The ‘Truth in TV Scandal’ that Judith refers to was/is called Crowngate, and it continues to cast a shadow over every edit job I am involved in. It was this scandal back in August 2007 that provoked me to start my own blog on the editing process.

I have just posted on my discoveries of some small text buried in the credits of an episode of Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares USA, which stated that some of the footage may have been played out of sequence.

This type of diclaimer is something I have never seen before, not in the UK anyway. Is this common practice in America? Any feedback on this issue with a US perspective would be most appreciated.

About a year ago there was a rather large thing setting off a ‘truth in TV’ scandal in the UK, wherein a promo was shown at the BBC which seemed to include the Queen storming off out of a photoshoot in a huff. Within 24 hours it was BIG news that in fact she’d been in a bad mood which had lifted as soon as the shoot started, and that the clips had been edited out of order to create sensationalism.

This is more or less the topic of my dissertation for my MA in the NFTS. Thanks for the US-based example.

Judith

I agree that, as documentary filmmakers, we should hold ourselves to a higher standard and not take advantage of the trust that our audience, and documentary subjects, put in us. As others have said we make subjective choices from the get go, but I think we can stay “true to the spirit of the moment”. We can manipulate w/o being dishonest. For example, if I’m editing an interview w/Bob and he says, “I love my wife, my dog, and my dad, but I hate my boss” I think it’s fair game to edit what Bob says down to “I love my dad” to illustrate Bob’s relationship w/his dad. He stated he loves his dad, but not in a succinct quote. That edit is true to the spirit, just not the letter, of what Bob said. On the other hand I think editing him so he says, “I love my boss” is not true to the spirit of what Bob said and it violates the trust between the filmmaker and the audience as well as the trust between the filmmaker and Bob.

-Andrew

This is such an important element to documentary and “reality” filmmaking that Barry Hampe dedicates an entire chapter to it in his book “Making Documentary Films and Reality Videos.”

You are right that it is a slippery slope. There are many shades of grey between what reflects reality and was is pure fabrication. Michael Moore, for example, has been criticized for going over the line a number of times.

(Documentary) filmmakers always have an agenda, just as journalists do — to tell a story. We all know pure objectivity in the art is a myth, but IMHO I think we do need to hold ourselves to a certain standard of integrity. What standard should that be? Should we consider ourselves, for intents and purposes, journalists for the sake of ethics?