HBO continued to de facto ownership of the Emmys, taking five in the nonfiction categories at the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony last Saturday in Los Angeles, including the prestigious Governors Award for the indefatigable Sheila Nevins; and two each for The Alzheimer's Project and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, for which Marina Zenovich took the Outstanding Directing and, with Joe Bini and P.G. Morgan, Outstanding Writer honors.

The other multiple winner in nonfiction was HISTORY's 102 Minutes that Shaped America, which was honored for Outstanding Nonfiction Special, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.

The Creative Arts Emmys, the edited telecast of which airs September 18 on E!, is a forerunner to the Primetime Emmys, which airs September 20 on CBS. The News and Documentary Emmy Awards, presented by the New York-based National Academy of Television Arts & Science, happens September 21 at the Frederick P. Rose Hall at Lincoln Center.

Governors Award

Sheila Nevins, President, HBO Documentary Films

Outstanding Children's Nonfiction Program

Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am? with Maria Shriver (HBO; HBO Documentary Films and the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health in association with the Alzheimer's Association, Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, Geoffrey Beene Gives Back Alzheimer's Initiative, and Planet Grande Pictures)
Executive Producers: Sheila Nevins, Maria Shriver
Supervising Producer: Veronica Brady
Producers: Eamon Harrington, John Watkin
Series Producer: John Hoffman

Nick News With Linda Ellerbee Coming Home: When Parents Return from War (Nickelodeon ; Nickelodeon in association with Lucky Duck Productions)
Executive Producers: Linda Ellerbee, Rolfe Tessem
Supervising Producer: Wally Berger
Producers: Mark Lyons, Martin Toub

Outstanding Cinematography for Nonfiction Programming

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations-- Laos (Travel Channel; Zero Point Zero Production, Inc.
Cameras: Todd Liebler, Zach Zamboni

Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (HBO; Milwood Pictures, Graceful Pictures, BBC, Antidote Films in association with HBO Documentary Films and ThinkFilm)
Director: Marina Zenovich

Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking

The Memory Loss Tapes (HBO; HBO Documentary Films and the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health in association with the Alzheimer's Association, Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, Geoffrey Beene Gives Back Alzheimer's Initiative, and Sceneworks)
Executive Producers: Sheila Nevins, Maria Shriver
Series Producer: John Hoffman
Producers: Shari Cookson, Nick Doob

Outstanding Nonfiction Series

American Masters (PBS; Thirteen/WNET American Masters)
Executive Producer: Susan Lacy
Series Producer: Prudence Glass
Supervising Producer: Julie Sacks
Producer: Judy Kinberg

Outstanding Nonfiction Special

102 Minutes That Changed America (HISTORY; Produced by Siskel/Jacobs Productions for History)
Executive Producers: Greg Jacobs, Jon Siskel, Susan Werbe
Producer: Nicole Rittenmeyer

Outstanding Picture Editing for Nonfiction Programming

This American Life: John Smith (Showtime; Showtime Presents in association with Chicago Public Radio, Killer Films, Inc., Left/Right, Inc)
Editor: Joe Beshenkovsky

Outstanding Picture Editing-Short Form

Stand Up to Cancer (ABC, CBS, NBC; Rock Paper Scissors)
Editors: David Brodie, Andy Grieve

Outstanding Reality Program

Intervention (A&E)
Executive Producers: Gary Benz, Michael Brandon, Sam Mettler, Dan Partland, Robert Sharenow, Colleeen Conway; Supervising Producer: Jeff Grogan; Producers: Trisha Kirk Redding, Sarah Skibitzke, Kurth Schemper.

Outstanding Sound Editing for Nonfiction Programming (Single Or Multi-Camera)

102 Minutes That Changed America (HISTORY; Produced by Siskel/Jacobs Productions for History)
Sound Designer: Seth Skundrick

Outstanding Sound Mixing for Nonfiction Programming (Single Or Multi-Camera)

102 Minutes That Changed America (HISTORY; Produced by Siskel/Jacobs Productions for History)
Re-Recording Mixer: Damon Trotta

Outstanding Special Class--Short-format Nonfiction Programs

Writer's Draft (Fox Movie Channel; A Fox Movie Channel production in association with Polaris Productions, Inc.)
Producer: Kenny Rhodes ;

Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (HBO; Milwood Pictures, Graceful Pictures, BBC, Antidote Films in association with HBO Documentary Films and ThinkFilm)
Writers: Joe Bini, P.G. Morgan, Marina Zenovich

The annual dolphin slaughter in Taiji was suspended due to publicity from the film, The Cove. But, sadly, it was only temporary. (via Eco Worldly)

First Run Features has acquired Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein's feature documentary Bulletproof Salesman, a look at war profiteer Fidelis Cloer. An early 2010 theatrical release is planned, with home video and broadcast releases to follow. (via The Hollywood Reporter)

1997 doc Hands on a Hardbody is about to have an exclamation point added to it's name. According to Variety, the film about a Texas endurance contest is going to be turned into a Broadway musical with the assistance of High Fidelity lyricist Amanda Green and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Doug Wright. If lucky, it'll follow in the footsteps of Wright's previous doc-turned-musical effort, Grey Gardens, (read our Documentary Magazine article about that right here) which proved a hit with both audiences and critics. No matter how it fares, hopefully at the very least we'll get a catchy car tune out of it like Greased Lightin'... (Variety via A.V. Club)

The Paley Center for Media announced a diverse lineup of documentaries to be screened at its tenth annual documentary festival, PaleyDocFest09, in New York throughout the month of October. Is starts Oct. 8 with The Way We Get By, which explores how different generations of war veterans come to terms with what one's service to country means. The Festival then continues with the world premiere of the American Masters Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound on October 9; Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall on October 20;The Glass House, which is about empowering abused young women in Tehran on October 21 and more. Get all info at the Paley Center's website.

Opening: September 2
Venue: Film Forum/New York City
Film: American Casino
Dir./Prod:       Leslie Cockburn
Prod.:             Andrew Cockburn
http://www.americancasinothemovie.com/

"I don't think most people really understood that they were in a casino" says award-winning financial reporter Mark Pittman. "When you're in the Street's casino, you've got to play by their rules." This film finally explains how and why over $12 trillion of our money vanished into the American Casino.

For chips, the casino used real people, like the ones we meet in Baltimore.  These are not the heedless spendthrifts of Wall Street legend, but a high school teacher, a therapist, a minister of the church.  They were sold on the American Dream as a safe investment.  Too late, they discovered the truth. Cruelly, as African-Americans, they and other minorities  were the prime targets for the subprime loans that powered the casino. According to the Federal Reserve, African-Americans were four times more likely than whites to be sold subprime loans.

We meet the players. A banker explains that the complex securities he designed were "fourth dimensional" and sold to "idiots." A senior Wall Street ratings agency executive describes being ordered to "guess" the worth of billion dollar securities. A mortgage loan salesman explains how borrowers' incomes were inflated to justify a loan.  A billionaire describes how he made a massive bet that people would lose their homes and has won $500 million, so far.

Finally, as the global financial system crumbles and outraged but impotent lawmakers fume at Wall Street titans, we see the casino's endgame: Riverside, California, a foreclosure wasteland given over to colonies of rats and methamphetamine labs, where disease-bearing mosquitoes breed in their millions on  the stagnant swimming pools of yesterday's dreams.

Filmed over twelve months in 2008, American Casino takes you inside a game that our grandchildren never wanted to play.

Opening: September 9
Film:               Crude
Dir./Prod:       Joe Berlinger
Prods.:                        Michael Bonfiglio, J.R. DeLeon, Richard Stratton
Distributor:    First Run Features
http://www.crudethemovie.com/

Three years in the making, this cinéma-vérité feature from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) is the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial environmental lawsuits on the planet. The inside story of the infamous "Amazon Chernobyl" case, Crude is a real-life high stakes legal drama, set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking, exploring a complicated situation from all angles while bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.

Opening: September 11
Venue:            Cinema Village/NYC
Film:               Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
Dir./Prod:       Margarita Jimeno
Prod.:                         Darya Zhuk
Distributor:    Lorber Films
http://www.lorberfilms.com/gogol-bordello-non-stop/

Gogol Bordello Non-Stop is a lo-fi, high-energy documentary about New York City's most notoriously entertaining band, led by frontman Eugene Hütz. Filmmaker and fan Margarita Jimeno follows the band on a five-year journey from underground legend to international phenomenon, taking in the reckless, raucous sights and sounds of a band whom Hütz describes as "dedicated to creating an insane party atmosphere to deliver messages of social and political commentary." A wildly entertaining celebration of the definitive fun-de-siècle band,

Opening: September 11
Film:               No Impact Man
Dir./Prod:       Laura Gabbert
Dir.:                Justin Schein
Prod.:                         Eden Wurmfeld
Distributor:    Oscilloscope Pictures
http://www.noimpactdoc.com/index_m.php

Colin Beavan decides to completely eliminate his personal impact on the environment for the next year. It means eating vegetarian, buying only local food and turning off the refrigerator. It also means no elevators, no television, no cars, busses or airplanes, no toxic cleaning products, no electricity, no material consumption and no garbage.

No problem--at least for Colin. But he and his family live in Manhattan. So when his espresso-guzzling, retail-worshipping wife Michelle and their two-year-old daughter are dragged into the fray, the No Impact Project has an unforeseen impact of its own.

Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein's film provides an intriguing inside look into the experiment that became a national fascination and media sensation, while examining the familial strains and strengthened bonds that result from Colin and Michelle's struggle with their radical lifestyle change.

Opening: September 11
Venue:            Landmark Magnolia Theater/Dallas, TX; Angelika Film Center, Houston, TX
Film:               The Horse Boy
Dir.:                Michel Orion Scott
Prod.:             Rupert Isaacson
Distributor:    Zeitgeist Films
http://www.horseboymovie.com/

How far would you travel to heal someone you love? An intensely personal yet an epic spiritual journey, The Horse Boy follows one Texas couple and their autistic son as they trek on horseback through Outer Mongolia in a desperate attempt to treat his condition with shamanic healing. When 2-year-old Rowan was diagnosed with autism, Rupert Isaacson, a writer and former horse trainer, and his wife, Kristin Neff, a psychology professor, sought the best possible medical care for their son--but traditional therapies had little effect. Then they discovered that Rowan has a profound affinity for animals--particularly horses--and the family set off on a quest for a possible cure.

The Horse Boy is part travel adventure, part insight into shamanic tradition and part intimate look at the autistic mind. In telling one family's extraordinary story, the film gives voice to the thousands who display amazing courage and creativity every day in the battle against the mysterious and heartbreaking epidemic.

Opening: September 11
Venue:            Anthology Film Archives/New York City
Film:               The Painter Sam Francis
Dir.:                Jeffrey Perkins
http://www.thepaintersamfrancis.com/Site/Home.html

Forty years in the making, The Painter Sam Francis is Mr. Perkins's lyrical and intimate portrait of a friend, mentor and leading light of American abstract art.

The film retraces Francis' life and career from his childhood in California to his artistic maturation in post-World War II Paris, his time spent in Japan, and his return to the United States. Hinging on an interview that Perkins conducted with Francis in 1973, as well as extended scenes of the artist at work in the studio, the film provides deep insight into a man for whom creativity was a powerful life-sustaining force.

Interviews with friends, family, and fellow artists--including Ed Ruscha, James Turrell, Bruce Conner, Alfred Leslie and others--illuminate a mysterious and complex personality, and its reflection in a body of work that is simultaneously diverse and singular.

Opening: September 11
Film:               Walt & El Grupo
Dir.:                Theodore Thomas
Prod.:             Kuniko Okubo
Distributor:    Walt Disney Family Foundation Films
http://www.waltandelgrupo.com/

 For ten weeks in 1941, Walt Disney, his wife Lilly, and sixteen colleagues from his studio visited nations in Latin America to gather story material for a series of films with South American themes.  The feature documentary film Walt & El Grupo uses this framing device to explore inter-American relations, provide a rare glimpse into the artists who were part of the magic of Disney's "golden age", and give an unprecedented look at the 39 year-old Walt Disney during one of the most challenging times of his entire life. 

Opening: September 16
Venue:            Film Forum/New York City
Film:               The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Dirs./Prods.:               Judith Ehrlich, Rick Goldsmith
http://www.mostdangerousman.org/

1971: America is embroiled in a dirty war based on lies. A president is abusing the power of his office, ignoring the will of the people, Congress and the courts. He promises peace while planning a war without end.

One man, at the center of power, armed with a safe full of secret documents, leaks the truth about the Vietnam War to The New York Times. He risks life in prison to end the war he helped plan. His act of conscience and desperation triggers a Constitutional crisis, Watergate, the only Presidential resignation in history--and finally helps end the war.

Henry Kissinger called Daniel Ellsberg, "the most dangerous man in America"

And three decades later, he's still at it.

This documentary tells a story we need now.

Opening:        September 18
Film:               FUEL
Dir./Prod.:      Josh Tickell
Prod.:             Rebecca Harrell
www.thefuelfilm.com

FUEL is a comprehensive and entertaining look at energy in America: a history of where we have been, our present predicament and a solution to our dependence on foreign oil.

Rousing and reactionary, FUEL is an amazing, in-depth, personal journey of oil use and abuse as it examines wide-ranging energy solutions other than oil, the faltering US auto and petroleum industries, and the latest stirrings of the American mindset toward alternative energy.

Opening: September 19
Venue:     On the pier at Solar One; 23rd Street @ the East River/New York City
Film:   Burning in the Sun
Dirs./Prods.:               Cambria Matlow, Morgan Robinson
www.birdgirlproductions.com; http //rooftopfilms.bside.com/2009/films/burninginthesun_rooftopfilms2009

Twenty-six-year-old charmer Daniel Dembele is equal parts West African and European, and looking to make his mark on the world. A chance encounter while managing a café in Europe convinces him to return to his homeland in Mali and start a local business building solar panels--the first of its kind in the sun-drenched nation. Daniel's goal is to electrify the households of rural communities, 99 percent of which live without power. Burning in the Sun tells the story of Daniel's journey growing the shaky startup into a viable company, and of the business' impact on Daniel's first customers in the tiny village of Banko. Taking controversial stances on climate change, poverty and African self-sufficiency, the film explores what it means to grow up as a man, and what it takes to prosper as a nation.

 Opening: September 21-"Global Premiere"
Film:   The Age of Stupid
Dir.:                Franny Armstrong
Prod.: Lizzie Gillett
http://www.ageofstupid.net/

The Age of Stupid is the new cinema documentary from Franny Armstrong, director of McLibel. This enormously ambitious drama-documentary-animation hybrid stars Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living in the devastated world of 2055, watching "archive" footage from 2008 and asking: Why didn't we stop climate change while we had the chance?

On September 21, the eve of the UN General Assembly's climate session, The Age of Stupid will be launched internationally at the biggest and greenest live film event the world has ever seen. A-list celebrities will walk the green carpet to a solar-powered cinema tent in downtown New York, linked by satellite to 700 cinemas in 50+ countries.*

As an INclusive, rather than EXclusive event, everyone is invited to go to their local theatre to watch the VIPs arrive in Manhattan by bike, rickshaw, electric car and sailing boat, before braving the paparazzi on the green carpet (made from recycled soda bottles).  Following the screening of The Age of Stupid, there will be a further 40-minute event featuring Kofi Annan, Gillian Anderson, Mary Robinson, the film's director Franny Armstrong, the star of the film Pete Postlethwaite and other leading thinkers, celebrities and political figures from around the world. There will be live music from Radiohead's Thom Yorke and satellite links to scientists working in the Indonesian Rainforest and at the melting glaciers in the Himalayas. A group of children will speak from the very room in Copenhagen in which all our futures will be decided at the UN climate summit in December. 

Opening:        September 23
Film:               Capitalism: A Love Story                              
Dir./Prod.:      Michael Moore
Distributor:    Paramount Vantage/Overture        
http://www.capitalismalovestory.com/

In the 20-year anniversary of his groundbreaking masterpiece Roger & Me, Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story comes home to the issue he's been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and, by default, the rest of the world). But this time the culprit is much bigger than General Motors, and the crime scene is wider than Flint, Michigan. From Middle America to the halls of power in Washington, to the global financial epicenter in Manhattan, Michael Moore once again takes filmgoers into uncharted territory.

Opening:        September 23
Venue:            Cinema Village/New York City
Film:               In Search of Beethoven                                
Dir.:                Phil Grabsky
http://www.insearchofbeethoven.com/

In Search of Beethoven has brought together the world's leading performers and experts on Beethoven to reveal new insights into this legendary composer. As with director Phil Grabsky's previous film, In Search of Mozart, In Search of Beethoven takes a comprehensive look at the composer's life through his musical output, documenting each piece of music in concert with Beethoven's biography and letters. Grabsky traveled across Europe and North America to interview historians and musicians between rehearsals and performances, and filmed a remarkable 55 performances as well.

Above all, In Search of Beethoven addresses the romantic myth that Beethoven was a heroic, tormented figure battling to overcome his tragic fate, struck down by deafness, who searched for his "immortal beloved," but remained unmarried. It delves beyond the image of the tortured, cantankerous, unhinged personality, to reveal someone quite different and far more interesting.

Opening:        September 25
Film:               Lord, Save Us From Your Followers 
Dir.:                Dan Merchant
http://lordsaveusthemovie.com/

If you were to meet ten average Americans on the street, nine of them would say they believe in God. So why is the Gospel of Love dividing America?
Dan Merchant put on his bumper-sticker-clad jumpsuit and decided to find the reason. After talking with scores of men and women on streets all across the nation, and also interviewing many well-known activists in today's "Culture Wars," Merchant realized that the public discussion of faith doesn't have to be contentious.
From its opening Talking Heads sequence through its touching look at faith in action, Lord, Save Us From Your Followers is a fast-paced, highly engaging documentary that explores the collision of faith and culture in America while opening up this important conversation to all of us.

Opening: September 25
Film:   The Providence Effect
Dir./Prod.:                  Rollin Binzer
Distributor:                Slowhand Cinema Releasing
http://www.theprovidenceeffect.com/

Paul J. Adams III, an African-American man with activist roots in the 1960s civil rights movement, came from a family of teachers. After being black-listed himself as a teacher in Alabama because of his civil rights activities, he moved to Chicago, received a master's degree in psychology, and then landed a job as guidance counselor at Providence St. Mel, an all-black parochial school on Chicago's notorious drug-ridden, gang-ruled West Side.

A year after his arrival, Adams became principal, only to be told the following year that Chicago's archdiocese was going to close the school. After orchestrating a fundraising campaign that received national and local media attention, funds poured in and enabled Adams to buy the school from the Sisters of Providence and convert it to a nonprofit independent school. To ward off thieves and vandals, he literally moved into the empty nuns' quarters of the convent inside the school.   

He then set about achieving a new goal:  To turn Providence St. Mel into a first rank college preparatory school, and its African-American student body into a corps of driven, disciplined, high-achieving students. 

That was over 30 years ago.  Since then, 100 percent of Providence St. Mel graduates have been accepted to college--half of them, during the last seven years, to first tier and Ivy League colleges and universities.   

The road from failing inner city school to a pre-K-through-12 educational system that produces graduates who attend Ivy League colleges and universities was not a smooth one. The Providence Effect traces the school's development from a struggling shoe-string budget dream into a school and a method of teaching that produces not only inspired students, but parents, teachers and administrators dedicated to settling for nothing less than the highest expectations.

Opening: September 30
Venue:            Film Forum/New York City
Film:   An American Journey
Dir.:                Philippe Séclier
Distributor:                Lorber Films
http //www.unvoyageamericain.com/pages/en_lefilm.html

 In contemporary photography, everybody agrees there is a "before" and an "after" The Americans, Robert Frank's 1958 photographic manifesto.

Half a century later, French director Philippe Séclier decided to follow in Frank's footsteps to explore the spirit of the "Beat Generation" and the impact of his book, The Americans, not only on the art of photography, but also on American culture.

From Texas to Montana, Nebraska to Louisiana, New York to San Francisco, An American Journey is a 15,000 miles odyssey through contemporary America, moving between past and present, photography and cinema, and two Americas, separated by time.

Five men in El Salvador, including a police officer, were arrested Wednesday in connection with the killing of French filmmaker and photographer Christian Poveda last week, the country's attorney general's office said.

A sixth man who allegedly ordered the murder was already in prison, according to a statement from the agency, CNN reported.

Poveda, whose documentary La Vida Loca follows the lifestyle and violence of the Mara 18 street gang in El Salvador was found shot dead on September 2.

Of those arrested, four were members of the Mara 18 gang, and one was National Civil Police Officer Juan Napoleon, the attorney general's office said.

La Vida Loca is slated for wider international release this month. Find out more about the film on its official website. 

Some first reactions:

Variety: By returning to his roots, professional gadfly Michael Moore turns in one of his best films with Capitalism: A Love Story.

The Hollywood Reporter: His talent is evident in creating two hours of engrossing cinema by contrasting a fast-moving montage of '50s archive images extolling free enterprise with the economic disaster of the present. Given the desperate state of the world economy, this provocative film should find attentive audiences along with many angry detractors who will give it free publicity.

Time: Capitalism: A Love Story does not quite measure up to Moore's Sicko in its cumulative power, and it is unlikely to equal Fahrenheit 9/11 in political impact. In many ways, though, this is Moore's magnum opus: the grandest statement of his career-long belief that big business is screwing the hard-working little guy while government connives in the atrocity.

The Guardian UK: If Michael Moore's latest documentary lacks the clean punch of his best-known work, it can only be because the crime scene is so vast.

The Independent: This is all familiar stuff. Moore delivers his arguments in his usual scattergun fashion, mixing archive footage, interviews, sarcastic voice-overs and his own interventions. (He spends a lot of time on Wall Street trying to make citizen's arrests of bankers.) When you unpick the rousing rhetoric you quickly realise that contradictions and syllogisms abound. Coherence isn't his strong point. Even so, this is moving and entertaining fare.

Judge for yourself when the move comes out October 2. In the meantime, check www.michaelmoore.com for the latest updates and watch the trailer here:

This book, purportedly about one of the major figures in American documentary film, was a huge disappointment. It's badly written, but what made me furious was the waste of an opportunity to do something valuable. I don't think it unreasonable to expect that a book titled with the name of a person (Albert Maysles) should tell us quite a bit about the person. Certainly it should be more than the convoluted, yet surprisingly simplistic, notions of the author about that person's work. But that's all we get: an almost stream-of-consciousness outpouring of tenuous connections from secondary sources, put together in a way that may have made sense to the author, but is not very helpful to the reader.

The author of the book, Joe McElhaney, an associate professor of film studies at Hunter College, reminds me of a young cameraman I sent to the Italian market in Philadelphia to get a few shots of tomatoes for a film on migrant workers. Because those shots wouldn't take a whole roll of film, I told him to shoot anything else he thought was interesting. When we screened the dailies, I saw some very good, very interesting shots of the market in the early morning--produce trucks, people opening their stores, trash burning in oil drums, kids on the way to school--and then, at the very end of the reel, when I'd almost given up hope, there were 30 seconds of beautiful images of tomatoes. "Good," I said. "I was beginning to wonder." The cameraman said, "This voice in my head kept saying, ‘When you're sent to the market to shoot tomatoes, you'd better come back with some shots of tomatoes.'" I'm afraid if McElhaney had been that cameraman, he would have forgotten to shoot the tomatoes.

In his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell sets out "the 10,000 hour rule" and quotes neurologist Daniel Levitin, who says, "In study after study--of composers, basketball players, writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals and what have you-- this number comes up again and again. . . No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time."

This rule presumably also holds true for world-class cameramen and documentarians. And I'd like to know a lot more about how Maysles spent those first 10,000 hours of his documentary life--what mistakes he made, and what he learned from them; what theories he may have developed as a result of shooting his very first films in the Soviet Union--not so much as a documentarian, but as a psychologist gathering data; what it meant to him--at the time and looking back--to be one of the select few at Drew Associates, including Ricky Leacock, DA Pennebaker and of course Robert Drew, who were creating a new kind of American documentary. The book doesn't tell us.

It tells us that Albert Maysles was a Jew in Irish Boston, and suggests this may have affected his films. We learn that he served in the tank corps in World War II and went to college on the G.I. Bill, earning bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology. His brother David also earned a BA in psychology. Do you think that had anything to do with the kind of personal documentaries they made that closely observe human behavior? Did it make Al a better shooter or David a better interviewer? We'll never know.

You'll find no mention of Maysles's marriage or his children in the book except for an author's acknowledgment to Maysles's daughter Sara, who "patiently took me through the company's photographs."

We learn also that the Maysles brothers liked to work with women. The names Deborah Dickson, Kathy Dougherty, Susan Froemke, Ellen Hovde, Barbara Kopple, Muffie Meyer and Charlotte Zwerin run through the book. Each of these women worked with the Maysles as an editor and often producer and/or co-director, and each became a successful documentary filmmaker in her own right. As far as I can tell, all of them except Zwerin are still alive and still working, most of them apparently in New York City, home of Hunter College, where McElhaney teaches. So it wouldn't have been a monumental task to interview all or at least some of them about their days with the Maysles brothers: why they chose to work with them, what they learned, how this might have affected their own films, and so on--the usual questions any semi-competent documentarian would have asked. But nowhere in the book is there a quotation directly attributed to any of them that cannot be traced to some secondary source. One is left to conclude that no such interviews were done. And if, for some reason, they refused to be interviewed, that would open up another interesting line of investigation.

About the writing: The book is dull, dense and gray. Long words, long sentences, long paragraphs, the page unrelieved by so much as a subhead to break the gray and offer the reader a signpost pointing where the author intends to go next. It reads like a data dump of every note the author may have had in his computer that bears even remotely on the topic. By the time I got to page 41, I was ready to give up--too much work for too little return. But, yes, I did soldier on to the end.

I also ran a series of readability tests on the first 20 pages. On the Flesch Reading Ease Scale, the score was 36, meaning the reader needs to be well into college in order to be familiar with this kind of turgid prose. The Flesch Grade Level score was 15.4-the reading level of a college senior. The FOG Index came in at a grade level of 18.4. That's doctoral studies, where everything not written in another language might as well be, and no one expects an author to give even a moment's thought to making things easy for the reader.

Here's a representative passage:

"However, cinephilia repeatedly celebrates not simply the image but the reality that gives birth to that image, hence its attraction to the indexical; its celebration of traces, fragments, and inscriptions; its love for flawed and incomplete films; as well as its overall fascination with the production process. Cinephilia is not fixated upon fictional characters so much as the actors portraying those characters; not so much with the hermeneutics of narrative structure as with quotable dialogue; and not so much with story as with style." (My italics.)

I've been around filmmaking, and especially documentary filmmaking, for more than 40 years, and I have never, ever, heard anyone use the terms "indexical" or "hermeneutics." To whom would one say them?

The author establishes at the outset that Albert Maysles is a shooter/director who did not edit the footage or become involved in the structure of the films--and then goes on to write about structural relationships as if they had something to do with the book's subject. Case in point: the controversial close-up of Jacqueline Kennedy's hands twisting nervously behind her back as she speaks to an audience in Primary. Al Maysles got the shot--a nice piece of behavior. But in the film, her speech starts with a cut to the close-up of her hands followed by a cut to a medium shot of her speaking, seen from the crowd's point of view. Maysles had nothing to do with that structure, and all discussion of it is irrelevant.

The author writes, "Maysles stated that he has ‘a religious feeling' about the ability to capture reality." Now, "a religious feeling" about anything has to lead to something valuable, revealing-- dare I say, Important? But instead of following this up with what this means to Maysles in documentary terms and in terms of the Maysles brothers' filmography, the author wanders off into quotations from Roberto Rossellini and Andre Bazin, making a confused connection between realism in fiction films and abstracting models of reality in documentary. They are not the same.

Maysles brings up documentary reality again in an interview with the author toward the end of the book. He says, "There's this prejudice that still exists that if it's real (which that film is), then what's the contribution of the filmmaker, if it's not about direction? But in a documentary, if you're ‘directing,' you're in trouble." Again, the author does not follow this up, but asks instead what other filmmakers Maysles met at the conference he attended in Lyon, France.

In the whole book, wasn't there anything to like?

Well, the interview is interesting, not for the author's questions, which are often longer than the answers he receives, but for what Maysles manages to reveal about his work in spite of the questions he's asked.

And there's a complete filmography, which has value. Certainly if you are a graduate student working on a thesis dealing with the Maysles brothers or cinéma vérité or direct cinema, you'll find all the reference material you may require in that and the bibliography at the end of the book. Then all you need is a good idea to hold it together.

Just don't look for it in this book.

Barry Hampe is the author of Making Documentary Films and Videos, Second Edition (www.makingdocumentaryfilms.com) and is working on a new book about filming behavioral documentaries. E-mail: barry@barryhampe.com.

Editor's Note: Bradley Beesley's Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo comes out in DVD October 25 tghrough Carnivalesque Films. This article ran last year in conjunction with the film's airing on HBO.

Bradley Beesley's Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo (Prods.: Amy Dotson, James Payne), which airs September 17 on HBO/Cinemax Reel Life, focuses on female rodeo inmates from the Eddie Warrior Women's Correctional Center in Taft, Oklahoma. Through their journey to the 2007 Oklahoma State Penitentiary Rodeo in Oklahoma City, they compete in the 2nd annual women's prison rodeo, billed as "the only behind-the-walls rodeo in the world." In the state with the highest female incarceration rate in the United States, prisoners-- both male and female--compete on wild broncos and bucking bulls, risking injury and pride. The story also features Danny Liles, a 14-year rodeo veteran incarcerated for murder. Additional female counterparts include Brandy "Foxie" Witte, Jamie Brooks (also incarcerated for murder), Rhonda Buffalo and Crystal Herrington, the latter three of whom have children.

With an impressive list of films under his belt, including Okie Noodling (2001) and The Fearless Freaks (2005), Bradley Beesley says that childhood memories growing up in Oklahoma inspired his latest tale. Always knowing about the prison rodeo, a tradition since 1940, he had in the back of his mind a story, but not until he read about the rodeo's invitation for women to compete, did he figure out the hook. After working with nearly 150 hours of footage, Beesley reveals a unique take on the documentary prison genre. Documentary talked to Beesley about his focus on Oklahoma stories, the ins and outs of a prison film, and the journey itself.

Documentary: What are the benefits and pitfalls to being coined a "backyard filmmaker"?

Bradley Beesley: Whether it be The Flaming Lips [featured in The Fearless Freaks], who I've known for 20 years, or growing up and always hearing about the prison rodeo, these are just things I know about, so when I start talking about them, people see I'm not coming in from New York or Los Angeles. I think I am able to reach an understanding early on and a lot of trust with the subjects and be consumed with their lifestyle through whatever it is. Since The Flaming Lips are from Oklahoma, my being from here allows me to fit in with the subjects; I think that's a huge aspect. If there was any sort of con at all, I think it might be getting sort of typecast as a regional filmmaker.

D: In your pre-production process, were there obstacles to acquiring access to film inside the prison?

BB:  Well, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, because it's a maximum security prison, with Danny, the main character, we weren't allowed to go into his cell, so each time you see him, he's in a holding cell. But it looks cool because it's got the bars and stuff, but that's not actually where he lives.

So that was tough to get access to, but thankfully the director of the department of correction--sort of an artistically-minded guy, a photographer--was really into my film Okie Noodling. So he was behind the project from the get-go, and that was a huge asset, even when the warden of the facility would say, "Oh no, you can't do that." And I would go right to the director of that facility to get all-access. However, at the rodeo itself, we had helicopters, a crew of 55, 20 cameras, and a jib cam mount. We did whatever we wanted to.

D: How did you find and then decide which women to feature in the film? 

BB:  In March before the rodeo practice started, we did casting calls. The practices started in May. We had about 15 to 20 girls that we knew from scouting, who were sort of the charismatic girls we thought might be good. So we did the initial casting calls and then just picked four or five girls. It evolved over us filming practices from girls we didn't know about, like Crystal and Foxie, who appeared in the film and actually became the main characters.

We didn't know that going into it, but they were such strong personalities at the practices. They were the new girls, so we were basing this on the previous teams. So that was nice to be able to go, which is always the case with documentaries. You think that somebody is really going to pop and they have a vibrant personality, and then all of a sudden you get into the editing room, and realize you have all these great sound bites from characters you didn't realize were going to be your main characters.

D: What is the appeal to average viewers watching Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo when they take into account they are watching murderers and former drug dealers? Are they heroes to other prisoners and non-prisoners alike because they are mending their ways?

BB:  Well, I think that's why we spend the first two acts of the film--the first 60 minutes--getting to know these characters. At first you hear, "Oh, Jamie shot some guy in the head." Well, we also provide you with some context as to why she shot this guy in the head: She was molested and abused from the time she was six, and the guy she shot was a trick that her boyfriend--10 years older--was prostituting her out. So hopefully we provide you with enough backstory where you care about these girls, not as inmates, but as people.

D: During the film's premiere run at SXSW, the girls talked about being heroes and how they are motivational speakers for juvenile prisoners. How does this newfound role crossover to the general public? 

BB:  At least with me, I can certainly see myself having a few drinks and getting a DUI and something or manslaughter or something, and I think a lot of us are closer to going to prison than we'd like to think. So if you think about that, then you can see yourself being in that situation where a good person was in a bad situation and did something wrong. 

D:  In an interview at SXSW, you asked yourself if these women are deserving of your attention. In bringing these prisoners to light, how did your inner conflicts change from the beginning of production to the end?

BB:  We just spent so much time with them, they became like close friends. Initially, we were a little bit intimidated being in prison, and now we go back there. We had a screening there a few months ago. It really feels like you're going in there to see some long-lost friends or family members or something like that. So now there's no question in my mind they deserve my attention.

Whereas, initially I think typically with Jamie and Rhonda, since they had murdered people, that was what I was referring to. Because when there are victims of the two people who Danny murdered and the one person who Jamie murdered, I think about their families and what their families think when they see this film.

These [inmates] are the heroes of our film--not to say they're heroes in the world, but of our little film, they are heroes. How does that make them feel when watching it and seeing this person who is lifted up? So that's been a little bit conflicting. And we did try to reach both of the family members, but were unable to do so. I would love for them to come to one of the screenings, get some feedback and have an open dialogue.

D: From a technical perspective, do you do create a shot list with your documentaries? Your film is so well constructed and has a fair amount of coverage; what type of process do you have in filming what you need?

BB:  I had two cameras while we were shooting, so it's usually just one camera getting the coverage, the dialogue coverage, and focusing on our three or four main characters. Then the other camera was getting beauty shots, B-roll, cutaways, that kind of stuff.  Early on in the filmmaking process, I want to get as much sound as I can, since I want to get the story early on and I knew that we had this story to tell.

Then we went back in and did pick-ups like you would with a feature narrative. Most of the film takes place at the 2007 rodeo, but there were certain elements, certain shots missing. We didn't know Foxie was going to win the bronco riding, so we didn't cover it as well as we hoped because she was getting on a bronco for the first time. So the next year we went back to the rodeo, and we shot all the inserts of her, which we faked for the 2007 rodeo, but obviously no one knows the difference. We're not actually faking any dialogue, or we're not trying to skew the story or anything like that. We're just using the visual experience to make a more solid film as far as the coverage goes.

D: What is the learning curve from your first film, Hill Stomp Hollar (1998), to Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo?

BB:  Oh, it's huge. I think that first film I did in 1998. I was enrolled in graduate school, and I had a choice between finishing graduate school or making a film. I was like, ‘If I'm going to make a film, I just want to go do it, as opposed to learn how to do it.' Essentially, that was my graduate school. I was so insanely naive about the practical elements of what you do with the film once you've made it. I didn't even know you had to get the publishing rights. I was doing a music documentary, and I was filming all these guys. I had their personal releases, which I thought was great. Then when the film was done, we premiered it at SXSW, and the record label didn't like it. They weren't going to give us the publishing rights at the end of the film. 

So I think if I had not just jumped into it and said, "I'm going to make this film on credit cards," I wouldn't be confident enough. We shot with the on-board mic; we didn't even have a sound guy for that film.

So you know, with every film I feel you learn more and more about it, working a lot on these reality television shows and getting to work with large crews and learning from them. I still enjoy working on TV shows (Roller Girls; A & E, 2008). I feel like I learn something on every show I've made with my films.

In conjunction with Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo, Beesley and his team started a scholarship fund for the women in the film, and developed an outreach program dedicated to changing laws in Oklahoma City for female prisoners. For more information, visit the film's website

When Laura Michalchyshyn took the helm at Discovery Communications' Planet Green five months ago after over a decade at the Sundance Channel, she convened a meeting with her new team, and the consensus was that they weren't airing enough documentaries.

"We realized that there was a great opportunity," Michalchyshyn explains. "There are so many great one-off docs available in the marketplace that aren't getting much television play." 

Planet Green decided to seize this opportunity by creating Reel Impact, a new Saturday evening slot that will feature long-form documentaries that explore pressing issues from bee colony collapse disorder to the acidification of our oceans.

Introduced in June 2008, Planet Green reaches over 57 million cable subscribers with original programming focused on environmental sustainability and individual action. Reel Impact will feature about 80 percent premieres and 20 percent "classics," like Davis Guggenheim's Oscar-winning Al Gore platform, An Inconvenient Truth. Films will also be rebroadcast on Thursday nights and selectively released online as Video on Demand.

Audiences will also be able to see additional footage, read filmmakers' blogs, participate in forum discussions and play educational games on PlanetGreen.com and its sister site, TreeHugger.com, a popular online destination that highlights creative responses to environmental challenges.

"We're creating custom content on our site to help support the broadcast, which is very important because our audience is a really engaged and they're often online--if not simultaneously with, then shortly after, the broadcast," says Michalchyshyn.

This multimedia approach is familiar territory for Laura Gabbert, co-director/co-producer of No Impact Man, which premiered at Sundance and opens in theaters nationwide through Oscilloscope Pictures this fall starting with New York and Los Angeles on September 11. Following the one-year journey of Colin Beavan, a.k.a. No Impact Man, and his family to radically minimize their environmental footprint, the film is one component of a growing advocacy empire, which includes a blog, book and the newly launched No Impact Project, a nonprofit campaign supported by The Fledgling Fund and Working Films that aims to "empower citizens to make choices that better their lives and lower their environmental impact through lifestyle change, community action and participation in environmental politics."

While Gabbert is currently focused on gearing up for the film's theatrical release, she is looking forward to the world television premiere on Reel Impact in early 2010. "My previous films have been on PBS, but I'm always excited to try something new," she says. "I met a bunch of folks from Planet Green when we were at SilverDocs, and it feels like a very appropriate place for the film. I also feel that it could play on a general interest channel, but I think this is a great place to launch it."

No Impact Man seems to be the right fit with the Reel Impact series, which highlights stories of individuals who are compelled to take action when they realize what's at stake for current and future generations. Gabbert and her filmmaking team, including co-producer Eden Wurmfeld and co-director Justin Schein, were themselves inspired to rethink not only their personal daily habits, but also the way they make films. They minimized air travel, employed only practical lighting and used four rechargeable nine-volt batteries for the entire year and half of shooting, as opposed to the hundreds thrown in the garbage over the course of the making of most doc features. They even felt compelled by the Beavans to go car-free, capturing tracking shots from the seat of a rickshaw attached to the back of a bicycle.

"It felt kind of wrong to be documenting Colin and following him around in an SUV," Gabbert maintains. "But I also think it lent the film an intimacy and it makes you feel like part of the family."

While some dismiss the efforts of the Beavans to eliminate their impact, including getting around exclusively through biking and walking and not buying anything other than food (local, of course), as too radical for most Americans, the point is to invite viewers to consider making changes that feel right for them.

"The tagline for Reel Impact is ‘Watch at eight, talk at ten,'" says Michalchyshyn. "The idea, really, is that these films will engage and provoke. We're not taking a position. There is no right answer in this movement and there is no right answer in these films."

This helps to explain the inclusion of Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog's haunting 2005 profile of Timothy Treadwell, an arguably suicidal naturalist whose passion to protect bears makes him believe he is immune to being attacked by them. Michalchyshyn agrees that "a lot of people would say that Timothy pushed it, and unfortunately lost his life over some of the decisions that he made. That's what Werner does so well as a filmmaker: He presents the facts and sort of says, ‘Here it is; you make your decision on how you feel.'"

While many of the films in the series focus on individual choice, they also examine systemic negligence and corporate greed, from the literal and financial demolition of the electric car industry in Chris Paine's 2006 film Who Killed the Electric Car? to environmental contamination by natural gas extraction companies in Split Estate.

Debra Anderson, director of Split Estate, got an offer from Planet Green as a result of her participation in The Good Pitch, a partnership between the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation, the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Working Films UK that aims to bring together social issue docs-in-progress with representatives from NGOs, foundations and the media to forge alliances around the films. "We're very excited about the Reel Impact premiere," says Anderson. "We hope the film raises awareness of what's really going on in communities all over the country where folks don't have money or resources to publicize what's happening to them. Because the industry has plenty of both, and they use them liberally to support their side of the story."

Planet Green is excited to provide a new platform for documentaries like Split Estate. Michalchyshyn concludes, "It's a big move us for us and it carries on the tradition of satisfying curiosity, which Discovery Communications is really all about. That is our mantra, and that is our mission. And there's nothing that satisfies curiosity more to me than some great, provocative documentary stories."

Reel Impact airs Saturdays at 8:00 p.m., starting September 12 with the world premiere of Jeremy Simmons' The Last Beekeeper (Prods.: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato).

Shira Golding is an Ithaca, New York-based filmmaker and community activist who has been reducing her environmental impact by sharing resources locally through the group Share Tompkins, sharetompkins.wordpress.com. Check out her work at www.shirari.com.

One school of thought posits that geography is destiny. A new film on Yellowstone National Park makes the case that geology, in fact, is destiny; more, it directs evolution.

Yellowstone: Land to Life premiered on PBS September 8, with a repeat broadcast scheduled for September 13. The film takes the audience on a journey through the greater Yellowstone ecosystem to tell a compelling story about how powerful forces of geology, from fire to ice, created breathtaking landscapes that support an extraordinary array of wildlife.

A 20-minute version of the film has been playing at the Canyon Visitor Education Center at Yellowstone since Memorial Day.

"We envisioned a sweeping interpretation of  how geologic forces--volcanism, mountain-building and glaciers--created this landscape, including the gigantic caldera of a super volcano," says John Grabowska, who produced the film for the Harpers Ferry Center of  the National Park Service, in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

Grabowska brought an eclectic background to the project. He began his career as a television reporter and news cameraman, then worked as a legislative analyst on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Grabowska went on to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Central America, where he taught subsistence farmers how to manage killer bees "for fun and profit." Grabowska has been producing and directing films for the Harpers Ferry Center since 1991. Three of his films have been featured as PBS specials: Crown of the Continent (2003), Remembered Earth (2006) and Ribbon of Sand (2008). Yellowstone: Land to Life is his fourth PBS primetime special.

Yellowstone National Park has long been a part of Grabowska's life: His parents told him stories about honeymooning there, and during his youth, he would visit the park on family vacations. He and his wife took a six-week camping trip throughout the West during their own honeymoon; Yellowstone was their last stop.

"On my first planning trip for this film, the park geologist took me roaming around Yellowstone," Grabowska explains. "He talked about how the geology is broader, deeper and older than the hot spot volcano, which last erupted 600,000 years ago. In geologic time, that's only yesterday. The older Cascadian type volcanoes that are further to the east--the Absaroka Range--are more like those in the Pacific Northwest, completely unlike the hot spot's caldera. During the glacial period, the place was buried under 4,000 feet of ice. It seems every park in the West had its 'vast inland sea.' Yellowstone did too."

Grabowska decided to tell a bigger story than just about the super volcano. "The volcano is the reason for the thermal features--all the geysers, hot springs and mud pots," he explains. "The beginnings of life on earth--single-celled microorganisms like Archaea--first emerged in acidic hot springs like those at Yellowstone. The broader story is that geology, like volcanism and glaciation, dictates where life exists and how it evolves. For example, when the glaciers carved valleys and then melted, they created an environment perfect for grasslands. Grasslands attracted bison, moose and elk, which attracted predators, like wolves. We tried to make those connections clear and comprehensible for viewers, but in a more lyrical, poetic way. We weren't producing a didactic science film."

Grabowska kept those geologic connections in the front of his mind during pre-production as he hiked to locations with his 16-year-old daughter, Hilary, a budding photographer who documented the sights with still photographs. He used her pictures and his memories and notes to plan the film, including specific locations and times of day he wanted to film scenes.

"In natural history filmmaking, you have to invest an incredible amount of time to know the locations, the light, the animal behavior and weather patterns that tell the story," he maintains. "It's always a conundrum figuring out how to get images that will do justice to both the landscape and the unique subject matter."

Grabowska began by looking for a cinematographer who lived in the region and had extensive experience shooting natural history documentaries. That's when Jeff Hogan entered the scene. Hogan has made a living taking still photographs and shooting films documenting natural history since he moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in 1980. Additional camera work was done by Bob Landis, another cinematographer who specializes in shooting nature films in Yellowstone.

"Jeff just lit up when I told him that we would be shooting on film," Grabowska explains. "I prefer film because of its natural, organic look, which is important to me for natural history films--and because film is an archival medium.

"The Park Service is often referred to as the nation's premier conservation and preservation agency," Grabowska continues. "That extends beyond the landscapes and historic structures. Using a proven archival medium was another form of preservation."

Hogan shot Super 16mm film during all four seasons over a two-year period. The temperature ranged from 25 degrees below zero to more than 85 degrees Fahrenheit, and the weather varied from snow, clear and cloudy skies to "beautiful" rainfall. "I had never worked with Jeff  before, but he knows the park thoroughly, from weather and terrain to animal behavior," Grabowska notes. "When I saw footage from his first shoot, I knew I would work with him again. Jeff and I share the same aesthetic sensibilities. All filmmaking is a subjective form of expression. You choose angles, composition and the right light. It's the same as choosing words to tell a story; images are a visual language. Backlight and light reflecting off of objects make different statements."

Hogan and Grabowska discussed visions for different locations, using Hilary's still images as references. Hogan also made suggestions based on his extensive experience filming in Yellowstone.

"For example, I told John about a canyon where ice is squirting through cracks in the ground," Hogan notes. "It is a fascinating example of geology in action today. Another part of my job is serving as the eyes and ears of the producer in the field." His modest tool kit consisted of an ARRI SR camera that was modified to record images faster than 24 frames per second. The camera was mounted with an Angenieux 11.5 :138 mm zoom lens that records "incredibly sharp images," said Hogan. He limited his palette to Kodak Vision 7201 (50D) "because it sparkles."

Decisions about where and when to shoot weren't random. "I tried to shoot where and when the light was right for the emotions that we want the images to express," Hogan explains. "You can perform magic in post-production, but I believe that painting natural scenes with light on film is where it begins.

"The park is stunningly beautiful and unique," he continues. "Nature augmented our plans with daily surprises, including the weather. I had to be at the right place at the right time. It was an incredibly emotional experience; I was in tears half the time."

Grabowska hired a pilot who flew a Cessna 210 airplane, and Hogan shot aerial scenes of mountain peaks, geyser basins, rivers, places where water meanders through the meadows, and the Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. "I knew we could shoot a lot more footage for less money than renting a helicopter with a Tyler mount or another way to rig the camera," Hogan maintains. "I asked the pilot to bank and do some really steep turns over the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and the Lower Falls. Shooting at 100 frames a second smoothed out the images beautifully, just as though I was in a hovering helicopter."

"I didn't believe handheld shots from a fixed wing aircraft would look so good," Grabowska admits. "Jeff convinced me it would look great because he had worked with the pilot before, and he was right. The aerials are superb."

The film was processed at NFL Films in New Jersey and transferred to HD format for post-production by colorist Jim Coyne. It was edited by Mike Majoros at Northern Light Productions in Boston. John De Lancey wrote the script, which was narrated by Grabowska. John Kusiak composed and provided original music.

After production was completed, Grabowska got together with Hogan and created a detailed log of locations, times of year and other specifics about the archived footage. Grabowska noted that scientists as well as filmmakers are always asking for film of the geysers and wildlife in Yellowstone.

"Fifty or 100 years from now, they will be able to see what Yellowstone was like today," he concludes. "Geology isn't static. The landscape is always changing, but these images will last."

Bob Fisher has been writing about documentary and narrative filmmaking for nearly 40 years, mainly focusing on cinematography and preservation.

Over 30 musicians, actors, writers, poets and others tell the story of Big Sur, Jack Kerouac's soul-searching memoir of desperation and redemption in the new documentary One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur. The movie will be released Oct. 20, along with a 30-city theatrical release and a new album featuring 12 original songs--with lyrics based on the prose of Kerouac's 1962 landmark novel--composed and performed by Jay Farrar of Son Volt and Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie. (via the One Fast Move or I'm Gone site)

Documentaries have continued to be one of the most popular genres on Hulu and they're expanding the lineup with the online premiere of 3 Points, a film that details NBA star Tracy "T-Mac" McGrady’s journey to Africa and throughout the Darfur refugee camps in Chad. The site also features an exclusive Q&A with McGrady about the film. (via Hulu)