Blog Prompt : The challenge with any documentary is capturing the “visual evidence” for a meaningful narrative made out of fragments of video. Search for a scene in Devil’s Playground (below) that has visual evidence for the central question of the documentary: Amish or English? Describe the visual evidence. Is it effective? Might parts of the scene be staged? How can you tell? What other scenes stand out for you (use screen grabs) and why? How does visual evidence help with the storytelling? Are there times when the visual evidence is in conflict with the need to tell an engaging story?
One scene, in particular, felt obviously staged: when the main character is openly using “drugs” in the living room. If they were serious about turning their life around, it’s hard to believe they would incriminate themselves so easily. On top of that, based on what I’ve seen in crime documentaries, the bag of drugs looked fake—more like the stuffing you’d find in a Beanie Baby than anything real. This raises a key issue with documentaries: balancing truthful visual evidence with the need to tell a compelling story.
Documentaries often rely on bits and pieces of footage to create a meaningful narrative, but scenes like this make it hard to tell if what we’re seeing is real or staged for effect. In the fiml Devil’s Playground, certain scenes seem set up to highlight the film’s central question: will the characters choose the Amish way of life or the English world? In this case, the drug scene feels like it was added just to create drama. While it makes the story more entertaining, it also risks making the film seem less believable.
This shows how documentary filmmakers sometimes struggle between telling an engaging story and staying true to reality. When scenes feel exaggerated or fake, it can make viewers doubt the truth of what they’re seeing. Documentaries work best when real moments guide the story, but when filmmakers add too much drama, it can feel more like entertainment than an honest portrayal.