1. Ian Dunning
MA TV Documentary, University of Salford
Tutor: Lloyd Peters
May 2014
Practice Research Proposal
Area of Interest: The documentary portrait film
Proposed Question: What are the creative possibilities of the documentary “portrait film”?
Prefered Supervisor: Erik Knudsen
Summary
The portrait film is a long-established sub-genre of documentary film which focuses on describing
the life, work, opinions, and/or personality of an individual or group of individuals. Examples
might include films as diverse as Nanook of the North (Flaherty, 1922), Don't Look Back
(Pennebaker, 1967), Grey Gardens (Maysles, 1975), Let's Get Lost (Weber, 1988), Aileen: Life and
Death of a Serial Killer (Broomfield, 2003), Grizzly Man (Herzog, 2005), The Reluctant
Revolutionary (McAllister, 2012). Portrait films often take as their subject an individual who is
already well-known or who has some extraordinary quality, but they can also focus on relatively
ordinary people whose example can be crafted to be of interest to an audience.
While the portrait film might seem to be a relatively unproblematic form, a study of such films and
the practice of their production is likely to raise a number of interesting practical and theoretical
questions; for example:
• To what extent does the portrait film require adherence to classical narrative form and
structure?
• What are the ethical demands of producing a portrait film?
• What are the practical problems involved in producing a portrait film?
• To what extent can the portrait film raise wider – social/political – issues?
• To what extent can the portrait film be a means of self-expression for the filmmaker?
• What is the appeal of the portrait film for audiences?
The subject is clearly a broad one, and it is expected that in the course of the research project, one
or more of the above questions is likely to become more prominent than the others.
Practical Outcome
All of the documentary films I have produced for the course so far could be described as portrait
films; it would seem to be a form that I gravitate towards and that I should probably pursue further.
For this project, therefore, I will aim to produce one more portrait film, this time looking to correct
some of the deficiencies identified in my earlier efforts.
Bibliography
Some discussion of the portrait film as a sub-genre of documentary is found in the following texts:
Corrigan, T. (2011). The essay film. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nichols, B. (2012). Introduction to documentary. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.
Sorenson, K. (2002, March). Guidelines for producing a short documentary. P.O.V 13. Retrieved
