Cinéma vérité literally translates to cinema truth, a term used by French filmmakers in the 1960's to describe a move away from fictional film stories. These films attempted to show life as it was and avoided intrusive elements like voice-overs or the overt presence of the filmmakers.

Channel Four in Northern Ireland is encouraging filmmakers to create four minute documentaries. A number of these can be viewed from the links to the right. Many more can be seen at the Channel Four site.

Your assignment is to create your own four minute documentary that follows the spirit of the Channel Four movies.

As with any documentary, yours needs to have a story. There should be some beginning, middle and end. It should focus on a person or an event connected to human activity. Unlike journalistic news stories, this story should be told by the subjects of the film using their words rather than a filmmaker's voice-over.

You should expect that your finished production will be screened on the school's Television channel as well as posted on the web site. Therefore, your documentary must also adhere to all copyright laws. For an excellent and humorous overview of these, check out Channel Four's seven minute movie about legal issues.

There are occasions where you can use copyrighted material under "fair use" policy. To see examples of the four categories of fair use, check out this site.