ABSTRACT
Power differentials can significantly impact all forms of media creation: fiction, documentary, journalism, and social media. This chapter explores power differentials in the relationship between the filmmaker and the people portrayed in documentaries. It looks at the principles of personal presentation, agency, equality, and power. I am using my experiences as a filmmaker to look at the ethics of consent, working with teenagers, screening rough-cuts, and the economic relationship between the filmmaker and the people in the films.
I first met Audrey when she was 11 years old. Her mother, Gloria, worked with my husband at the U.S. Postal Service Bulk Center in Secaucus, New Jersey. On July 21, 1978, hundreds of postal workers went on a wildcat strike demanding an end to mandatory overtime, forced speedups, and hazardous working conditions. My film partners and I followed the strike as it unfolded for the documentary Signed, Sealed and Delivered: Labor Struggle in the Post Office (1980). We were in the thick of the action with a borrowed Sony camera, half-inch video deck, a handheld microphone and a lot of cables. Audrey was often on the picket line, too, with her mother, sister, and two brothers.
