Advice to Doc Filmmakers from Albert Maysles: Establish an Empathizing Relationship
A documentary filmmaker needs to be patient and believe in the process of discovery. Orson Welles described the observational method of allowing things to happen on their own, as divine accidents. We have so much freedom in shooting now; cameras can run eight hours before you have to change cards. It's good to let shots run a little longer, especially if you feel that there maybe more things to come. In "Salesman," the opening scene, it seems to be all over, you can see that he isn't going to make the sale. Suddenly, on her own, the little girl gets up off of her mother's lap and goes to the piano and plays a number that is so appropriate to the salesman's down and out emotional state. We would have lost that if we had cut earlier.
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