Gordon Quinn and "The New Americans" - An Interview

1. Do you think it is appropriate to say that all filmmakers--documentary and feature--are storytellers?
2. How would you define a good story for a documentary film?
3. How are narratives films and documentaries alike and different?
4. Where do you think the story really comes together? At what point? With whom?
5. Whose story is a particular film telling?
6. Is this an assumption that audiences won't get it, so let me hammer it in one more time?
7. What advantage is there to telling a story like The New Americans as a film rather than writing a feature journalism article about these people?
8. How did you pick the individuals for The New Americans?
9. How far into the process of making The New Americans were you before you knew you had a great story?
10. At the screening of the excerpt of The New Americans at the University, you mentioned that you had to cut one story, the Vietnamese story? Why?
11. How does personalization make for a compelling story?
12. Is there ever a danger in too much personalization?

1. Do you think it is appropriate to say that all filmmakers--documentary and feature--are storytellers?

GQ: I think that most filmmakers are storytellers in the broadest sense. Even if it's an industrial film, there's a story there; you're trying to tell how a product is made or what it does. I think because of the changes in the way that visual media are evolving that sometimes there's different levels of story. There's the visual story that's being communicated to you that can sometimes be at odds with other elements in the way the story is going. But I think that's what we do, we tell stories in one way or another.

2. How would you define a good story for a documentary film? What elements are needed to make a story work for the documentary film format?

GQ: I think there are a lot of different kinds of documentaries. For the kind of documentaries that we do, almost anything can be a good story. Any subject, any person any situation can be a good story. What you want to have is some ability to follow some narrative line over time, and know where it's going. There are very personal films that start with the subject themselves, which can tell a terrific story that takes you some place. Then there are films, like some of our films, which are more verit