One of the things I like to do when time allows is to just take the cameras out and shoot stock footage. Living in the mountains of Montana near Yellowstone National Park gives plenty of opportunity. The other day I went up into the Hyalite basin with our intern to get some morning shots of the sun light streaming through the trees in an area with a small creek running through. It was one of those mornings where no matter which direction you look, everything seems edenic. Beyond being out in the field, ...
I enjoy the process of looking. Because the camera can only capture a small part of the experience, it requires a lot of thought about what bit to capture and what bit to leave out so that the image will convey what we see with our mind, not just our eye, to interpret and relate the experience through the lens of a camera. To describe what we are trying to capture we use words like the heart or nature or essence of a thing.
In documentary we generally limit ourselves to capturing just what is there. The sound of the brook running by, the light on the forest floor, and the shadows in the bark of the trees. Our goal is to use these to convey the essence of what we see and what we feel. Feature filmmakers tend to go in the opposite direction. They add light to create mood, they add sound after the fact, they add scripts, and makeup, and costumes, and actors pretending to be someone they are not. It’s not bad, it’s just different.
And that is exactly “why documentary”. We chose the name Distill because that is what we strive to do. We want to distill a thing down to its heart, its nature, its essence and share that with viewers. We aren’t as drawn to artifice and make-believe as we are to authenticity and sincerity. In today’s media and advertisement saturated culture, we believe that we can best break past the cynicism of viewers by telling the truth. Heart, nature, and essence can also mean sincerity, authenticity, and truth and by telling the truth, telling the authentic story, by speaking to your audience with sincerity you show that you respect them as intelligent people with whom you want to engage in conversation. Respect is the first requisite for building a strong and long lasting relationship and relationships are the foundation of any solid business. And that is “Why Documentary.”