I hate to bore the tears out of people, but why not? -- why not use the talents you have?
;o)
My favorite documentaries are not going to win me any points with those who opt for the more eclectic and obscure. Mine are all pretty much mainstream for the most part, with the possible exception of "
Ishi: Last of His Tribe" (not the movie but the documentary that was made from actual photographs and film of Ishi.
The others would be:
The BBC Nature series with David Attenborough. Amazing stuff. The "
Blue Planet" and "
Planet Earth" are stunning.
The "
Walking With Dinosaurs" series from the BBC. That too is incredible stuff.
PBS's "
Nova" is a great series and one that I never tire of. Especially the science documentaries they create.
Greystone Communications made a great series for the History Channel, the "
Civil War Journal" with host Danny Glover -- which I liked better than PBS's series on the Civil War created by Ken Burns.
History Channel's new "
The Universe" series is another of my favorites. As is their "Founding Brothers" and "Revolutionary War" series.
In the 50s Disney created a great documentary that I will never forget even though I only saw it once as a kid long ago, it was called "
The Living Desert" and it was the first time that I realized that just because something looked dead, did not mean it was. (I have since verified the phenomenon by watching politicians, international heads of state and various religious leaders, etc. So, Disney was right.)
But the all-time number one documentary that influenced me to want to create stories was...
VICTORY AT SEA, done in 26 episodes by NBC News in 1952. I can still remember my father (who was a Pearl Harbor survivor), my Mom and all of us kids sitting there and watching this series together. It was phenomenal in its time and was a series that NBC felt was so important that they ran it without commercial interruption. Try that today.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net
