There's a focus here on documentaries produced with stills cameras (DSLRS) but not exclusively. When you see a photographer, keep in mind they might also be filming you!
This first piece is very timely after the West Big Branch coal mine explosion left 29 dead. The Massey mining company features prominently in a few points of the film.
"Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining"
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2198
Some folks went to Haiti and shot a "documentary" which has been extremely controversial. I haven't seen it yet, partly because I'm in the detractor camp, but here it is:
http://www.dslrnewsshooter.com/2010/03/ ... on-5dmkii/
Compare the stylized, lifeless world of the first Haiti piece with this:
"The Economy of a Tent City"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... _city.html
Instead of reading through all the comments on the first Haiti video, you could just watch this instead:
"Vincent Laforet on DSLR news and documentary video shooting"
http://vimeo.com/11144542
I first discovered Vincent Laforet for Nocturne, which he did on behalf of Canon, so it's more than refreshing to hear him deflate the pretensions of some "journalists" but also of these DSLRs that are a royal pain to use for video. Interesting times in video technology land, but at the end of the day it's about the content and getting it right.
Next, a National Guardsman takes a 4K (4,000+ lines horizontal resolution) camera to Afghanistan in a plea for the Armed Forces to do justice preserving and documenting the history of the war as was the case in WWII and beyond. The note that the military went the Hollywood note instead is rather bitter. This never was allowed to develop into a full project, so the subjects may seem forced. Check out the comparison between our familiar "high res" 480p resolution with 4K at the beginning.
http://battleforheartsandminds.com/
"Road Work"
http://www.antoninkratochvil.com/#/Mult ... oadworks/1
More from the battlefields of the Near East, this piece from Antonin Kratochvil seems much more like a movie. I don't know the details of how this one was done; it seems like the scenes were set up afterward; certainly the narration was. Still, it tells a realistic story and does it well.
Finally, a couple final documentaries in my queue for watching:
Another war-related documentary, "The Dear Leader"
http://www.rethink-dispatches.com/issue ... ar-leader/
"Trapped - Mental Illness in America's Prisons"
http://www.jennackerman.com/trapped/feature/