6. Subject, and friend

Documentary has no established ethical guidelines and the nature of the form—visual, artistic and often implicit in meaning—does not lend itself to rules that are universally applicable. Many filmmakers argue that ethical decisions must be made on an ad hoc case-by-case basis. This was the conclusion of a report from the American University Center for […]

5. Documentary’s edge

While journalistic practice may be governed by publication-based ethical guidelines, documentary films are not subject to the same sort of evaluative criteria during the newsgathering stage.  Documentary production is not regulated and journalist filmmakers are typically independent small business owners who sell their work to distributors, mainly for television broadcast. As independent producers looking to […]