Documentary production studies have mainly focused on the production of docu-mentaries in a television context (Silverstone 1985; Dornfeld 1998; Kilborn and Izod 1997), which, considering the long and solid tradition of documentaries broadcast on television in the UK, is not surprising. Within television’s chain of command, documentary directors/producers have to answer to commissioning editors, series editors or the head of factual production, and at the end the documentary has to fill a certain slot within the schedule. These organizational differences obviously influ-ence the constraints and possibilities of the director and producer in a variety of ways.
Production procedures of feature documentaries might be comparable to those of television documentary, but the relations of power involved are significantly different. These, I will argue, influence the final text in important ways.
Debates in media studies seem to emphasize the big media conglomerates (Cottle 2003; Tunstall 1994). As Hesmondhalgh has argued (2002, 2006) the predicted Americanization of media conglomerates has not taken place, as localized media production has proliferated and has become stronger. In 1999, Leadbeater concluded that the cultural independents were taking on an increasing share of the employment and output of some of the fastest growing sectors in the British economy, growing at twice the rate as the economy as a whole. The independents are a driving force. These small companies do not produce the lion’s share of the films in the UK, but they are important for the number of people they employ (Hesmondhalgh 2002) and the possibilities they offer for aspiring directors, writers and producers. Research by Beacham (1999) among students at Goldsmiths College, London concluded that most students who had finished their degrees in media studies ended up in small independent production companies for their first jobs.
You know, new talent can only come through because people take a risk on those people but the only people who are doing that is the independent production companies, I guess
(Producer 1, May 2005).
In the case of documentary production, for instance, the much discussed documen-tary ‘boom’ (Austin 2007) of recent years – including highly successful films such as Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Bowling for Columbine (2003), and Super Size Me (2005) all of which originated in the US, and Touching the Void (2003) from the UK – has led to more documentaries being produced and released for cinema distribution in the USA, Europe and the UK (Arthur 2005; Vicente in this volume). These mainly US developments seem to have paved the way for some financiers and distributors in the UK to finance documentaries in what could be described as the traditional fiction field of production. The UK Film Council, a major investor in fiction films, has also taken on investment in feature documentary:
We [UK Film Council] were set up 6 years ago. As a New Cinema fund, there was no remit to make or finance feature documentaries initially, it was solely feature films … The head of the New Cinema Fund, and myself, decided to invest in feature documentaries. The first one we invested in was Hoover Street 136 WILMA DE JONG
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Revival. Then this kick-started that process and became more significant. I guess in those terms we started very small, more of a completion fund. Now we generally as a rule of thumb do two feature documentaries a year – one to two a year.
(Representative of New Cinema Fund, UK Film Council, May 2006) Deep Water was submitted for funding by APT Films, a small independent production company in London. The film tells the story of the Sunday Times-sponsored 1968 Golden Globe Race; a solo, non-stop circumnavigation sailing race. This major sailing challenge attracted sailors, adventurers and those seduced by the possibility of winning £5000. The race has become famous because of the sailor Donald Crowhurst, who notoriously ‘conned’ the media about his ‘winning’ position in the Atlantic Ocean. The newspapers heralded his achievements, but after some months of silence his boat was picked up 1,200 miles from Madeira and Crowhurst was assumed to have committed suicide. Of the nine entries Robin Knox-Johnston was the only finisher and won the prize but donated the money to Crowhurst’s widow and children.
The producers and some of the financiers of Deep Water also felt that the times were in their favour and that the success of Touching the Void shaped the possibilities for Deep Water:
I remember coming off the tube and seeing a poster for Touching the Void and I remember thinking, OK – here’s the first big adventure feature documentary with a proper budget and if that does well, we’ll be fine.
(Producer 2, April 2005) The UK Film Council, who also funded Touching the Void, made a clear link between the two films:
My pitch on it at the time, to attract financiers’ interest, was to say ‘It’s Touching the Void on the seven seas.’ You know, it’s action adventure, danger, all of that. That was what came to my mind when I saw the archive I thought, that’s what it is. And I think it’s that kind of audience, who are into sport, who are real sea-faring enthusiasts.
(UK Film Council, May 2006) Channel Four, working within a completely different remit as a broadcaster than the other financiers, was doubtful about the commercial potential of the Deep Water theatrically but had other reasons to co-fund the film:
I mean, one of the big reasons to this [commissioning] was that the family had agreed to talk. They had never spoken before. Clare Crowhurst and the son and the daughter had never ever contributed to any programme about Crowhurst before. So that’s a massive factor. For the first time, we’re in a position to make the Crowhurst documentary.
(Commissioning editor, Channel 4, June 2006) Although research for the production of Deep Water started before Touching the Void had been released, it was clear that documentary production was gaining momentum around this time and that Touching the Void has been more than an inspiration, as PRODUCING DEEP WATER 137
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most parties made direct comparisons with the documentary. It could be argued that a few big successes led to acceleration in documentary production and Deep Water was developed in just that period of 2003–4.
APT Films was set up in the 1980s and was part of the workshop movement initiated and encouraged by Channel 4. The background of APT Films still remains recognizable in the films they produce and most films have a ‘social engagement edge’. But the company has successfully adapted its interests to contemporary market demands as a wide range of prizes for its films may indicate. APT Films, in line with its social engagement background, offered a different reading and analysis of Crowhurst’s story, which led to a film concept in which it was not his ‘conning’
nature that was emphasized but what he had in common with a possible audience:
I think basically people categorized him as a cheat and a conman and I think it’s much more interesting to recognize that he was a person who responded, you know, like we all do, to a set of pressures that he experienced … In some ways he’s a sort of anti-hero … you need to feel that you, you may well go there yourself.
(Director 1, May 2005) Crucially, this approach encouraged Crowhurst’s widow and children to give permis-sion to film their story, use their archive and to be interviewed for the film. Without doubt, a documentary such as Deep Water could not have been realized without this essential permission. One cannot underestimate the skills involved to manage such contacts; after all, the filmmaker roams around in the world of the family’s intimate life history. This link between the storyline and the gaining of permission demon-strates the intrinsic relationship between production methods and text in documen-tary production.
For financiers, both in the public and commercial sector, a combination of creative and financial factors played a role in the commissioning process of Deep Water:
Obviously we would always be attracted to a project in the first instance creatively. And then we would run various different systems of assessment, we would run numbers based on international sales, comparison films, what our level of equity input would be, and see how we can either pre-sell or do broadcasting deals or – there are so many different ways that we can ‘cut it’ if you like.
(Pathé, financier and distributor, July 2006) Although comparisons between Touching the Void and Deep Water may seem obvious and understandable as both documentaries address risk and adventure, the difference in documentary representation makes the comparison problematic. After all Touching the Void was a re-enactment of a story with interviews with the actual climbers involved in the original event, while Deep Water consists mainly of archive material and interviews with family and friends of the deceased protagonist. Archive material, shot with different intentions and in different circumstances, by its nature would never be able to create the same dramatic tension as a purposely shot dramatized story.
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One producer commented on this difference early in the production process:
Our film is very different because all our footage, or most of it, is going to be real … it’s not reconstruction. So that’s probably the difference between Touching the Void and our film and why Touching the Void works probably is because it works as a fiction film, and our film will have to work on quite a different level.
(Producer 2, May 2005)
Co-production
Within the field of cultural production, power relations between independent companies are played out partly in terms of which company has the symbolic capital to enter the competition for public as well as commercial finances. The symbolic capital – prestige, status and reputation – acts as a structuring device in the field, but it is acquired capital, which means it can also be lost. The originator of the film was very aware of her lack of ‘symbolic capital’ within the hierarchy of the field, and approached APT Films to co-produce this film:
You know Stir-Fried Films1 came to us [APT Films] because we have the relationships that were needed to make that film happen. I mean, we too have been to bigger film companies as well to more experienced producers.
(Producer 1, June 2005) There seems to be a continuously changing tiered system operating in the independ-ent production field, where smaller companies will approach more experienced and bigger companies to co-produce films. They can then make use of the track record of the more experienced producers at these companies who also approach the major independents for certain projects. This means that the field is in a constant state of flux. To a certain extent, the field reorganizes itself depending on feasible ideas for films that emerge.