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Since you bring up raw livestream footage, a quality example of a documentary which is just livestream footage is Jesus Camp. It's quite fascinating because the

Since you bring up raw livestream footage, a quality example of a documentary which is just livestream footage is Jesus Camp. It's quite fascinating because the people who were filmed believe they are accurately represented (which they explicitly say in follow up interviews). But usually people that watch the film are horrified of the interviewees dogma. It's an interesting example of genuinely truthful documentarionism.

rjf72 8y ago
This seems like a really great litmus test. Documentaries usually tell a story of some event. If people that were on either 'side' of that event are relatively content with their representation then it's going to be a solid documentary. Feels like in some ways that documentaries are increasingly reflective of the division in society. There are documentaries on topics I agree with that I find absurd simply because they misrepresent the 'opposing' side to be a mixture of radicals, idiots, and the misinformed. The notion of mutually respected disagreement seems to be increasingly absent in society. Though even in things like Jesus Camp it falls into another fallacy. One group of outliers is implicitly taken to be representative of a larger group of individuals. My 'Jesus Camp' mostly involved messing with people while they were sleeping - dipping their hands in warm water, shaving cream on the hand then feather on the nose, etc. There were some sermons at the 'Tabernacle' and confession type stuff, but I have nothing but positive memories of it - even though I'm far from religious now a days.
- boomlinde 8y ago
  > If people that were on either 'side' of that event are relatively content with their representation then it's going to be a solid documentary. I don't believe that there are many people that would make particularly good judges of accuracy in their representation, and there are many divisive issues that just naturally make one side come out worse when the arguments are organized and laid out side by side. Instead, I find the opposite problem concerning: when flawed and obviously fallacious arguments are sugar coated and presented as legitimate alternatives to arguments that make sense, or when facts and falsehoods are presented as though they are both a matter of opinion and debate. This may be done in an attempt to appease to either side of an issue but IMO only serves to further the division. When I'm pro-skub and you're anti-skub, and skub has been proven to be harmful and the supposed benefits of skub have been proven to be hogwash, telling us that the facts are a matter of perspective and that both our opinions are valid is only going to further any division there might be between us. On your end because you understand it as a fact and not as an opinion, and on my end because now I simply think it's a matter of opinion and that my opinion is at least as valid as yours. > Though even in things like Jesus Camp it falls into another fallacy. One group of outliers is implicitly taken to be representative of a larger group of individuals. IMO the film was very clear about what it intended to depict. It focuses on a specific summer camp during one summer, events surrounding it and even more specifically on a few kids involved in it. That you take it to be representative of a larger group of individuals than those depicted in the film is not something I would blame the filmmakers for, but on the other hand perhaps a mistake that a lot of people would make easily.
  - trentlott 8y ago
    Right - how do you document some subgroup without one one trying to make it into a generalizable truth about something.
  - rjf72 8y ago
    I think few people believe things that have absolutely no justifiable basis behind them. Flat earthing, as perhaps some example of that, is in my opinion more about attention seeking behavior mixed with a bit of trolling than something people genuinely believe. But on normal issues, I think there are generally two sides to tell. And even if one side may be framed as being unjustified, so long as it is fairly represented I don't think people would generally take offense to it. The vaccination issue is a great example. I fully support vaccinations, but I also like to research all sides of issues and I was surprised to see how much of a difference there is between the way anti-vax types are popularly portrayed and their actual views. In general people simply castigate anti-vax as completely misinformed people who know absolutely nothing. This [1] is a rather monumental report from the National Academy of Sciences that took an extremely in depth look at this topic. In that 866 page report they analyze the data on correlations between vaccines and all sorts of nasty things. And one phrase you might find worth ctrl+fing is "The evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between". You'll find it repeated constantly throughout the report as the academy researchers come to their conclusion on the validity (or lack thereof) of a causal link between vaccines and all sorts of nasty stuff. And for many of these nasty correlations while the evidence is insufficient claim a causal link, it's also insufficient to reject it. Of course this does not justify turning against vaccinations. Even if there is a causal link found between vaccines and some of these various issues, the possibility of significant numbers of people choosing to not vaccinate would be catastrophic. For instance we're right now on the cusp of completely eliminating polio, much as we did smallpox. In fact you are currently more likely to get polio from a vaccine than in the wild. And some people might use that as a reason to stop vaccinating. But if they did, that would rapidly change. The one and only thing that's bringing us to where we are is people choosing to vaccinate. So it comes down to a matter of social responsibility. Vaccines are not without risk but whatever risk there is greatly outweighed by the collective benefits. So should you vaccinate? Absolutely. Yet I don't think any anti-vaxer would feel slighted by such comments. And I think you can provide a similarly fair treatment to most of all controversial issues today. The reason one side or another tends to think the other side is completely idiotic tends to get back to our divisions in society. People attribute disagreement on issues to stupidity or lack of knowledge without bothering to see why people feel the way they do. [1] - http://nationalacademies.org/HMD/Reports/2011/Adverse-Effects-of-Vaccines-Evidence-and-Causality.aspx http://nationalacademies.org/HMD/Reports/2011/Adverse-Effect...
tialaramex 8y ago
When you say "just livestream footage" do you mean it's actually unedited? I'd expect that to be a painful watch in most cases and not terribly informative. But the problem is once you edit, you unavoidably set a narrative by that process. Charlie Brooker (now most noted for "Black Mirror") years ago did a show "Screenwipe" which was a mixture of review show and factual pieces about how TV is made. One of the examples he shows is they got a bunch of people and shot "livestream footage" of them interacting, and then they took that one set of footage and re-edited it to produce different narratives. All the narratives seem like coherent understandings of things that actually happened - there is video footage after all, but all of the narratives are contrived in the edit suite and don't reflect reality. That's how "Reality Television" is made and it would apply to documentary footage - if it's edited, which it will be unless you're making slow TV (e.g. 4 hours of a man painting a wall or a woman knitting a scarf). The vibe you're talking about, in which an interview subject believes they were truthfully represented but an audience is horrified, is basically the MO of another UK TV presenter, Louis Theroux. But Theroux would never pretend the edit suite doesn't give him the power to choose a narrative.

rjf72 8y ago

This seems like a really great litmus test. Documentaries usually tell a story of some event. If people that were on either 'side' of that event are relatively content with their representation then it's going to be a solid documentary. Feels like in some ways that documentaries are increasingly reflective of the division in society. There are documentaries on topics I agree with that I find absurd simply because they misrepresent the 'opposing' side to be a mixture of radicals, idiots, and the misinformed. The notion of mutually respected disagreement seems to be increasingly absent in society. Though even in things like Jesus Camp it falls into another fallacy. One group of outliers is implicitly taken to be representative of a larger group of individuals. My 'Jesus Camp' mostly involved messing with people while they were sleeping - dipping their hands in warm water, shaving cream on the hand then feather on the nose, etc. There were some sermons at the 'Tabernacle' and confession type stuff, but I have nothing but positive memories of it - even though I'm far from religious now a days.

boomlinde 8y ago
> If people that were on either 'side' of that event are relatively content with their representation then it's going to be a solid documentary. I don't believe that there are many people that would make particularly good judges of accuracy in their representation, and there are many divisive issues that just naturally make one side come out worse when the arguments are organized and laid out side by side. Instead, I find the opposite problem concerning: when flawed and obviously fallacious arguments are sugar coated and presented as legitimate alternatives to arguments that make sense, or when facts and falsehoods are presented as though they are both a matter of opinion and debate. This may be done in an attempt to appease to either side of an issue but IMO only serves to further the division. When I'm pro-skub and you're anti-skub, and skub has been proven to be harmful and the supposed benefits of skub have been proven to be hogwash, telling us that the facts are a matter of perspective and that both our opinions are valid is only going to further any division there might be between us. On your end because you understand it as a fact and not as an opinion, and on my end because now I simply think it's a matter of opinion and that my opinion is at least as valid as yours. > Though even in things like Jesus Camp it falls into another fallacy. One group of outliers is implicitly taken to be representative of a larger group of individuals. IMO the film was very clear about what it intended to depict. It focuses on a specific summer camp during one summer, events surrounding it and even more specifically on a few kids involved in it. That you take it to be representative of a larger group of individuals than those depicted in the film is not something I would blame the filmmakers for, but on the other hand perhaps a mistake that a lot of people would make easily.
- trentlott 8y ago
  Right - how do you document some subgroup without one one trying to make it into a generalizable truth about something.
- rjf72 8y ago
  I think few people believe things that have absolutely no justifiable basis behind them. Flat earthing, as perhaps some example of that, is in my opinion more about attention seeking behavior mixed with a bit of trolling than something people genuinely believe. But on normal issues, I think there are generally two sides to tell. And even if one side may be framed as being unjustified, so long as it is fairly represented I don't think people would generally take offense to it. The vaccination issue is a great example. I fully support vaccinations, but I also like to research all sides of issues and I was surprised to see how much of a difference there is between the way anti-vax types are popularly portrayed and their actual views. In general people simply castigate anti-vax as completely misinformed people who know absolutely nothing. This [1] is a rather monumental report from the National Academy of Sciences that took an extremely in depth look at this topic. In that 866 page report they analyze the data on correlations between vaccines and all sorts of nasty things. And one phrase you might find worth ctrl+fing is "The evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between". You'll find it repeated constantly throughout the report as the academy researchers come to their conclusion on the validity (or lack thereof) of a causal link between vaccines and all sorts of nasty stuff. And for many of these nasty correlations while the evidence is insufficient claim a causal link, it's also insufficient to reject it. Of course this does not justify turning against vaccinations. Even if there is a causal link found between vaccines and some of these various issues, the possibility of significant numbers of people choosing to not vaccinate would be catastrophic. For instance we're right now on the cusp of completely eliminating polio, much as we did smallpox. In fact you are currently more likely to get polio from a vaccine than in the wild. And some people might use that as a reason to stop vaccinating. But if they did, that would rapidly change. The one and only thing that's bringing us to where we are is people choosing to vaccinate. So it comes down to a matter of social responsibility. Vaccines are not without risk but whatever risk there is greatly outweighed by the collective benefits. So should you vaccinate? Absolutely. Yet I don't think any anti-vaxer would feel slighted by such comments. And I think you can provide a similarly fair treatment to most of all controversial issues today. The reason one side or another tends to think the other side is completely idiotic tends to get back to our divisions in society. People attribute disagreement on issues to stupidity or lack of knowledge without bothering to see why people feel the way they do. [1] - http://nationalacademies.org/HMD/Reports/2011/Adverse-Effects-of-Vaccines-Evidence-and-Causality.aspx http://nationalacademies.org/HMD/Reports/2011/Adverse-Effect...

tialaramex 8y ago

When you say "just livestream footage" do you mean it's actually unedited? I'd expect that to be a painful watch in most cases and not terribly informative. But the problem is once you edit, you unavoidably set a narrative by that process. Charlie Brooker (now most noted for "Black Mirror") years ago did a show "Screenwipe" which was a mixture of review show and factual pieces about how TV is made. One of the examples he shows is they got a bunch of people and shot "livestream footage" of them interacting, and then they took that one set of footage and re-edited it to produce different narratives. All the narratives seem like coherent understandings of things that actually happened - there is video footage after all, but all of the narratives are contrived in the edit suite and don't reflect reality. That's how "Reality Television" is made and it would apply to documentary footage - if it's edited, which it will be unless you're making slow TV (e.g. 4 hours of a man painting a wall or a woman knitting a scarf). The vibe you're talking about, in which an interview subject believes they were truthfully represented but an audience is horrified, is basically the MO of another UK TV presenter, Louis Theroux. But Theroux would never pretend the edit suite doesn't give him the power to choose a narrative.