Documentary Storytelling, 4th Edition

Chapter 20 Deborah Scranton

Deborah Scranton’s first feature-length documentary, The War Tapes, won the award for Best Documentary at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival and Best International Documentary at the 2006 BritDoc Festival, among many other honors. The War Tapes follows three National Guardsmen—Sergeant Steve Pink, Sergeant Zack Bazzi, and Specialist Mike Moriarty—during a tour of duty in Iraq that began in March 2004 and ended a year later. Scranton broke new ground by putting cameras in the hands of the soldiers themselves, training them as cinematographers, and communicating with them through instant messages and email. She and cinematographer P.H. O’Brien filmed the soldiers before, during, and for several months after their deployment, ...