How I "Worked" My Documentary

I just wrote a blog about how reality TV show's a 'work.' I also explained that a 'work' is something contrived. To make my point about reality TV a little clearer, I want to talk about a 'reality' documentary I did in Video Editing class a year or so ago. Here's the video itself.



Okay, now the editing came out great and the story flowed congruently. But the truth is, I filmed a bunch of random footage and had NO story to tell until I actually sat down and figured one out. Basically what I did was get Brito's general story, filmed some wrestling interviews, and figured it all out as I was editing.

Everything about Mike Brito was true. He's a college student at BSC, he wants to wrestle part time, his class scheduel, etc. But the first shot of him coming out the door? "Hey Mike, that sucked. Do it again." He must have walked in and out of that door 20 times, because I'm anal retentive and have OCD with this type of stuff.

His dream isn't to become an 'EPW Wrestler.' That'd be stupid, and that was greatly exaggerated to make the story flow. Dreaming to become an 'EPW Wrestler' is legitimatly equal to dreaming to be a thankless weekend wrestler who gets paid maybe $20 or less and a stale bag of popcorn. Oh yeah, and he'd have to set up the ring and get yelled at by a crappy promoter. So no, his dream isn't to be an EPW wrestler. A better thing to say would be, "I dream of being a WWE superstar," but I called Vince... he could't make it to Bridgewater that day. But like I said, it was a 'goal' i could have him set so he could accomplish it by the end. The Pay-off!

So next we're in the car with him. I probably should have cut this up with some stock footage, but I didn't. Hindsight's 20/20. This story was completely true.

Next shot we're 'interviewing' the Head Trainer. The head trainer's really an assistant trainer who me & Mike are good friends with. Oh yeah, and the interview? Never happened. Sean's just looking out into space somewhere and talking to himself. I go, "Give me 10 minutes of bullshit about how great Mike is." And he did. The great thing is, he actually stops and reacts to the invisible man he's talking to to add realism. And who said wrestler's can't act?

Okay, next up is the dramatic sequence where we reveal there's this huge wrestle-off to be in a Battle Royal match. If Mike wins the match, he gets to be in it. Truth is, WRESTLING's FAKE! The outcome's pre-determined! Nothing was determined in a Wrestle-Off. That was just filmed so I could have something to throw into the story. And the Battle Royal already happened 3 months before the filming of this documentary. The original plan was to show footage of Mike in the match itself at the end of the documentary, but the promoter refused to give me the footage.

My favorite part of the editing came from splicing Kyle O'Riley's interview with Sean & Mikes as they all go back and fourth. I think it was great for effect. Truth is, Kyle's a sweetheart. He's soft spoken, respectul, all that. I go, "Kyle, I need an asshole for this documentary. You're, um... you're the Star Student, you have a bad attitude, and you don't like Mike. Go!" and I turned the camera on, and he spouted off a whole bunch of ad-libbed lines.

In editing, I discovered that just about everything Kyle said, Sean said something to counter act, or I could find a sound-bite of Mike that would fit. For example, Kyle: I'm definately the star student, Sean: A lot of people think he has an attitude problem. OR Kyle: I got the chance to be in this Battle Royal Mike: I think I want to be a part of that. This was pure luck and I capitalized on it in editing.

The "Trainer giving last minute instructions" was really after Kyle wrestled someone ELSE, not Mike, and Sean was giving feedback. I just got a good shot of Mike sitting off in the distance so I made it seem like they were in 'opposite corners of the room.'

The match itself had heavy editing. The moves didn't really connect and they exposed a lot of the 'magic' behind wrestling. (They're both relatively new at the time of the filming.) So I cut and pasted and made it all flow and fit short. The match was probably 10 minutes, I cut it down to about 15-30 seconds.

And finally, Mike Brito's post-match interview? We filmed all the stuff with Mike in the black shirt, then I go, "Hey Mike... uh.... take your shirt off. You just had a match... you're tired, you won..... Go." And just like that, it's edited in to look like he just had a match.

Figured I'd shed some light on how Editing completely shapes a 'true' story. Maybe you guys wont look at VH1 the same way after this. Sorry for spoiling it ;)