Do Right By Them: An Analysis of Ethical Dilemmas in Documenting Trauma
MSc Dissertation in Global Media : The London School of Economics and Political Science (2024)
ABSTRACT
This dissertation explores the ethical challenges filmmakers face when documenting trauma, focusing on the concept of duty of care toward their subjects. Through a series of interviews with filmmakers and an analysis of theoretical literature on ethics in media, this study examines how filmmakers conceptualize and navigate their responsibilities to those who have experienced significant emotional or physical harm. The research delves into the complexities of portraying traumatic experiences, considering the potential psychological and social consequences for the subjects involved. Key questions addressed include: How do filmmakers balance the need for authenticity and storytelling with the imperative to protect their subjects from harm? What strategies are employed to mitigate negative impacts on individuals who have endured trauma?
The findings reveal a spectrum of approaches to ethical filmmaking, ranging from those that prioritize the narrative to those that place the subject’s well-being at the forefront. The study highlights the moral dilemmas inherent in the documentary process, emphasizing the importance of a compassionate and considered approach. Ultimately, this research contributes to the ongoing discourse on ethical standards in documentary filmmaking, advocating for a framework that prioritizes the dignity and care of trauma survivors. This dissertation underscores the necessity for filmmakers to "do right by them"—to engage in practices that respect and uphold the humanity of those whose stories they tell.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................... 1
INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................. 3
THEORETICAL CHAPTER............................................................................................. 4
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS.............................. 14
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY............................................................. 16
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION..................................................................................... 21
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................. 34
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................. 36
APPENDICES.............................................................................................................................. 41
I. INTRODUCTION
“It is a basic tenet of documentary theory that the primary search is not for beauty, but for the fact of the matter, and that in the fact of the matter is the only path to beauty that will not soon wear down.”
- John Greirson (Lucas, 2017)
Documentary viewership and production have seen a remarkable surge in recent years. High budget productions have benefited from an explosion of new commercial interest due to the proliferation of streaming services, and low budget projects are easier than ever to produce and distribute. Despite a profitability crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry appears to have rebounded and remains strong, albeit less optimized for independent creators. With the number of documentary theatrical releases in the United States more than tripling between 2000 and 2021, the genre is still one of the world's fastest-growing entertainment markets (Nash Information Services, 2021).
As production and viewership grow, so too does the social impact of projects, which reach wider audiences and, crucially, involve more participants. As more individuals find themselves in the position of the documentary subject, it becomes increasingly relevant to ensure that their physical and psychological welfare remains a priority for filmmakers. This is an even stronger imperative for vulnerable subjects, in this case individuals who have experienced some form of trauma. As a media professional with experience in documentary development, my interest in this topic arises from observing the diverse practices, policies, and ethical considerations for the mediation of trauma within the industry, including both the ethical and the morally dubious treatment of subjects. The disparity in filmmakers' approaches to trauma, as I have experienced them, warrants a closer examination of the topic.
It is a common notion in documentary literature to refer to the medium as an act of translation. It is the translation of a person’s subjective experience into a practical project, of “one semiotic system into another” (Piotrowska, 2023). It is the interpretation of complex, unknowable mental interiors into widely accessible words and images. This translation is the monumental task shared by the filmmaker and the subject. In some ways, it is the defining characteristic of their relationship. With this task comes an inherent power imbalance between the filmmaker’s creative authority and the subject’s desire to be authentically seen. There is an invocation of responsibility on the part of the filmmaker, what is known as their duty of care, to treat the subject with dignity and respect. When duty of care is neglected or the power imbalance used to the subject’s disadvantage, the filming environment can become a breeding ground for exploitation and abuse.
Exploitation has regrettably been a part of documentary film since its inception. In Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922), considered by most to be the first documentary production, the filmmaker staged scenes and manipulated reality to fit a colonialist narrative about the exoticism and brutality of Inuit culture (McPhail, 2015). The exploitation of vulnerable people, including refugees, the unhoused, survivors of sexual abuse, and many others has never ceased to be an issue in global documentary filmmaking, and attempts to repair this pattern of abuse are beneficial in both scholarship and cinema.
This study aims to situate the filmmaker in direct relationship to the subject, exploring how they conceptualize their duty of care and how that relationship changes when they are working in relationship to a subject living with trauma. It also examines what practices are in place at documentary production companies to mitigate harm, and gathers perspectives on potential areas for improvement. For this study I have interviewed eight documentary professionals about their experiences working with traumatized individuals, and utilized thematic research tools to identify common themes in their testimonies.
II. THEORETICAL CHAPTER
This literature review examines research in the fields of documentary ethics and trauma representation, particularly as they relate to the filmmaker’s relationship to the documentary subject. This chapter is divided into five sections, namely Theoretical Frameworks in Documentary Ethics, Informed Consent, Problems in Mediating Trauma, Toward New Approaches, and Research Gaps.
Theoretical Frameworks in Documentary Ethics
Documentary ethics is an emergent field, born out of the communications tradition and the philosophical concepts of ethics and morality. These conceptual areas come together to explore how documentary film interacts with real individuals, shapes our understanding of reality, and creates or exploits power dynamics to craft compelling narratives (Nash, 2012). Rather than a unified academic discourse, documentary ethics is “broadly situationist” and “characterized by a desire to situate individual moral judgement within specific contexts” (Nash, 2012, p. 318). Because of this situationist nature and the relatively expansive definitions of documentary, researchers construct a theoretical framework of ethics to better understand the filmmaker’s responsibility to their subject (Nichols, 1991; Winston, 1995).
To achieve this, we must first understand the assumptions the literature makes about the relationship between documentary, individuals, and the world around them. The field builds certain foundations on that question of documentary relation to reality, an inquiry with ontologically complex implications. While the popular understanding of documentary is that it purports to depict the real, both theorists and filmmakers have struggled to determine to what extent this is possible. Bill Nichols’ (1991) book Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary provides an overview of the philosophical origins of this query. Nichols argues that documentaries, like any other form of representation, are constructive of reality rather than simply reflective of it. He rejects a popular notion that documentary operates in the realm of abject truth, as in the physical sciences and mathematics, but also distinguishes the medium from simulacra. “[Fictional] cinema presents us with the images of things…memetic distractions and counterfeitings,” Nichols writes (1991, p. 3). Yet notably, “nonnarative is but another part of cinema, perhaps all the more devious for claiming to be above the deceptive means with which it makes its point (the moving image)” (1991, p. 3). Documentary images are not reflections of reality, they are symbols through which meaning may be manipulated by the filmmaker. Though documentary shares a kinship with the observational sciences and forms of direct journalism—what Nichols calls the ‘discourses of sobriety’—its images are altered from their true state by artistic, and therefore subjective, forces (1991, p. 4).
Like other media, documentary is part of the “construction of social reality,” and in Nichols’ view should be held to ethical standards that are not journalistic or scientific, but rather discursive and representational (1991, p. 10). Researchers like Stuart Hall (1989), present the case that images and media play a major role in the construction of reality through discourse and representation. Nichols’ contribution here can be summarized as balancing the theoretical perception of documentary as simulation with its more popular perception as a truth device. These perceptions are not entirely divorced, and modern approaches to documentary ethics recognize that the medium sits at the intersection of these two worlds.
Van Dienderen (2004) presents a view of the potential harms that documentary’s complicated relationship to reality construction can have. “Documentaries do not demonstrate reality,” he writes. “They are the result of a delicately obscured ‘taxidermy operation’. Selection, manipulation and other distorting processes, all part of the act of reconstruction, are carefully edited out. Although these manipulations may seem obvious, they have a painful and strikingly unjust result; the ‘object’ of interest, this human being, is carved up and presented as a stereotyped distortion” (2004, p. 9).
Therefore, while documentaries are not part of Nichols’ “discourses of sobriety,” they remain responsible for impacting the lives of real individuals on a more intimate level than cinema (1991, p. 4). In addition to carrying the responsibility of constructing social realities, they are tasked with the ethical welfare of the subject. Pryluck (1976) was among the first theorists to acknowledge the special ethical circumstances of documentary film, following the development of the ‘direct cinema’ style in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Research from this time examines the films from that era and finds in many a negligent, if not harmful relationship to their subjects’ privacy, prompting the question: where does the boundary lie between society’s right to know and an individual’s right to dignity (1976)? Pryluck observed how documentaries were becoming increasingly invasive and exploitative thanks to new technological ease of production, and the consent sought after by filmmakers from their subjects was often flawed, incomplete, or otherwise warped by power dynamics (1976, p. 21). “The method of obtaining consent is stacked in the filmmaker’s favor [...] The requirement that consent be truly voluntary is a recognition of the fact that there is typically an unequal power relationship between investigators and subjects” (1976, p. 22). Modern documentary ethicicists like Ellen Maccarone (2010), Katie Babbage (2018), and Brian Winston (1999) have built on Pryluck’s problematization of consent and power, while also validating his assertion that filmmakers are “ultimately outsiders” in the lives of their subjects and must approach their work with sensitivity and awareness of their impact (Maccarone, 2010; Pryluck, 1976). Pryluck cautions, however, that “even with the best intentions in the world, filmmakers can only guess how the scenes they use will affect the lives of the people they have photographed; even a seemingly innocuous image may have meaning for the people involved that is obscure to the filmmaker” (1976, p. 23).
Modern theorists who have written in the wake of the affective turn in communications research have built ethical frameworks for documentary studies that more closely resemble traditional ethics models in the social research fields (Maccarone, 2010; Nash, 2011a; Schwartz, 2016). These frameworks, rather than situating documentary into a philosophical relationship with reality, place the medium firmly in relation to society and the people it depicts. Maccarone (2010) and Babbage (2018) are examples of this new ethical consensus, both conceptualizing the documentary as a societal institution, or a ‘practice’ (much like law or medicine) with specific expectations from the public. Maccarone attempts to examine the documentary through its public expectations, and to establish a definition that allows filmmakers to better consider how their images are perceived, and therefore what impact they might have on the subject:
“[A documentary] is a film that attempts to tell a true story as it happened, often from particular perspective, that tries to elicit in us a feeling of what the real event or person was like, relying little on the obvious manipulation of images and sound in its recording yet at the same time displaying some degree of artistry” (2010, p. 196).
This definition is intentionally exclusive of some films which may be identified in some way or another as documentary. It is instead designed to reflect a layperson’s expectations of the medium. This view supports the idea that documentary is an “institutional practice that has rules, constraints and conventions that have been developed over time by [...] practitioners” (Maccarone, 2010, p. 196). As practitioners of law and medicine have an ethical responsibility to do no harm, documentary filmmakers are equally liable for their subjects, including “harm not directly related to being in the film” (2010, p. 192). This language of responsibility is drawn from the moral philosophy of John Rawls (1963, 1971) and Alisdair MacIntyre (1977, 2007), whose theories on obligation determine that the benefits of a practice may be considered an ‘external good’ (a benefit for the whole community who participates in the documentary project) in addition to an ‘internal good’ (a benefit for the creator, producer, or subject, such as payment or exposure) (MacIntyre, 2007; Maccarone, 2010).
Informed Consent
Consent forms the basis of the relationship between filmmaker and subject. It presents the greatest opportunity for creators to either “comply with ethical standards or to thwart them” (Maccarone, 2010, p. 198). Even if a filmmaker can secure written consent from a subject, the subject may not fully understand what they are agreeing to, or the consequences the film’s distribution might have on their lives (Babbage, 2018; Gunckel, 2007; Pryluck, 1976). Researchers have also noted the potential for a subject’s inclusion in a documentary project to radically alter the course of their life, as what is private to them (be it their story, their image, or their recollection of a traumatic event) becomes overtly public in a brief period of time (Gunckel, 2007; Sanders, 2012).
Filmmakers can achieve informed consent through both legalistic and interpersonal means. Participants sign releases that authorize their inclusion in the project and vary in the depth of permissions granted. Brian Winston (1995) presents a compelling case that fulfilling legal obligations alone is both an insufficient and common strategy by exploitative productions to avoid gaining genuine informed consent. It is of equal or greater importance to form a trusting relationship with participants outside of the legal framework (Winston, 1995; Van Dienderen, 2004; Nash, 2011b). As Maccarone (2010, p. 200) writes, “documentarians often have the luxury of longer, deeper relationships with their subjects than journalists.” Building trust and establishing a truthful and communicative dialogue with the subject is not only a pathway to moral behavior, but toward more objective filmmaking (Babbage, 2018).
The relationship between consent and power is well established both within and outside of the documentary ethics field (Pryluck, 1976; Babbage, 2018; Fuchs, 2022). There is, in most cases, an inherent power imbalance in the filmmaker-subject dynamic: the filmmaker has everything to gain, the subject everything to lose. The traditional ‘questioner-questioned relationship’ and the filmmaker’s authority over narrative control contribute to the subject’s sense of vulnerability and increase the likelihood that achieved consent may be uninformed, or incomplete (Nash, 2010). Nash argues that understanding how power is flowing in that relationship, and how the imagined viewer impacts that power flow, is an indispensible duty of the filmmaker (2010). Pryluck (1976), Winston (1995), Van Dienderen (2004), and others who have problematized informed consent assert there is no single theoretical strategy to mitigate harmful power dynamics. In line with the situationist nature of the field, different strategies have yielded different results for filmmakers. Any effort to mitigate exploitation begins with the filmmaker recognizing their ethical duty of care, their obligation to exercise caution and use any information and power at their disposal to avoid harm. As we examine how these ethical frameworks apply to especially vulnerable subjects, the duty of care becomes more encompassing (Maccarone, 2010; Daniels-Yeomans, 2017).
Problems in Mediating Trauma
Trauma is an ancient concept, brought into psychological discourse by Freud and re-examined throughout the twentieth century (Fletcher, 2013; Dahlberg, 2014). From the 1960s onward, as the humanities began to embrace interiority and affect, the significance of trauma as a macro-effective phenomenon rose to prominence. Audre Lorde (1997), Franz Fanon (Goozee, 2021), and others studied how trauma could be understood as a driver of identity, behavior, and cultural communication. Though the academic discussion of trauma peaked in the humanities literature of the 1990s (Daniels-Yeomans, 2017), there appears to be a cultural fixation on the concept in modern media (Meek, 2011).
Though documentary film has always been at risk of exploiting traumatized people, in recent decades there has been a sharp rise in projects that focus on and target vulnerable individuals, especially those who are survivors of criminal behavior (Meek, 2011; Sayles, 2021). The explosion of the true crime genre has contributed to the proliferation of media that displays the suffering of individuals for shock value or cheap emotional payoff (Rothe, 2011). The result is a disorienting loss of meaning and nuance in depicting something with the power to destroy or define a person’s life (Kaplan, 2005). Finn Daniels-Yeomans, in writing on the mediation of trauma in the documentary image, comments on the avoidance of scholarship: “Throughout the history of its criticism, documentary’s representational dimensions have been afforded a position of priority. This has led [...] to a peculiar narrowing of critical routes into the question of documentary’s capacity for engagement with traumas that exceed all representational modalities” (2017, p. 98). As such, literature suggests that even filmmakers with a strong grasp of ethical frameworks have struggled to depict and mediate trauma—a private, interior concept that defies outside understanding (Lucas, 2017). What special considerations, then, should filmmakers have in their duty of care to subjects who have experienced deep-seated psychological pain?
Martin Lucas, a filmmaker and scholar, explored this question in the wake of his film Hiroshima Bound, a documentary about survivors of the 1945 atomic bombing of Japan. He posits that representations of trauma fall short due to (typically well-intentioned) attempts by filmmakers to make a humanitarian appeal to empathy (2017, p. 99). His ideas draw on the work of trauma theorist Cathy Caruth, who wrote that trauma is “the confrontation with an event that, in its unexpedness or horror, cannot be placed within the schemes of prior knowledge” (1995, p. 153). Lucas builds on this definition, arguing that trauma is unknowable, inexpressible and a product of the mind’s inability to cope with the severity, complexity, or spontaneity of the pain it has experienced (2017, p. 111).
“The strategy of luring an audience [...] by offering an empathetic relationship with a sufferer is as old as storytelling itself,” Lucas writes (2017, p. 100). However, "the relationship created is notably not an equal one.” By asking the subject to recount the ineffible in some manner digestible to a general audience, the filmmaker errs in both ethics and authenticity. Lucas writes of a “betrayal inherent in the process of storytelling,” meaning that speaking of something horrific can erase a certain specificity that individuals living with trauma may have made psychologically ‘sacred’ (2017, p. 112). Trauma is more than an emotional response system. It becomes constitutive of our identities, our behaviors, and our personal sense of narrative (Kaplan, 2005). Reflecting upon it in a public-facing way can profoundly change a person’s relationship to their trauma, an additional element of consideration with which the filmmaker must engage.
For this reason, literature on the mediation of trauma pays close attention to the psychological positioning of the subject. Many theorists have problematized the concept of ‘victimhood’ in media depictions, as it can exacerbate the power imbalances discussed in the previous sections (Taylor, 1988; Winston, 1995; Lucas, 2017). Lucas argues that defining a subject's identity by their most painful experience can be tokenizing, reducing them to a metonymous symbol—'survivor' above all else, with their other identities secondary (2017). Other discussions on psychological positioning focus on the presumed catharsis of the documentary interview. Although testimony has a long history as a practice of psychiatric or spiritual care, there is no psychological evidence to suggest that testimony given for documentarian purposes is beneficial for the traumatized subject (Kearney, 2012; Lucas, 2017). Filmmakers are not trained psychologists, nor is helping subjects their only goal. This returns us to Pryluck’s (1976) assertion that a filmmaker must balance an audience’s right to know with a subject’s right to dignity. Lucas and Daniels-Yeomans are clear that if a documentary is to make an attempt at authenticity, a subject’s trauma should not be avoided or otherwise danced around (2017; 2017). Filmmakers must instead seek novel approaches to mediating trauma that go beyond existing ethical frameworks.
Toward New Approaches
New theories in documentary ethics suggest that examining the unknowability of trauma may be a way toward a more responsible relationship with the subject. Thomas Austin, in his discussion on the limits of knowledge in documentary film, speaks to the importance of a filmmaker to recognize unknowability, and to signal, “...either explicitly or implicitly, the constraints on that will to truth and the persistence of a ‘remainder’ in and of the other that exceeds any understanding” (2016, p. 5). Austin invokes Iris Marion Young’s concept of ‘asymmetrical reciprocity’ to support this idea. Young challenges the notion that showing moral respect requires adopting others' perspectives, instead suggesting a framework of “understanding across difference” (1997, p. 341). Rather than making an appeal to empathy, a filmmaker might achieve a moral position by emphasizing the magnitude of the gap in understanding between audience and subject. Lucas refers to this gap as the ‘receding horizon’ of subjectivity, a term describing the difficulty, and sometimes impossibility, of fully capturing the essence of traumatic experiences through conventional storytelling (2017). Filmmakers might instead depict the receding horizon through indirect, affect-driven approaches.
Daniels-Yeomans, borrowing a term from Ruth Leys’ scholarship on affective thinking, refers to such strategies as ‘nonrepresentational’ approaches to filmmaking (Daniels-Yeomans, 2017; Leys, 2012). In recent decades, documentary theory has shifted with the wider affective turn toward greater recognition of “the body and its sensory capacities” (2017, p. 90). It is a shift toward diminished reliance on factual recounting and greater appreciation for the emotional and sensory experiences, including trauma. Application of these theories can take many forms, and achieve success at varying levels. Jill Bennett (2005) suggests one application, a ‘traumatic realism’ that utilizes fragmented narratives, disjointed timelines, and abstract imagery to reflect the chaotic and overwhelming nature of traumatic memories. Daniels-Yeomans (2017) points to Sleep Furiously, a 2007 film about the decline of a Welsh farming community as an example of traumatic realism done with care. The director Gideon Koppel acknowledges that the trauma the villagers have experienced from losing their way of life is unknowable and largely indescribable. The film rejects any overt attempts to narrate this trauma, instead using novel visual techniques—such as unconventionally lengthy timelapses of sheep disappearing into the distant countryside—to elicit a sense of loss, loneliness, and isolation (2017).
“The suffering itself offers a way past the conundrum of the unknowability of the other,” says Lucas (2017, p. 110) of the nonrepresentatonal approach. Techniques like Koppel’s can bring the viewer into the traumatized space with the subject, without purporting to recreate the traumatizing experience itself. According to Daniels-Yeomans (2017, p. 94), Koppel achieves this by “deploying aesthetic strategies that serve to disrupt spectatorial engagement with ‘story’” and suggest a reframing within the context of interiority. If a subject cannot give testimony without risking psychological harm, the filmmaker might instead transfer the burden of emotional translation to the audience. Nonrepresentational approaches invite active participation from the viewer in the meaning making process (Leys, 2012). They challenge us to sit with the gravity of trauma—to feel its pull—yet not to presuppose we may look upon or define it. It is suggested that not only is the nonrepresentational approach reaching for a more authentic communion between filmmaker, subject, and audience, but that it serves to protect the subject and deliver more completely on the filmmaker’s duty of care (Bennett, 2005; Leys, 2012; Daniels-Yeomans, 2017).
Research Gaps
I have established that a large body of work has built both the field of documentary ethics and its considerations toward mediating trauma. It is clear, however, that the great majority of this research is dedicated to theory, particularly relating to the depictions and representations. Kate Nash is among the most prominent figures in modern documentary studies. She has observed that although a subject’s depiction, i.e. the result of their involvement in the film, does have a profound impact on their experience, “documentary ethics can become richer and more relevant by considering the actual practices of documentary making” (Nash, 2011a, p. 1). Nash is referring to the fact that there has been relatively little empirical research examining the actual practice of documentary filmmaking, with few attempts to “articulate the connection between the documentary text and the ethics of its production” (2011a, p. 2). In order to develop a well-rounded framework for safeguarding subjects, theorists might consider that “much of what transpires in the making of documentaries leaves no textual trace and that there is a need to engage differently in ethical research” (2011a, p. 2). Crucially, this involves an examination of what happens when the cameras are not rolling, both before and after production takes place.
Nash and others challenge theorists to interrogate the unique experience of the subject as someone who is actively being documented (Van Dienderen, 2004; Lucas, 2017; Daniels-Yeomans, 2017; Piotrowska, 2023). Winston, for example, argues that “we have confused media responsibilities to the audience with the ethical duties owed participants as if the outcomes of taking part were the same as spectating” (Winston, 1999; Nash, 2011a). As such, there is a dearth of empirical research about the subject’s experience in production settings, including in initial development meetings with filmmakers and in post-production settings as they adapt to the reality of existing alongside their newly minted media facsimiles. The power imbalance and informed consent problems discussed in previous sections are incomplete without an extratextual perspective, particularly one devised through empirical study across documentary genres and from both the subject and filmmaker perspectives.
Effective ethical collaboration between the filmmaker and the subject could manifest through the new approaches discussed above, or it may be that solutions are, as Nichols (1991) asserts, highly situational and elusive. It is evident that further research is required to better understand the many moving pieces that inform this relationship, from individual ethical considerations to the structural dynamics of the documentary production process.
III. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK & RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This research is informed by the field of documentary ethics. This is a constructivist field, predicated on the notion that social phenomena are constructed through discourse, text and subjective perceptions (Pouliot, 2004). I also draw upon discursive institutionalism to analyze documentary as a societal practice through the various discourses which define its procedures (Schmidt, 2008).
The research is primarily an examination of duty of care, the ethical obligation of an individual or an organization to exercise a reasonable level of caution to prevent harm to others (Murphy, 1980). While duty of care is also employed as a legal term, for the purpose of this research we will be focused on the moral obligations of specific agents. I make this differentiation primarily due to a general scholastic consensus that legal contracts in media and entertainment largely fail to obligate genuine informed consent (Nash, 2011a; Winston, 1995).
This research places duty of care in the specific context of directors, producers and other agents working with subjects who have experienced some form of trauma, which may or may not be the focus of the project in which they are participating. To create a sufficiently narrow conceptual framework to study these discourses, it is necessary to adopt a working definition of trauma. Some writers take a broad, affective approach to defining the term, particularly since the development of theory regarding complex post-traumatic stress disorder (cPTSD) and its widespread application within the general population (Gradus & Galea, 2022; Weathers & Keane, 2007). However, this dissertation requires a definition of trauma that is exclusive enough to differentiate between these more widely applicable traumas, such as generational trauma, and a more specific, psychologically defined trauma that traditionally presents ethical quaundries for filmmakers (Daniels-Yeomans, 2017).
For this purpose, I will press into service the definition as set out in the DSM-5, which states that trauma is an emotional response to “exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence in one (or more) of the following ways: Directly experiencing the traumatic event(s), Witnessing, in person, the event(s) as it occurred to others, [or] Learning that the traumatic event(s) occurred to a close family member or close friend” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Using this definition, this research aims to understand if and how the filmmaker’s duty of care is impacted by the subject’s exposure to trauma, emphasizing the additional vulnerabilities the emotional response may imbue in an individual.
This conceptual framework also considers power dynamics inherent in the medium of documentary film, in the tradition of communications theorists like Stuart Hall (1989) and Judith Butler. Butler’s (1997) concept of social performativity and its relationship to discourse is especially useful to our framework, which examines not only the interpersonal power dynamics between observed and observer, but the expectations of the subject as a performer in a documentary. Another aim of this research is to better understand how exploitation occurs from the production perspective, and to do so our recognition of exploitative dynamics must be rooted in a strong theoretical foundations of both documentary ethics and mediated trauma. Discussions by Martin Lucas (2017), Finn Daniels-Yeomans (2017), and Kate Nash (2011a), as discussed in the Theoretical Chapter, inform the conceptual universe from which the research tools of this dissertation are designed.
Consequently, research questions are as follows:
RQ1: How do producers, directors, and other agents in the documentary film industry conceptualize their ethical duty of care to subjects who have experienced some form of trauma?
RQ2: What practices exist to mitigate the exploitation of traumatized individuals in documentary film and how can they be improved upon?
IV. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
This dissertation employs a qualitative, constructivist research design to approach the research questions. Ethical considerations and practices are subjective, social phenomena that are constructed from the discourses of various actors involved in the documentary production process (Piotrowska, 2023). The subjective nature of these discourses inform the selected research tools: semi-structured interviews and reflexive thematic analysis.
Semi-structured Interviews
Anonymous, semi-structured interviews were chosen as the primary research methodology to explore the nuanced perspectives and experiences of participants. This approach offers numerous advantages that align with the research objectives, including flexibility in the data collection process and a greater depth of insight into existing ethical considerations for traumatized documentary subjects. While semi-structured interviews are guided by a set of predetermined topics, they also provide ample opportunity for interviewers to explore emergent questions and alternative rationales, and to probe deeper based on participants' responses. This flexibility facilitates a deeper understanding of participants’ perceptions and attitudes toward a highly situational topic, which may require some adjustment on the part of the interviewer to properly assess. Semi-structured interviews are particularly effective for exploring complex, sensitive topics such as trauma and ethical decision-making, where participants may require the space to express themselves in their own words (Goldstein, 2002). This was an important consideration in rejecting the use of surveys as a methodology, which are criticized for their inflexibility and lack of ability to capture a critical ‘how’ and ‘why’ element of participant responses (Goyder, 1986).
I also rejected the use of focus groups, which would remove an element of anonymity from the interview process and potentially impact the nature of the content participants were willing to share. I chose to anonymize the interviews as my participants—directors, producers, and other actors in the documentary production industry—are subject to non-disclosure agreements and other internal pressure not to discuss intellectual property. By introducing the project to participants as an open opportunity for them to share anonymous insights from their careers, I was able to foster a participant-centric environment that led to interviews with rich detail, context, and disclosure. This level of detail is important for exploratory research, considering the lack of previous empirical data about filmmaker’s ethical considerations for traumatized subjects.
Sampling
The sampling method used for this research was purposive sampling with a selection for ‘elite’ participants who had experience working with traumatized subjects in a documentary film production context (Harvey, 2011). I chose to select for elite participants who posess specialized knowledge, expertise or decision-making power that could provide insight into the complex topics of documentary ethics and mediated trauma (Goldstein, 2002). Random sampling, while effective at mitigating interviewer bias, is incompatible with the specialized nature of the research. The stated research objectives also did not allow for representative sampling, which would have necessitated an impractically large sample size to account for the myriad roles, identities and national standards in the global documentary industry.
In selecting participants, I reached out to directors, producers, and developers of documentary projects, asking if they would identify as having worked with potentially traumatized subjects, using the working definition of trauma laid out in the Conceptual Framework Chapter. Those that responded affirmatively were offered the opportunity to anonymously participate in a semi-structured interview lasting approximately one hour. I used the theoretical saturation model (Rowlands et al., 2016) to determine a sufficient sample size, halting the recruitment process at the point at which new information was unlikely to be provided by additional interviewees.
The final result was a sample of eight documentary film professionals, representing three nationalities (the UK, USA, and India). The sample included four men and four women. Two of the participants are current documentary directors; two are executives at documentary production companies; three are current or former documentary developers, and one is an associate producer of unscripted content. For the convenience of both the researcher and the participant, interviews were conducted remotely via Zoom and recorded for transcription. To protect the anonymity of the participants, they will be referred to as ‘Respondent 1’ (R1), R2, etc. All gave written consent.
Interview Guide
The interview guide was designed based on a comprehensive review of the frameworks established in the Theoretical Chapter. In particular, I paid close attention to the literature gaps from which my research objectives are formed, designing exploratory, open-ended questions that allowed for participants to establish a point of view and lead the interview in directions they find genuinely compelling, rather than along a rigid structure of my choosing (Naz et al., 2022).
Separated into three sections, the interview guide begins with a short preamble regarding the anonymity protocols and nature of the research. This is followed immediately by tour questions, deliberately broad and nondirective, asking the participant to describe their role in the documentary film industry and their general approach to working with subjects. This approach allows the participant to bring me into their conceptual universe and informs me of their common associations with the themes at hand (Roberts, 2020). The tour questions typically spawn an initial anecdote or conversation about subject relations, toward which the interview guide leaves space for relevant follow-up questions. These follow-up questions are based on not only the verbal content of the participant’s answers, but the emotional background, body language, and behavioral cues the participant signals in their responses (Roberts, 2020).
The second section forms the main body of the interview, and is designed to reflect the primary problematizations of documentary ethics and mediated trauma as described in the Theoretical Chapter. Participants are asked to describe their procedures when making initial contact with traumatized subjects, as well as those for achieving genuine informed consent. Planned follow-up questions probe the participant to reflect on the power dynamics at play in these interactions, as well as prompting them to share insights and anecdotes regarding how their understanding of documentary ethics was developed (Taherdoost, 2022). Throughout the interview, a professional relationship of curiosity and genuine interest is established with the participant, which allows the interview guide to graduate from questions about personal experience to more reflective inquiries about the filmmaker’s duty of care to traumatized subjects. This approach is based on the practice of ‘active interviewing,’ in which the researcher and the participant work as equal partners to construct meaning (Holstein & Gubrium, 1995). The main body of the interview ends by asking the participant for their thoughts on some of the ‘new approaches’ to mediating trauma described in the Theoretical Chapter, as well as how filmmakers might improve in their efforts to mitigate the exploitation of vulnerable people.
Finally, participants are asked in the third section if they have anything else they would like to share, and if they have any questions for the researcher.
Reflexive Thematic Analysis
The chosen analytic method for this dissertation is Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA), a research tool developed by Braun and Clark (2006, 2019, 2017) that allows for the systematic and vigorous exploration, interpretation, and description of an analysis from a qualitative dataset. Crucially for this research, RTA is flexible across multiple complex topics involving potentially incongruous perspectives, and allows for rich, detailed analysis of narrative-driven testimonies by participants (Braun & Clarke, 2019). It is useful for my research objectives—which ask how individuals conceptualize a particular idea—for its focus on meaning-making and the recognition of patterns in qualitative data. As this is exploratory research, it is also important that I make use of an iterative, recursive process to allow me to revisit and make adjustments to themes as I learn more about my participants points of view and experiences (Terry & Hayfield, 2020). Furthermore, RTA is a practical choice for topics with thematic diversity, as it identifies both prevailing themes and more subtle sub-themes that could connect diverse patterns other analytic methods might overlook (Braun & Clarke, 2006). I was able to reject other analytic methods, such as critical discourse analysis, because my research is on processes, i.e. ethics procedures on film sets, rather than text or media (Kress, 1990).
The process of executing RTA is necessarily variable to allow for researcher flexibility, but I have chosen to follow the recommendations of Braun and Clark (2006) and Terry and Hayfield (2020) to approach this analyasis. The first step taken after interviews have been concluded is a familiarization with the dataset, which takes shape by transcribing each interview by hand and re-reading the transcripts to check for accuracy. Subsequently, a coding process was conducted where each transcript was closely read again, generating a codebook with succinct labels that describe specific text segments, highlighting key aspects of the data relevant to the research question (Braun & Clark, 2006). Following this, a grouping of initial themes was developed, reviewed, and named in a recursive, multi-step process that allowed for multiple iterations of groupings. The complete process resulted in the generation of 146 unique codes. Recursive revisitation of the data and examination of potential overarching ideas resulted in a final organization of the data into two broad metathemes, four general themes, and eight subthemes.
The final step in executing RTA is to report the patterns that emerge through the grouping process, contextualizing the analysis in relation to both the existing literature and, reflexively, the research itself. The analysis makes a point to engage with the implicit, often abstract ideas that exist in the subtext of each interview, many of which emerge as patterns in the emergent themes and subthemes. While this research is exploratory, I take care to engage with existing theory to support my procedures, working “within wider discussions” to mitigate researcher bias in my analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021, p. 329).
Ethics and Reflexivity
One of the most important considerations in conducting this research was to avoid placing participants in a position that would invoke psychological or emotional distress. While the sample of participants I collected were not—by any requirement—traumatized individuals, the interview guide necessitated probing their experiences working with individuals who do identify as such. Consequently, I took great care to explain in detail the nature of the dissertation, including giving content warnings at the outset of each interview for potentially sensitive topics that may come up, such as sexual abuse and violent crime. It was also important to be flexible with the structure of the interviews, probing but never coercing participants into examining topics that might be difficult for them to discuss. Reflexively, the research detailed in the Theoretical Chapter provided a conceptual background that kept the interviewer-interviewee power dynamic at front of mind throughout the research process. I ensured that participants understood that I was an outside academic observer, and alluded to my own background working in documentary film only as was appropriate to build a trusting relationship with the participant.
It is also worth noting the missing voices in the wider context of this research, namely the subjects of documentary projects themselves. Earlier iterations of this dissertation intended to gather qualitative data via interviews with individuals who had previously been the subjects of documentaries. However, through the ethics review process I came to realize that a project of this nature risked re-traumatizing participants, and although their voices and welfare are at the core of the issues being discussed, I possessed neither the training nor the psychological resources to probe their experiences responsibly. Therefore, the following analysis looks at the other side of the dualistic relationship of the documentary filmmaker and their subject, in an attempt to open the door for further empirical research into the nature of that relationship and effective ways of mitigating harm and exploitation.
V. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
Through the reflexive thematic analysis process, I have developed two overarching metathemes that respond broadly to the research questions. The first metatheme discussed in this section, ‘Ethical Considerations’, looks primarily at how documentary filmmakers conceptualize their duty of care to traumatized subjects. The second metatheme, ‘Structural Considerations’, examines the production obstacles they face in their attempts to actualize that duty of care. There is necessarily some overlap in these two groups, as well as to which research question they respond to, as interviewees made clear that there is significant blurring of ethical and logistical considerations in the documentary production process. These two metathemes are each divided into two general themes, which are further subdivided into subthemes where applicable. This thematic model is illustrated in Thematic Map 1:
Thematic Map 1:
The following analysis examines both metathemes and their respective themes and subthemes, and includes quotes from research respondents as relevant.
Ethical Considerations
Throughout the interview process, respondents reported a distinction between their own conceptualization of documentary ethics and the structural limitations of the production process. The first metatheme groups together the two themes which emerged from testimony about their ethical conceptualizations.
Theme 1: Building Trust and Protecting Subjects
All eight respondents were asked in the beginning stages of the research what they considered to be their most important consideration when working with traumatized subjects. They overwhelmingly reported that establishing honesty and trust were paramount in building a healthy and productive relationship (R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8). The thematic code assigned to this notion, ‘honesty and trust with participants’, had the highest frequency of the 146 total codes, appearing 16 times across all interviews. Not far behind was ‘building a personal relationship with subjects’, which was discussed at length in response to the same initial question (R1, R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8). While these are unsurprising, even obvious responses, their frequency and the insistence with which they were typically mentioned speak to the attitude filmmakers bring to their interactions with vulnerable individuals. They signal an understanding of the power imbalances inherent in documentary filmmaking, and of the notion that an open and communicative relationship is beneficial for both parties (Nash, 2011b; Babbage, 2018). Two subthemes, based on the filmmakers’ thoughts on building trust and protecting subjects, are analyzed below.
Subtheme 1.1: Establishing Trust
This subtheme examines a particularly salient moment in the production process: the initial contact between filmmaker and subject. Respondents frequently mentioned the importance of making a good first impression, along with taking great care to manage the content of a first conversation (R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8). These preliminary discussions are both an opportunity for the filmmakers to present their reasoning to the subject for wanting to tell their story, and to weigh the subject’s potential interest in and value to the project.
Respondents mentioned that ensuring the initial conversation was consentual was an obvious priority (R3, R5, R6). R2, in particular, described the importance of explaining that the conversation is not an interview, and that they are there to get to know the subject better and to make the case that they are “good, honest people who want to do right by them.” A subject should be fully aware they have a right to refuse participation, or even to cut the initial conversation short (R3). It is also important to establish the filmmaker’s reliability as a storyteller, which respondents said they typically achieve by showing the subject examples of their previous work (R1, R2, R5, R6).
Although necessary throughout the production process, ensuring the subject is comfortable and attempting to mitigate the power imbalance between interviewer and interviewee is crucial in establishing trust (Maccarone, 2010; Pryluck, 1976). R7 described an initial meeting with a client in which he prioritized the subject’s comfort and dignity, albeit by engaging in a minor deception: “I was wearing a suit. And I remember I arrived and I paused and I thought, I'll undo my tie. I'll leave it a bit late and then I'll pretend I'm late so that they feel that I'm on the back foot. So I arrived, apparently discombobulated, rang the door and I said, ‘I'm so sorry. I've been terrible.’ So the mother offered me a cup of tea and I said, ‘yes, that's absolutely what I need.’ So immediately it wasn't like the man from the [news agency] was coming to audition them.”
Two of the main elements at this stage are explaining to the subject what the experience of being documented will be like and gathering more detail about their experience. Here, respondents mentioned, honesty is key. “You can’t tell someone you’re making a project about black when in fact it’s a project about white” (R7). The nature of the project and the subject’s role in it should be clearly laid out, including conversations about the kinds of questions that they might be asked, the style of filmmaking the director plans to use, and the level of access into the subject’s private life that might be required (R4, R5, R6, R8). When talking with subjects about a traumatic experience, R3 stressed that it was ‘inappropriate’ at this stage to ask for too much detail, adding that she had been part of initial conversations that felt too invasive or were undertaken by producers who had not had sufficient conversations about ethics prior to engaging with the subject.
R6 detailed an example of a slower, highly intentional approach to initial contact, describing a project in which her company “spent about four months [...] just being in the community, figuring out what stories they wanted to tell, talking to people, connecting with people, sitting down, figuring out who the subjects [...] were going to be, the participants who really wanted to tell stories and how they wanted to tell them. Just asking really straightforward questions, such as ‘what do you want people to know about you and your community?’” This is a strategy for relationship-building that prioritizes the subject and their experience over a project’s efficiency, and is clearly not an option for films or series on a tight production schedule. An approach like this does, however, signal to the subject that the filmmaker is willing to invest significant time and energy in pursuit of an honest and thorough portrayal of their story.
Subtheme 1.2: Protecting Subject Rights and Well-Being
Once trust has been established between filmmaker and subject, it is within the filmmaker’s duty of care to avoid abuse of that trust, and to advocate to some extent for the subject’s well-being (R2, R3, R5, R6, R8). R7, a documentary director, noted that filmmaker’s often have different ideas about what that advocacy entails. His observation proved to be true across the research sample. Three of the respondents reported a preference for highly active approaches to subject advocacy, agreeing with the statement ‘if a filmmaker has the opportunity to help their subject, they should always do so’. The others insisted that this was dependent on the style of filmmaking or the relationship between filmmaker and subject. In this vein, several respondents mentioned establishing boundaries as a strategy for maintaining a healthy relationship with the subject, who may at times misunderstand the role of the filmmaker as a friend or personal representative (R5, R7, R8). The lack of consensus on this issue signifies the situationist nature of documentary ethics, and demonstrates the importance of communication about what subjects should reasonably expect filmmakers (Winston, 1995; Nash, 2011b, 2012).
Within this subtheme, respondents discussed what they considered to be key elements of protecting subject rights and well-being. One frequent response was achieving and maintaining informed consent throughout the production process (R1, R3, R4, R6, R7). For R4, this meant checking in with subjects on a regular basis, seeking to hear something to the effect of, “I want to do this. Here's my why. I understand what it's about.” Also mentioned was the use of release forms, which are standard practice in the documentary industry, but are often complex in nature and poorly explained to subjects (Winston, 1995). R2 mentioned as a possible solution his company’s efforts to simplify their release forms and to explain their contents in plain English. Some respondents also spoke about checking in with the subject’s family and friends to understand how their participation in the project might impact those around them (R3, R6, R7, R8). Others brought up the importance of considering a subject’s race, gender and sexuality as they intersect with the content of the story being told (R4, R5, R8).
Respondents also discussed efforts to respect their subject’s dignity and privacy throughout the filming process. This included complying with a subject’s requests to pause filming, and asking permission to accompany them into spaces or moments that might be particularly sensitive. R4, a production company executive, brought up a mantra she uses often when advising her crews: “Access is a privilege, not a right.” Keeping this in mind can encourage filmmakers to pause and consider how they might be pressuring or coercing a subject into consenting to be filmed in what they would normally prefer to be a private moment.
Most respondents indicated that more could be done across the industry to prepare individuals for a project’s eventual release. The public dissemination of a subject’s story can draw attention to them in their community and online, and some of the most harmful impacts on a subject’s life can happen in the aftermath of release (R2, R4, R5, R6). While ideally preparation begins before and during the production process, maintaining aftercare with subjects is a known strategy for mitigating harm. This can include special pre-release screenings for subjects, giving them an opportunity to respond or prepare for any potential consequences (R1, R2, R5, R6, R7). R4 and R5 both reported that they made a special effort to keep in touch with subjects long after distribution, to retain good will and, in some cases, because “we became close during filming [...] and we’re still friends today” (R4).
Theme 2: Psychologically Informed Approaches to Trauma
This theme emerged from various respondent references to specialized practices and care for traumatized subjects, as well as to the use of psychological resources in working with them. Respondents did not always report a significant difference in their duty of care to traumatized people compared to those that are not. Interviewees that did not report a difference, however, usually indicated that a psychological approach to subject welfare should be standard for all participants.
Subtheme 2.1: Psychological Impact on Subjects
When engaging with traumatized subjects, respondents mentioned conceptualizing victimization as a key consideration (R1, R3, R4, R6, R8). For some filmmakers, this can mean taking a bird’s-eye view of the situation being depicted and working through the power dynamics at play. Who has been victimized and who is the perpetrator? How can we advocate for victims without reducing them to their most traumatic experiences? Respondents ask themselves these questions in an attempt to better understand potential pain points for subjects and to avoid tokenizing depictions (R4, R6, R8). Interviews with subjects who have survived disturbing experiences carry a risk of re-traumatization through testimony, and therefore require significant preparation and care (Lucas, 2017).
For R2 and R3, this took the form of company-mandated training sessions with journalists who had experience conducting sensitive interviews. Other respondents brought up the use of psychological evaluations for subjects prior to their participation, which is standard practice across most news agencies in the United Kingdom (R4, R5, R8). These evaluations are used to understand the subject’s mental state and relationship to their trauma, as well as estimating how they react under pressure (R4). In some cases, psychological professionals are ingrained in the production process, acting as a constant resource for the subject to turn to if they are feeling uncomfortable or overwhelmed (R4, R5, R6). These professionals can also serve as a liaison between the subject and the filmmaker, advising the director and crew on how to work with the subject in a manner befitting the subject’s needs (R4, R5).
Beyond the production process, respondents agreed that it is within the filmmaker’s duty of care to depict traumatic events on screen in a respectful way. Several interviewees brought up the term ‘trauma porn’ as an descriptor for gratuitous portrayals of violence, sexual assault and abuse they hoped to avoid (R4, R6, R8). As an alternative, respondents described the use of stylized, artistic approaches to filmmaking that avoid direct depiction in favor of evocative imagery and expressive visual effects (R2, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8). When asked for their thoughts on Daniels-Yeomans (2017) theory of the ‘nonrepresentational approach’ to depicting trauma, most respondents agreed this was an ideal way to communicate the magnitude of a terrible event to audiences without further tormenting the subject (R2, R3, R4, R5, R7, R8). R2, R4 and R6 noted, however, that this approach is underutilized in documentary filmmaking today.
Subtheme 2.2: Psychological Impact on Production Crew and Ethical Practices
One often overlooked element of working on sensitive projects is the psychological impact on the production crew and the ethical practices they attempt to carry out. Respondents mentioned the potential for filmmakers and crew to become desensitized to trauma, especially if they have been working on difficult topics for many years (R3, R5, R6, R7). They explained that this can lead to neglect and carelessness with vulnerable subjects if left unaddressed. Respondents also discussed the importance of fostering a healthy culture on set that encourages emotional vulnerability and the introduction of fresh perspectives (R4, R5, R6). Additionally, respondents who have held more senior positions in production expressed their attempts to hire individuals whose values aligned with the ethical goals of their company (R3, R5, R6, R8).
In some cases, the same psychological support that is offered to subjects is also offered to crew members, as a resource to manage feelings of depression or despair that might accompany working with traumatized individuals (R4, R5). It was generally agreed upon that an emotionally healthy and well-supported crew contributes to the refining of ethical practices on set, as well as to an increased awareness of the production crew’s goals and interests in telling the subject’s story (R1, R2, R4, R5, R6).
Structural Considerations
This metatheme groups together the two general themes gathered from the dataset about the procedural structures and limitations of documentary production. Interviewees suggested that the production process can serve as both an opportunity for ethical intervention and a facilitator for exploitation. Their reflections on this concept are analyzed below.
Theme 3: Editorial Decision-Making
Respondents spoke at length about their respective roles within the larger documentary production machine, which varies across companies, formats, and projects. The research sample was diverse in this sense, featuring individuals at almost all levels of the production hierarchy. This included executives of large television production houses, development staff and production crew at streaming-oriented companies, and independent directors. Each respondent gave detailed testimony about the particular challenges they face in implementing ethics from their position, and spoke to the editorial, narrative, and commercial hurdles they face in mitigating harm. They also reported some guidelines and strategies that are in place for working with traumatized individuals and gave their thoughts on the effectiveness of those practices.
Subtheme 3.1: Ethical Editorial Practices
Throughout the interview process, respondents continually brought up the struggle of balancing editorializing with prioritizing an authentic portrayal of events and people. The journalistic definition of editorializing—the act of expressing an opinion through media—appears not to fully capture the way the phrase is used in documentary filmmaking. For some, the tension between a stylistic take on the truth and the plain presentation of it is at the heart of the filmmaker’s duty. R6 reflects: “How far are you willing to bend their story to make things entertaining? At the end of the day, if you're making documentary, you're making reality. We're in the entertainment business. You entertain people with emotion. You either want people to laugh or cry or be sad, be angry. [...] But you have to really make sure that you are not abusing trust that's been put in you in the name of entertainment.”
Most respondents expressed similar sentiments, emphasizing that documentary is distinct from journalism (R2, R3, R5, R6) and that sometimes manufacturing tension or omitting elements of a story is the role of the filmmaker as an artist (R1, R2, R4, R7, R8). However, respondents also recognized the exploitative potential of editorializing. R3 shared as an example the practice of splicing footage of a subject’s body language, such as the wringing of hands or the nervous tapping of feet, with audio that wasn’t drawn from the same moment in the interview. Although this is not an uncommon editing technique, R3 noted this kind of misdirection can easily betray the subject’s trust if they presented their story in a different emotional state than the audience was led to believe. For those who have experienced some form of trauma, the overediting or mismanagement of the narrative can be especially damaging to their perception of truth and validity (Lucas, 2017). Along these lines, respondents expressed their attempts to be cognizant of how they were representing vulnerable individuals in particular (R2, R3, R4, R6, R8).
It is worth noting that many production companies do have editorial policies and teams in place. These policies cover a wide range of topics, from guidelines about the depiction of violence and nudity to mandates for the psychological evaluation of subjects. Respondents from the UK reported that these policies were seemingly more common in their country, where the documentary industry was rooted for decades in publicly-funded broadcasting (R4, R5, R7, R8). Many policies borrow heavily from journalistic ethical standards and require the filmmaker to submit a formal plan for production that includes risk assessments and consideration of the project’s legality (R5, R8). At some companies, a preview meeting occurs early in the development stage, in which filmmakers meet with legal and editorial staff to work through any potential challenges to protecting subjects from harm (R5, R7, R8). When asked if these policies ever felt restrictive or stifling to the filmmaker’s creativity, R8 said, “I find it liberating. I find it a useful tool rather than a constraint—I think they keep you truthful. In the ‘70s and ‘80s filmmakers were more likely to play it fast and loose trying to get a story, and there’s something dishonest in that [...] even when it is entertaining.”
Respondents who had worked at companies without formal editorial policies were split into two groups: those who felt confident in their editorial processes ability to protect subjects and those who did not. R3 expressed disappointment with an apparent absence of ethics-based conversation at her former company. She cited the company’s priorities, including “jumping on a story and moving quickly”, as contributing factors to their occasional lack of preparation for working with vulnerable individuals. R1, R2, and R7 spoke more favorably of the editorial decision-making they’d witnessed throughout their careers, noting the importance of hiring individuals with “strong values” (R1) and developing an instinct for working through ethical dilemmas (R2, R7).
Subtheme 3.2: Narrative Control and Representation
One of the structural considerations that came up most frequently in the interview process was the question of narrative control, or who has the authority to shape and present the project’s version of the truth (Nash, 2011b). Respondents differentiated between a unilateral approach in which the filmmaker has complete authority over the story, and a collaborative approach in which the subject and filmmaker work together to develop an authentic portrayal. While interviewees noted some rare examples in which the collaborative approach has yielded ethically sound and stylistically interesting results (R4, R7, R8), most were vocal advocates of the unilateral style. R4, for example, criticized collaboration as an ethically risky production strategy: “Sharing creative control can easily turn into people just being uncomfortable with their story being told and wanting to make changes. There's all kinds of ethical concerns when you start to share control over the narrative.”
While respondents agreed that maintaining the subject’s sense of agency is important, they signaled that efforts to achieve this should remain separate from a project’s editorial procedures (R2, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8). Adequately explaining this aspect of documentary to subjects falls under the filmmaker’s duty of care (R7). “Narrative control is something we try to discuss with people early on in the process,” said R5. “it’s part of building that trust with them that we’re going to try to tell their story as best we can.”
Narrative control is particularly relevant to the mediation of trauma through documentary. As Lucas (2017) and Daniels-Yeomans (2017) theorize, relinquishing control of the story of one’s trauma is a highly vulnerable experience that can have destabilizing effects. Filmmakers should handle this responsibility with great care. Respondents noted their struggle to find balance between respecting the subject’s understanding of what happened to them and telling a complete story that includes multiple perspectives and potentially contrasting viewpoints. For R7, facing this challenge meant ensuring that subjects were given sufficient screen time to give what they would consider a satisfactory testimony, while also explaining to them that other participants had the same right. It becomes the filmmaker’s task to present the testimonies to the audience in such a way that a reasonable viewer can come to their own opinion of the truth, and the subject can be satisfied they have spoken theirs (R4, R5, R7, R8).
Subtheme 3.3: Commercial Influences
This subtheme examines the growing impact of commercial considerations for documentary projects. As the industry has expanded in the era of streaming services, the path to commercial success has become hyper-competitive and financially risky for most production companies. The corporations that stream, distribute, and broadcast projects, generally referred to by filmmakers as ‘buyers’, are increasingly selective about the material they purchase. These buyers conduct extensive market research to predict what will keep their audiences engaged, working with producers to find and fund projects that fit their criteria. R2, R3, R4, R5 and R6 all spoke to the pressures they face from buyers to conform projects to their expectations. This pressure usually comes in the project’s development stage, when production companies are pitching the story and its subjects. R6 reflects: “Sometimes they are asking for things that are just not realistic. We have relationships with these people participating in our shows. They are giving us—they're giving access to their life. Buyers might say ‘We want even more access, we want to see the participant in this situation’ where you know that this situation is unfeasible, it's not going to work for the participant, but it's something that the buyer really, really, really wants. You can't say no to buyers. You have to just figure out a way to explain to them why something isn't possible.”
Respondents were insistent that collaboration between the buyer and the filmmaker does not compromise their own narrative control, and that making major editorial decisions on behalf of a buyer could amount to a breach of integrity (R2, R3, R4, R5, R6). R2 noted, however, that buyer expectations do impact the kind of stories his company might look at developing, mentioning that they have to “let go of certain ideas we really think are great—that we really care about” because of a lack of buyer interest. R5 noted that buyer criteria has put traumatized subjects in the spotlight: “There's a lot of interest right now in documentaries about ‘trauma porn’ and all of these sorts of films about just terrible circumstances and what people go through, and those documentaries are very popular. If you go to any of the big festivals, when you look at what's winning and what is making the rounds, a lot of times they're sex trafficking videos, they’re videos about stalking and abuse. They're very gritty and they're heartbreaking, heart wrenching stories. The ones that do it better, in my opinion, take a philosophy to it rather than just lay it all out on the table.”
Worth mentioning is the tendency of respondents in this research to indicate transgressions they see happening within the documentary industry but try to avoid themselves. None of the respondents said that commercial expectations had changed the way they interacted with subjects, but several pointed out that they were aware of this happening on other projects and understood where the pressure was coming from (R3, R5, R8).
Theme 4: Production Logistics
The final theme looks at how the practical elements of the production process impact the ethical treatment of subjects, primarily in terms of company dynamics. Literature on documentary ethics often refers to the relationship between filmmaker and subject, but the nature of the subject’s experience on set is usually more diverse. Most documentaries are produced by teams that range in size from a few camera operators to film crews with a full array of producers, liasons, assistants and equipment specialists. Subjects are likely to interact with a variety of crew members, and their experience is defined by conversations between directors, producers, and development staff that may happen without their knowledge (R2, R3, R4, R8). For this reason, respondents frequently explained their ethical decision-making in the context of their company’s structural layout.
The hierarchies in film production provide opportunities for ethical considerations to become lost in translation. A top-down structure such as the traditional director-producer model requires strong communication within and between production teams to function fluidly. Respondents mentioned that ethical conversations that occur in one department are not always relayed to others, resulting in some crew members being ill-equipped to work with particular subjects (R3, R8). R3 also noted that in the development stage, “there is this kind of punting of responsibility that tends to happen, where there's kind of an assumption that the director and the team that's actually pursuing and making the story later will be the one to really be thoughtful about how you manage [ethical] things.” Others echoed this sentiment, including R6, who reported that the biggest ethical violations he’d witnessed were due to a lack of “mutual accountability” on set.
Respondents indicated that communication between departments, hiring experienced professionals, and mixing in fresh perspectives were effective strategies to mitigate these kinds of errors (R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R8). R4 and R5 both spoke positively of executive oversight on set, explaining that they maintained a physical presence throughout the process to ensure that teams were talking to one another and keeping the subject’s wellbeing in mind. For R4, who talked about having to dismiss employees for pushing vulnerable subjects too far out of their comfort zone, this meant consistent reminders of her personal mantra: “Access is a privilege, not a right.”
VI. CONCLUSION
One contribution of this research is the proposal of a novel method for evaluating documentary ethics. I have taken a broad approach to examining the role of the filmmaker in relation to the subject, choosing to analyze their experiences and their conceptualization of responsibility rather than the ethical merit of their work. As van Dienderen (2004) and Nash (2011b) suggested, there is a great deal to be learned from studying the production process itself, and this dissertation serves as an exploration of the effectiveness of empirical research in that tradition.
It is apparent that documentary filmmakers are entrusted with enormous power over the lives of others. They must strike a delicate balance between the creation of entertainment and the meaningful act of depicting real people. Their duty of care to those people is demanding and often difficult to carry out, even more so when working with traumatized subjects who, psychologically, have more at stake. The respondents who participated in this research helped to introduce a framework of how filmmakers see themselves and their responsibilities, and opened up several lines to explore in further research.
This dissertation also gathers various perspectives on the ethical practices that are in place at production companies around the world, and suggests a dichotomy between the regulated and unregulated documentary worlds. The research makes no claims to the effectiveness of ethical regulations, but instead looks at how filmmakers see the benefits and drawbacks of both approaches. While some lament the creative restriction of ethical guidelines, others find them liberating. It is clear, however, that in unregulated productions the welfare of the subject is thoroughly reliant on the decision-making of the filmmaker. Therefore, when rules are not the answer, empathy, experience and strong moral character become ever more important qualities for filmmakers to exhibit.
Several lines of further research emerged from this dissertation. Regarding the ethical treatment of traumatized subjects, the most relevant might be assessing the effectiveness of psychological professionals on documentary sets. Understanding more specific use cases and how these individuals approach their work could be valuable to filmmakers considering implementing the practice themselves. Similarly, it became clear through the research process that the filmmaker’s initial contact with the subject is an important moment in establishing a trust-based relationship between them. Further research could explore strategies to effectively mitigate harm in the course of those conversations, as well as to better understand their ethical implications.
It also seems interesting to investigate the impact of commercialization on the documentary industry in this time of rapidly shifting entertainment markets. The power balance between buyers and producers is constantly in flux, and appears to have an increasing impact on what kinds of projects are being made. How are filmmakers adjusting to this dynamic, and how does it affect what filmmakers are asking of their subjects?
Finally, a compelling line of research focuses on preparing subjects for life after a project's release. Respondents to this dissertation highlighted the difficulty of predicting a project's impact on an individual's life, raising the question of whether there are ways to work with subjects during production to help them navigate potential negative social or financial consequences. If a filmmaker's duty of care includes mitigating harm, as this research asserts, it is within their moral responsibility to consider this aspect.
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