We’ve often talked about documentary video on this site and the one thing that we’ve stressed time and again is that a documentary topic does not need to be “big” to be good. Many readers look at documentaries like Ken Burns’ Civil War and assume that all documentaries need to be similarly epic sagas. But sometimes smaller stories have even more potential to really speak to people.

For example, take Cassi Glisper’s Next Tooth One Mile, a documentary about what it’s like to live with a gap between your front teeth. Cassi, an independent filmmaker with a decade of experience in short films, hit on the idea when she started doing research into dental options for her own gap. She’d lived her whole life hating her gap, but it was only when she decided to fix it that she really started thinking about what a gap represented.

It’s an intriguing idea for a movie. And one that could grab the interest of any viewer — I don’t have a gap myself, but, having some crooked snaggleteeth, I was immediately eager to hear what people would say to Cassi. In some ways, it’s a perfect documentary subject because it’s something you hardly even think about until someone pointed it out. Audiences have agreed, and the film took home honors at the 2009 International Film Festival Ireland and the 2010 Swansea Bay Film Festival in Wales.

“I planned interview sessions in public areas around the country with the intention to get as many perspectives and insight into the world of gappers,” said Cassi. “I knew that meeting real people and hearing of their human experience would shape the outline for the film,” said Cassi. “On weekends, I would hit the street with my video camera, a friend, and a small sign that read, ‘Got a gap, I want talk to you.’ While out, I looked at the mouths of those passing by. If they had a gap, I would ask if I could interview them for my documentary. Ninety-eight percent of those I asked agreed to be interviewed. I confess that New Yorkers were my toughest audience.”

Cassi’s interviews turned up some surprising results. While she had assumed that most people would hate their gaps, she found that about half of her respondents actually enjoyed having gap teeth. Most people would laugh at first when she explained her project, but quickly became excited at the chance to She interviewed gappers across the United States in California, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, and Georgia, as well as overseas while on vacation in France and Kenya.

“Gappers in the United Stated had varying opinions about their gaps,” said Cassi. “Some felt that society thought they were from a poorer class because they didn’t get their gap closed. Others felt that their gap gave them a unique look, and they liked looking different – not like everyone else. But in Africa, having a gap is a BEAUTIFUL thing. Those with gaps are considered lucky. There are some people who try to drill a space between their teeth so that they can join this lucky group of gappers.”

One of the trickiest aspects of a documentary is always the man-on-the-street interview. It’s relatively easy to get a person to speak with you when you’ve arranged an interview in advance — they know who you are, what you’re doing, have reviewed your credentials and generally know what to expect. Not so when you’re approaching a random stranger! Cassi took a unique approach to set her subjects at ease. She would show them a picture of herself before she had her own gap fixed. This made them more comfortable with me. Most gap-toothed Americans could relate to her ambivalent feelings about her own gap, but the reaction was very different when she showed her old photos to people in Kenya.

“They couldn’t believe that I closed it,” said Cassi. “I remember one guy in particular saying, ‘Cassi, why did you do it? Why did you close the gap? It was beautiful! You could marry a great guy here.’ ”

After completing Next Tooth One Mile, Cassi is working on a feature script, entitled Rice & Gravy, about a friendship between two 13-year-old loners — a third generation Japanese American girl who moves to the deep south from California after her grandparents’ experience in a WWII Japanese interment camp and an African American girl from a long line of southerners.

You can learn more about Producer/Director/Writer/DP Cassi Glisper and her movies at her website.

What’s Your Video Style? Take this quiz for fun and see what style of video best suits your personality. Agree or disagree with your results? Tell us why below!

1) What’s your Favorite thing about putting together a video?

A) I like working in a nice quiet studio, where I can devote all my attention to my work.

B) I like working with video tools and equipment. I’m a real hardware fanatic!

C) I like working with people. They fascinate me!

D) I like creating an ambiance, something that will really draw the audience into the movie!

E) I like the action. I’m not happy unless I’m in the center of the storm!

F) I like the chance to be creative, to experiment with new ideas!

2) What’s the most important thing you look for when you watch a video?

A) I look to see how well it’s technically put together. I appreciate good craftsmanship.

B) It has to look good! People aren’t going to watch it if it looks like it was made by amateurs.

C) I like a good story, something to really make me care about the people on the screen.

D) A good soundtrack! A movie is boring if it doesn’t have a some tunes!

E) I want to see real people in real situations! I want to see how things really happened.

F) Did it teach me something new? I always want to add to my knowledge!

3) If you could pick anyplace in the world to shoot a video, would you choose to shoot:

A) The Great Barrier Reef in Australia?

B) The Roman Catacombs in Italy?

C) The Great Pyramids of Egypt?

D) The Oktoberfest Celebration in Germany?

E) The Running of the Bulls in Spain?
F) Bodie Ghost Town in California?

4) How would you describe yourself?

A) Meticulous and Logical!

B) Dark and Mysterious!

C) An Avid Story-teller!

D) Epic, Bigger than Life!

E) A Romantic at Heart!
F) Curious and Restless!

5) What’s your Biggest Reward in Making Video?

A) The Satisfaction of a Job Well Done.

B) The Appreciation of an Audience

C) Making a difference in the way people see the world.

D) The Chance to do Something Challenging and Creative

E) Seeing People’s Faces when they see themselves in your video

F) Seeing your Work on the Big Screen.

If you answered mostly A, you are an EDITOR. Shooting video is fun, but you have a real appreciation for the craft and artistry that comes afterward. You know that every snip and splice has the potential to make a story come to life, and there’s nothing you like better than turning that raw footage into something compelling.

If you answered mostly B, you are a LIGHTING FANATIC. You know that a video isn’t worth anything if you can’t tell what’s going on in it. Your standards for lighting are strict and your videos benefit from your attention to detail. Whether it’s creating a noir atmosphere with shadows or illuminating an interview subject, you know that lighting is key to interesting, engrossing videos. You’re always up to meet the challenges that other videographers forget to prepare for.

If you answered mostly C, you are a DOCUMENTARIAN. You love story telling and you can find the story in anything. Whether it’s something as small and silly as a nature film about salamanders or as heart-felt and personal as a family biography, you’re aces at finding those telling moments that illustrate the big picture. You love exploring human drama and you’re not shy about capturing the best – and worst– with your camera.

If you answered mostly D, you are a SOUND FANATIC. You’re the person people turn to when they need to capture the soft sounds of birdsong or muffle out the interrupting din from the nearby highway, because you understand how important sound is. When you do your job right, the results are practically invisible. Audiences may not realize why they like your videos, that your perfectly-synced sound effects and carefully selected music are what’s pulling them in, but you know the secret. You’re always up to meet the challenges that other videographers forget to prepare for.

If you answered mostly E, you are an EVENT VIDEOGRAPHER. You’re a daredevil; you like being right in the middle of the action. You don’t shirk from a challenge and you’re not afraid to take on assignments where you only have one shot to get it right – weddings, celebrations, speeches, anything where there’s a vortex of activity, you’ll be there with your camera in hand. Action is your watchword!

If you answered mostly F, you are a JACK OF ALL TRADES. You’re always exploring, always searching for something new. You never accept that you’ve learned enough, and you’re always striving to improve your video-making skills. Your creativity and inquisitiveness show through in your videos, which are continuously changing and maturing.

For tips and tricks with all sorts of video, join Videomaker‘s  eNews electronic newsletter, chock full of the info and advice you crave, it’s just what you need to satisfy that nagging curiosity.

Many would-be documentarians get trapped into thinking that only sweeping, epic topics are acceptable fodder for documentaries.  They just get stuck in that Ken Burns’ Civil War mode of thinking.  We’ve written quite a few times that doesn’t have to be the case, that you can find the thread of a good documentary story in even seemingly trivial events and mundane lives.  In fact, that’s often where you find the most interesting documentaries!  Small scale documentaries are easier to fund (always a concern for the indie video creator), but more importantly they also often have an intimacy with their subjects that can get lost on more ambitious documentaries.  If you don’t believe me, take a look at the top five documentaries that investigated some weird topics that most people would not have guessed could sustain a whole movie — and came out with masterpieces.

1 The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007) – A good documentary is all about interesting characters and human drama. If you can find those two things in your topic, you know you’ve got something with potential.  And you should never underestimate humans’ ability to invest even the most mundane things with profound meaning.  Take video games, for example.  The King of Kong follows video game enthusiast Steve Wiebe as he attempts to best the high score of world “Donkey Kong” champion Billy Mitchell. Most people would hardly think that a movie about two men fighting over a video game could be riveting, but this documentary makes Wiebe’s quest so sympathetic that it’s hard not to root for him to win!

2 American Movie (1999) — Film fanatic Mark Borchardt dreams of making a big Hollywood blockbuster — despite the fact that he lives in the middle of nowhere, Wisconsin.  “American Movie” follows Borchardt as he cobbles together his break-out horror feature “Coven” by hook or by crook.  The film mines a lot of humor from its cast of laconic midwestern locals, who all look upon Borchardt’s obsession with bemused sympathy, but it never treats them as a joke. While on one level “American Movie” is the story of one eccentric director, it also becomes the story of all people who struggled to achieve  an “impossible” dream.

3 Bob Smith USA (2005) – This documentary explores something so ordinary that it almost sounds like a joke. Neil Abramson picked the most common, run-of-the-mill name that he could think of, Bob Smith, and then interviewed seven wildly different men with that name, including a yoga instructor, a junk collector, a Christian minister who preaches at children’s birthday parties dressed as a clown and an evangelical atheist who attends cocktail parties dressed as the devil.  The result is a strange and hilarious cross-section of Americana that tells us more about the country’s rich and varied character than you would have thought possible from a documentary about a name!

4 In the Realms of the Unreal (2004) – During his life, Henry Darger was a reclusive janitor in a Chicago hospital.  But in the privacy of his own apartment, Darger created reams of incredible fantasy collages depicting a parallel universe where  children fought a constant war against evil monsters and, oddly, confederate soldiers.  Through both interviews with his neighbors and excerpts from Darger’s journals, the film struggles to understand what compelled Darger to paint such strange but compelling images — and helps us to understand how the act of creation gives our lives a greater purpose.

5 Winnebago Man (2009) – You may already know Jack Rebney as the viral video sensation “Angry Winnebago Man.”  In the mid-80s, Rebney appeared as a pitchman in a series of promotional videos for Winnebago RVs, but it was the out-takes — in which a frustrated Rebney constantly breaks out in bizarre profanity whenever he flubs a line — that captured people’s imaginations.  The videos spread like wildfire over the Internet.  Austin documentarian Ben Steinbauer was fascinated by the clips and sought out to track Rebney down to find out what he was like in person and what he thought of his unexpected fame.  He was surprised to find Rebney living in secluded cabin in northern California.  What could have been exploitative instead turns out to be a fascinating portrait of a man struggling under the burden of unexpected celebrity.

Those are just a few examples of the subjects that can be fertile soil for a good documentary.  You can probably think of many more, just by looking around you.  Still having some difficulty thinking of a topic? Take a look at Videomaker‘s Documentary Storytelling to get some more hints. (Or for more info on the full process, check out Videomaker‘s full Documentary Production series. )

Have you ever had an idea for a documentary, but didn’t know where to start? Learn how to make a documentary with Videomaker’s upcoming Documentary Production Webinar. We will help you obtain the knowledge you will need to organize your documentary, tell your story effectively, and improve your chances for distribution success. With the proper techniques applied to your documentary, you can affect how the viewer perceives the issue while increasing the overall impact of your documentary.

Following the presentation, all registrants will receive a copy of our special report Mastering the Documentary Interview. In addition to valuable information and a free special report this event will also include a live Q&A segment; our team answering your questions. Videomaker’s Documentary Production Webinar starts at 11:00 AM (PST) on Wednesday, October 19th, so be sure to sign up soon!

Not interested in Documentary Production? Videomaker’s weekly Webinar Training Series is taught by our experts and features a wide variety of video production and post production topics including Advanced Shooting, Green Screen and Special Effects, Advanced Editing, Lighting for Video, and much more.

One of the greatest things about watching a documentary is seeing the world through the eyes of another. The greatest thing about making a documentary is being able to bring that enriching experience to people everywhere.

Over the last decade the documentary genre has significantly increased in popularity, with topics covering everything from a person who eats too much McDonald’s (Super Size Me) to a person who feels strongly about national health care (Sicko). There are documentaries about people in wheel chairs who play contact sports (Murderball), people battling it out for the highest score in Donkey Kong (The King of Kong), soldiers battling to survive in war zones (Gunner Palace), and even one about a man and his wild parrots (The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill). When taking a look at popular documentaries it becomes quite obvious that, as far as topics are concerned, anything goes. What makes the documentary memorable are the characters within the story.

When choosing your topic, consider not only the subject you’d like to explore, but the people affected by it. Every story needs a main character, someone the audience can follow throughout the movie, someone they can relate to, love or hate, but most importantly, someone they can learn from. Failure to expose the thoughts and emotions of the affected persons within your documentary will leave your movie feeling flat and your message lacking impact.

The most important factor to consider when choosing a topic for your documentary is making sure it’s something you’re interested in. The path to a great documentary is a bumpy one with unexpected turns and roadblocks. Often the only thing that keeps you trucking down that path is your passion for the topic and your desire to share the experience with the entire world.

For more ideas on choosing a topic for your documentary check out Documentary Truth.

Interested in more tips on making documentaries? Sign up for Videomaker’s free Documentary Course. This free tip series is designed to help you improve your video production skills, fast. Learn More.

Ever since the early 1900s, Hollywood has been known for its motion picture production, big-name studios and A-list filmmakers. However, mid-century, behind all of the glitz, glamour and attention that most in the film industry were receiving, there was a group of filmmakers who had to keep their work a secret.

Their studio, located in the Hollywood Hills, required top-secret clearance and “consisted of a complete stage, two screening rooms, a helicopter landing pad, a bomb shelter and 17 climate controlled film vaults as well as two underground parking garages. The studio could process both 35mm and 16mm motion pictures.” Their assignment? To film nuclear test explosions being conducted in Nevada and in the Pacific.

According to the New York Times, “When originally made, the films served as vital sources of information for scientists investigating the nature of nuclear arms and their destructiveness. Some movies also served as tutorials for federal and Congressional leaders.”

The filmmakers, placed only two miles from the blasts in some cases, witnessed the destructiveness first hand. One of the cinematographers later recalled that the cameras had to be rolling before the detonation took place. Otherwise, he said the blinding flash “would burn the film and jam the film gate.” They were so close in one instance that the blast knocked a cinematographer and his camera to the ground.

In addition to risking their lives in order to forever capture a piece of American history on film, some historians credit the secret corp of filmmakers with testing numerous technologies that are used in film today “including advanced lenses and cameras, films and projection techniques.”

Since the declassification of some of the footage, their work can now be seen in a variety of documentaries as well as government sites such as the U.S. Department of Energy, and of course YouTube. Thanks to the filmmakers who were willing to risk their own lives to chronicle the events, the videos give insight to the turbulent past and provide a sober reminder of the destructive power of nuclear weapons.

*Photo courtesy of National Nuclear Security Administration / Nevada Site Office