R.J. Cutler on Film & Television: A Retrospective

Thursday, August 6: The Nonfiction Drama Series

Thursday, August 6, 2009
2:30 pm
Los Angeles

American High: “Who am I?” (2000) – 2:30 pm
Executive Producer/Director/Created by
In 1999, having made two feature length documentaries, I came to believe there was a way to combine the techniques of cinema verité filmmaking with the narrative devices of prime-time television. The idea of a documentary series that had continuing characters over multiple episodes, with dramatic arcs and compelling music, turned out to be very appealing to network television executives who were seeking low-cost original programming they could air during the summer months. I called this new genre the Nonfiction Drama Series, Fox ordered thirteen episodes of American High, and we were on our way. We spent a year filming a group of high school seniors in suburban Chicago and we also gave them their own cameras so that they could shoot "video diaries." American High premiered on network television in the summer of 2000 within weeks of Big Brother and Survivor, thus heralding the arrival of the reality TV craze in the U.S. The thirteen-part series won the first ever Emmy for reality television. (22 minutes)

Freshman Diaries: “Brave New World” (2002) – 3:00 pm
Executive Producer/Created by
Jerry Offsay was running Showtime and was a big fan of American High. He asked me to create a follow-up using college students. The original idea was to shoot a year’s worth of documentary footage and then to somehow combine it with scripted footage using actors. We weren’t quite sure how we would pull this off, but Jerry felt it was important in order to guarantee the drama that Showtime's audience expected. After filming freshmen at the University of Texas in Austin for a semester, we cut together some footage and showed it to the Showtime execs. They looked at it and agreed that there was no need for the scripted scenes—the drama we captured in real life was more than enough. Freshman Diaries was a ten-part series. (30 minutes)

Military Diaries: “Life of a Soldier” (2002) – 3:30 pm
Executive Producer/Developed by
In the wake of September 11, I was approached by the folks at VH-1, who asked if I felt there was a way to tell the stories of the young men and women in the U.S. military. They were particularly interested in the role that music played in their lives. I met with the Department of Defense in Washington and gained access to ground forces in Afghanistan, to the USS Stennis and to Camp Pendleton. We gave a bunch of cameras out, and encouraged the soldiers and marines to keep daily video diaries. This show is the result. (22 minutes)

The Residents: “Domino Effect” (2004) – 4:00 pm
Executive Producer/Director/Created by
I grew up in a family of physicians, and while I never wanted to be a doctor myself I was always fascinated, in particular, with the way they were trained. If medical school is the frying pan, residency is definitely the fire. After meeting for several months with the administration at UCLA Medical Center, they agreed to let us film their resident programs in Surgery, ER, and Pediatrics for an entire year and we made this thirteen-part series. (44 minutes)

Photo: Actual Reality