Barry Hampe’s Making Documentary Films and Videos reads less like a “practical guide” and more like a personal commentary on documentary making and on the industry politics. While it offers important information about “planning, filming, and editing documentaries” to new documentatrians, he often obscures his information under superfluous anecdotes and redundancy. He also goes off on tangents that either contradict or complicate his points. Finally, he defines and proves his point through self referential or circular logic.
Part of the problem is that he tries to come to a working definition of terms he uses in the text within the text. Take truth for example. He spends much of the book talking about “truth” and the centrality of “truth” in documentary. Hampe describes the documentarian as someone who “must seek truth, be able to recognize truth when they find it, and have the skill and integrity to present it to an audience” (142). Yet he never quite defines what truth means within the context of his book and his experiences (basically, his book), as if some indisputable comprehension of Truth exists. He uses these abstract (read: subjective) terms as if they are concrete objective concepts.
Part of the problem is that he tries to come to a working definition of terms he uses in the text within the text. Take truth for example. He spends much of the book talking about “truth” and the centrality of “truth” in documentary. Hampe describes the documentarian as someone who “must seek truth, be able to recognize truth when they find it, and have the skill and integrity to present it to an audience” (142). Yet he never quite defines what truth means within the context of his book and his experiences (basically, his book), as if some indisputable comprehension of Truth exists. He uses these abstract (read: subjective) terms as if they are concrete objective concepts.