Blog Post Five

Working on a documentary while also being part of it creates a tension I didn’t fully understand until I was inside it. I’m not just telling a story, I’m also in the story. That means I’m constantly shifting between two roles: the one who experiences and the one who constructs how that experience is seen.

This dynamic is widely discussed in documentary theory, especially around the idea of reflexivity. According to Bill Nichols, documentary filmmakers are never truly invisible. In Introduction to Documentary, he explains that the presence of the filmmaker always shapes the narrative, through framing, editing, and decision-making. Even when trying to be objective, there is always a point of view embedded in the film.

But when the filmmaker is also the subject, that boundary becomes even more complicated.

Scholars like Stella Bruzzi argue that documentaries are not purely records of reality, but performative acts. In New Documentary, she suggests that reality in documentaries is often constructed through the interaction between filmmaker and subject. In my case, that interaction is internal, I’m negotiating with myself. There are moments where I have to decide:

Do I respond honestly in the moment, or do I think about how this will translate on camera?

That question alone changes the experience. It introduces a layer of awareness that wouldn’t exist otherwise. I’m not just feeling something, I’m also thinking about how that feeling will be edited, framed, and understood by an audience.

This connects to what Michael Renov describes as the subjective nature of documentary, particularly in personal or autobiographical work. In The Subject of Documentary, he emphasizes that documentaries often reveal as much about the filmmaker as they do about the subject. When those roles overlap, the film becomes a space of self-construction as much as documentation.

What I find most interesting is the loss of a clear “authentic” moment. If I’m aware of the camera, and aware that I control the final cut, am I still reacting naturally? Or am I shaping my reactions in real time?

In my documentary, this tension becomes part of the work itself. Instead of trying to hide the fact that I’m both producer and participant, I’m starting to see it as something to explore. The awkwardness, the hesitation, the moments where I feel split between roles, those might actually be the most honest parts.

So rather than asking, how do I remove myself from the documentary?
I’m asking, what happens when I fully acknowledge that I can’t?

https://www.kufunda.net/publicdocs/Bill_Nichols___Introduction_to_documentary-1-3and6.pdf

https://www.scribd.com/document/102067642/The-Performative-Documentary

https://archive.org/details/subjectofdocumen0000reno