Roger Nygard grew up outside Minneapolis on the shores of Lake Minnetonka. At age seven he discovered his father's 8mm camera and began making short films. He never stopped. Nygard has since directed TV series such as The Office and The Bernie Mac Show, and he has edited Emmy-nominated episodes of VEEP and Curb Your Enthusiasm. As an award-winning documentarian, Nygard has balanced humor and seriousness in films like Trekkies and The Nature of Existence. His previous book, Cut to the Monkey: A Hollywood Editor's Behind the Scenes Secrets to Making Hit Comedies, was published by Applause Books in 2021.

Documentary filmmaker and TV director Nygard intersperses this anecdote-filled handbook with helpful synopses of his and others' work. Among them are Ken Burns, Charles Guggenheim, Michael Moore, Errol Morris, Frederick Wiseman, and lesser-known figures. He defines a documentary as an audiovisual communication method with a thesis and conclusion reflecting reality. With camera positioning and film cutting, an auteur presents a subjective view through a selection of a primary documentary technique: expository (with narration), unfiltered observational, or participatory (with the filmmaker's viewable inclusion). He adds reflexive, performative, poetic, and mockumentary methods to this list. The book contains hints for documentarians that are transferable to other professions: employment of agents, contracts, copyrights, lawyers, outlines, referrals, and random chance. Nygard extols film festivals, classes, websites, and social media as opportunities to promote personal brands. Nygard abundantly supplies suggestions for those in the business; casual readers will savor stories about the genre's history.

Publisher: Applause Books

Pub date: 2024-09-17

Length: 318 pages