Four answers your audience needs
Sugarcane
Sugarcane covers the tragedy of Canadian Indians at the hands of the residential school system. But how do you bring viewers into that experience?
The answer is in the question: you let them experience it.
Sugarcane, directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, opens with the location the film will explore. The sounds of nature bring us in a statue of Mary and Jesus, standing in the middle of a field. We see old buildings, we feel the atmosphere of the valley where the school is.
Then text begins to explain the situation, that in 1894 the school system resolved to “get rid of the Indian problem.” This place of tranquility is disrupted by the black-and-white statement of violence against a people group.
The filmmakers then bring us into news clips. Thank God for news, because it gives documentary filmmakers a tool that is archival and also clearly states what is happening: 215 unmarked graves have been found.
Within the first five minutes, essential things have happened for the audience:
Where: We have felt the location. We know its sounds, its peace, its beauty.
What: Something terrible has happened here: a system set out to get rid of a problem.
When: Over 100 years later, that truth is being uncovered.
When I watched this, I was gripped. I was pulled in. I knew where the story was going, and as hard as the truth sounded I knew the story was being told by expert tellers who will handle journey well.
The only thing remaining was to know was Who would be telling the story.
Sugarcane progresses to a wood carver working as a man (we’ll come to meet him soon) drives to the location. His phone call tells us who we will journey with in this story: “I’m looking at the place you were born.”
This won’t be an analytical telling. This will be intimate and personal. A son exploring his father’s history.
These are questions as old as journalism: who, what, where, and when. How you answer them, in what order, and when, marks your film as yours.
Tips
Before you start making your film, answer these four basic questions: Who is your film about? What will the film explore? Where does it take place? When does it take place? This will help guide your choices and filming as you create your film.
Schedule time to explore answering these questions in editing. Sometimes you don’t lock the film’s opening until the very end; I once worked on a documentary for 3.5 years and I re-cut the opening multiple times. You need time and space to try options and see which order and timing works best for your film.