Atlas Takes on US Docudrama Trend
While fact-based docudramas have been a staple on channels throughout Europe for years, Bruce Klein, at New York’s Atlas Media, tells Jenn Kuzmyk that the genre is only just now taking off in the US.
“Docudramas are definitely newer in America than in Europe, but I think the concept of the illustration-and-film-clip-only historical documentary is as close to dead as possible now. Everybody is looking for new ways to tell stories and we feel we are at the forefront of really kicking it up in that area,” says Klein, president and exec producer at Atlas.
One of the largest factual houses in the US, Atlas produces documentary, reality and lifestyle, and is now ramping up development of its newly bolstered docudrama division. One of the company’s most recent docudrama series is Skeleton Stories (6x60’), produced for Discovery Health US. Taking off from Atlas’s successful Dr G Medical Examiner series, Skeleton Stories delves into real case files of forensic anthropologists, combining first-hand accounts, expert testimony and dramatic recreations unraveling some of the world’s toughest crimes.
Breaking Vegas (13x60’), for the History Channel US, is an extension of the two-hour docu-movie Breaking Vegas: The True Story of the MIT Blackjack Team. The series goes inside the biggest gambling schemes of all time. From a massive counterfeit coin operation to custom-designed miniature computers hidden in a pair of shoes, it profiles the men and women who cheated the world’s most high-profile casinos, and lived to tell about it.
What is Klein’s definition of docudrama? “It’s a very delicate and difficult combination of documentary and drama. The ‘docu’ part is the real, and the ‘drama’ part is poetically spiffed up,” he says. That statement could leave documentary purists bristling at the mere thought of bending historical or scientific fact to make for better entertainment. What about the concern that fact can be distorted by docudrama, that audiences are being misled when liberties in dramatization are taken?
“The subtext of that assumption is that audiences are dumb, but I think the audiences are really smart,” defends Klein. “At this point in the States audiences who watch non-fiction television have been groomed since the late 1980s, when cable really started taking off, to know all of the techniques that are used, to know how to intelligently watch these things and extract what is truthful.”
Illustrating his point, Klein gives the example of a dramatization where, in reality, a murderer had an argument with his attorney in a lawyer’s office, but for dramatic effect the producers set it in a bowling alley. “I’m OK with that as long as we are truthful about what was being said,” says Klein. “Audiences are savvy enough to know if two characters are having a discussion that what they are saying is correct without assuming that it is word for word. If it is truthful and entertaining, the audience will always forgive small things.”
According to Klein, the key to credibility is to effectively meld factual footage with dramatization. Most of Atlas’s historical fare concentrates on fairly recent events. This is most often achieved by cutting back and forth between dramatic segments and the real character talking about what’s happening in the scenes.
He admits that although the documentary genre continues to pick up steam stateside, broadcasters are still wary about the quality of the dramatic action. “Re-enactments and dramatizations have gotten a bad rap in the past because they have been executed poorly, but people are becoming more comfortable. They are saying, ‘Look, if it’s good and doesn’t look hokey we’ll do it.’”
Obviously, stellar production value is implicit. The line of demarcation between well executed and ‘hokey’ lies in the dialogue, and a high-end docudrama is no place for a novice thesp to cut his or her teeth, says Klein. Atlas’s strategy to use experienced, recognizable actors is something that comes out in the quality, but it can also be a major boon for promotional purposes. “We use SAG (Screen Actors Guild) actors. That dramatically alters everything because suddenly you have somebody who may appear on a network TV show like 24 or CSI, and they are now a character in your docudrama,” says Klein.
