Every story can be presented in a style that emphasizes veracity, but not
every story is suitable for such treatment. The first question you must
answer for yourself has to do with your sense of purpose for the story. Is
your goal concerned with politics, education, or information, as opposed to
entertainment? A second question has to do with the importance of the event
or person you are dramatizing. Was the event critical to history? Was the per-
son influential? If so, how is the event or person relevant to today’s audi-
ence? Finally, do you feel it is very important to share your view of this story
with the audience? How will it change their lives? How has it changed
yours? If the majority of your answers are affirmative, the docudrama may
very well be a useful approach to your story.
The Use of Character and Goal
Although the docudrama can proceed without a main character if it chroni-
cles an event, more often there is a main character, and that character does
have a goal. The difference between melodrama and docudrama is actually
one of point of view: how the main character and his or her goal is deployed.
In melodrama, we enter and experience the story through the main char-
acter. In docudrama, however, the point of view—or point of entry to the
story—is via the writer-director, whose point of view is not necessarily that
of the main character. In fact, the main character and his or her goal is sim-
ply the vehicle by which the writer-director presents his or her views on the
story. In Land and Freedom, Ken Loach wants to say something about ideal-
ism and about how realpolitik destroys the idealism that arises out of hope-
ful political ideology. He uses the main character and his consequent
disillusionment as the vehicle for that idea. In this film, the view of the
writer-director exists separately from the main character and his goal. The
main character and his goal become the lightning rod for the ideas of the
writer-director.
The Proximity of the Docudrama to the Documentary
Docudramas are organized dramatically in a manner closer to the documen-
tary than to the melodrama. The melodrama is organized on a three-act

a piece of reportage (Culloden). Another approach to the narrator is to use a
diarist. In Loach’s Land and Freedom, the letters of the main character docu-
ment the story.
Whether reporter or diarist, the framing device of a shared piece of
reportage or a recorded piece of personal history provides an entry point
into what is essentially historical material. The presence of the narrator helps
shape for the audience what might otherwise be difficult or inaccessible
material. The narrator is a useful device to structure the story.
This differs from the playwright’s approach to a real life event, such as the
Battle of Gallipoli. David Williamson’s treatment of events in the Peter Weir
film Gallipoli is very dramatic, and we do enter the story through the experi-
ence of two main characters. The treatment, however, is very different from
the narrator approach earlier described for the docudrama.
The second dimension to the structure of the docudrama is that it can be
shaped as a character-driven or a plot-driven narrative. Whichever is cho-
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sen, the narrative tends to have closure or resolution. In this sense, it differs
from melodrama, which can proceed either to an open-ended conclusion or
to resolution.
THE SHORT FILM
Having elaborated upon the features of the docudrama in the long film,
what is the balance between subject matter and style in the short film? Are
main character and goal, plot, and tone deployed in a manner that supports
the authorial voice? How much if any variance in tone does the short docu-
drama tolerate? These are questions to which we now turn.
Style in the Short Film
In the short film, the notion that you are watching a documentary is even
more critical than in the long film. Consequently, the deployment of jour-

narration, is the principal shaping device. It is here where the voice of the
author resides.
Tone
The tone will be emphatically realistic, with as much detail to emphasize
realism as possible. This may mean camera style, or it may mean an on-air
narrator speaking directly to the audience. The one exception is the mocku-
mentary, where the realism itself is undermined as the viewer gradually real-
izes that it is realism itself that is being attacked.
Case Study in Character
Matt Mailer’s The Money Shot chronicles a particular film project. The film-
maker is the central character. He is following two “street kids,” both
teenagers in trouble. The film opens with the male subject confessing to
killing people. He is charming but brutal and very candid about what he
does. The female subject also lives a marginalized life—alienated from her
mother, she supports herself by prostitution, and she is a drug user. The film-
maker also interviews the young woman’s mother and the young man’s
aunt. Both duck the realities of the two young people’s lives. Both refuse to
speak about matters too personal to them. In the course of the narrative, the
filmmaker crosses the line and gets personally involved with both young
people. The young woman overdoses on drugs, and the young man kills a
policeman while being filmed. The filmmaker is thrilled to get the incident
on film, but when threatened by the young man, who wants the incriminat-
ing footage, the filmmaker tries to call his bluff. The young man kills him
and takes the film.
The character of the filmmaker is presented first as relentlessly pursuing
the truth about life on the streets. Later we see he is a user, interested only in
exploiting the situation, the entrapped and dangerous lives of two young
people. His cynicism about people and his zeal for exploitation in the end
cost him his life.
Matt Mailer is very interested, as others have been (Oliver Stone, in

far away.
Besfamilny’s views about place infuse Brighton Blues and share with us a
profound sadness about displacement. This is her voice in Brighton Blues.
Cast Study in Plot
Ethan Spigland’s Strange Case of Balthazar Hyppolite tells the story of a film
archivist who finds some rare film footage by the filmmaker Balthazar
Hyppolite. The film predates the numerous technological discoveries that
helped create the film industry. Consequently, it is footage of considerable
historical importance. The balance of the film is devoted to searching and
reconstructing the footage. In the second part of the film, the main charac-
ter’s love interest in a fellow archivist is introduced. By the end, the

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