On Sunday two new shows arrive to fill out the prime-time lineup: "Crimes of the Century," a nonfiction noir that would be at home on Investigation Discovery or A&E, and "Inside Man," a lightweight documentary series that could fit on Sundance or HBO.
"Breathless" featured a core crew of five and was filmed with little added lighting and a mainly hand-held lightweight camera, documentary-style.
MTV, VH-1 and E Entertainmentt -- which are known for their music videos, lightweight interviews and documentaries -- are joining the ranks of HBO, Showtime, TNT, Lifetime, A&E and other stations in the quest for audiences seeking dramatic films and series.
Shooting without permits, using no real script (dialogue was post-dubbed), and liberated by the same new lightweight cameras that powered the 60s documentary boom, Godard achieved an off-the-cuff, free-form documentary feel that felt totally new and invigorating in 1960.
The documentary tradition, particularly since 1959, when lightweight cameras and tape recorders first permitted extended handheld filming, represents this investigative function of cinema and of camera movement.
The versatile 16-millimeter cameras and lightweight sound-recording equipment that would make cinéma vérité documentaries possible just a few years later had not entered wide circulation when Rogosin made his film.
The producer Robert Drew, a Life-magazine editor who wanted to make television documentaries as fluid as photo-reporting, oversaw the development of lightweight synch-sound cameras and recorders.
The lightweight cameras and lack of laughter track that gave The Office its documentary feel belong to the modern age.
The effect of the approach is noteworthy because by 1960 changes in technology — specifically in the availability of lightweight film equipment and sound synchronizing systems — allowed for a cinéma vérité style to take shape in television documentaries.
