they began to become
professional directors, Churchill’s big break came when
English director Paul Watkins came to Los Angeles searching for a
talented cinematographer on an extremely low budget. Colin Young,
dean of UCLA’s film department at the time, recommended
Churchill, and based on clips of her work, Watkins found his
match.
The result was 1971’s “Punishment Park,” a
“fictional documentary” presented as a TV news
crew’s coverage of Vietnam anti-war protestors given the
choice of either going to jail or running 50 miles across the
California desert as practice for the police and soldiers who
tracked them down.
“It was a pretty intense experience. Not only was it
really hot, but we had real Black Panthers being chased across the
desert by real policemen,” Churchill said. “The lunch
breaks were the most interesting.”
Using mostly nonactors, improvisation, minimal crew and 16mm
format, Watkins’ controversial film appeared to be real to
American audiences.
“People thought it was a documentary because it was people
really expressing themselves from the heart. And because of the way
it was shot. I really never knew what was going to happen,”
Churchill said.
Churchill was never privy to rehearsals, and every take was
different. Her unique style of vérité cinematography
began to show.
“”˜Punishment Park’ is a nice transition
between our last six years of dramatic film and this year,”
McDonald said of Churchill’s contrast with the last six
cinematographers in residence. “It is not a mockumentary,
it’s not a pseudo-documentary ““ it is a narrative film
in which the camera work is pure documentary.”
The film also played a key role in developing the style that
Churchill and her husband, esteemed sound mixer Alan Barker, call
“experiential filmmaking.”
When Churchill attended film school, the technological
development of the on-the-shoulder camera fueled a revolution of
creativity. Now, the decreasing size of the high-quality camera has
fueled Churchill’s entire experiential philosophy.
“Because of these little cameras you can kind of
participate in whatever little subculture you are working yourself
into, which wasn’t possible with bigger cameras,” she
said.
She also argues that keeping crew to an absolute minimum is
necessary to maintain a proper dynamic between subject and
filmmaker.
“The more people there are, especially standing around,
the more you, the filmmakers, become the center of
attention,” she said.
And, after becoming one of the strongest and most influential
forces in the realm of nonfiction filmmaking, Churchill never
considers pursuing the path of narrative film.
“Documentary filmmaking is lots of fun. It’s a great
excuse to travel around the world and not be a tourist, to have
incredibly intense experiences with people who let you into their
lives. I like to understand what makes people tick and understand
different cultures,” she said.
Churchill is currently working on a film about the Dixie Chicks,
as well as a hybrid film project with Ted Danson, which involves
three types of cameras, a combination of improvisation and
documentary, and both real people and actors.
“With this style of vérité shooting, I’m
just trying to follow the action. I’m not in control of
what’s going to happen and I don’t know what’s
going to happen,” Churchill said. “I’m just
trying to anticipate, be a really good listener, and capture that
on my camera.”