Documentary Storytelling: A Critical Look at The Six Degrees of Helter Skelter

For this blog post I decided to filter through Netflix and find a documentary that I haven't seen, and watch it under a new light. In Account Planning, we've been talking about the importance of telling a story whenever you are giving a presentation or just trying to command an audience. The idea is that a documentary is just a well thought-out non-fiction story that combines the attractive elements of motion video, audio, and narration to enhance that story. My goal was to be particularly critical while watching this documentary, and then see if any successes from the movie could be used in my personal storytelling.

When deciding which documentary to go with, I had a hard time picking, but decided to go with The Six Degrees of Helter Skelter. Ever since reading Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, written by Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor in the the 1970's Manson Murder Trial, I've always been really interested in this topic. The story behind the murders and the true power Charles Manson had over a group of people is remarkable. If you can get over the sickening pain in your stomach and dig through the grueling details behind the most tragic murders in Hollywood, there's a lot to learn about the psyche and emotional intelligence of Manson and the rest of his followers.

Contrast to Bugliosi's eloquent description of the story, I wasn't particularly blown away by this documentary. Sure, the narrator who walked us through the series of events knew the facts and showed up at nearly every significant (and some not-so significant) land mark that Bugliosi mentions in the book, he didn't make the same impact that Vincent Bugliosi did in his book version. I guess it makes sense that Bugliosi, the one man that had to stand across from Manson every day during the trial and accuse him of the heinous plans he so obviously headed up, tells the story of the Tate and LaBianca murders like no one else. With that being said, there were aspects to the documentary that could be useful to review and reflect on how they support the art of storytelling.

The first and most obvious thing to note was the film's use of background music to supplement the narration. Although this has proven to work over and over again, it fell a little short this time. When they showed an excess of words on the screen, a light/upbeat tune played to help you get through the entire passage before moving on to the next passage. When the narrator went on for a long time about some of the less-interesting details, they again added a more interesting song that slowly started to play louder and louder.  I do think they were on the right track with supplementing boring material with music that keeps the audience tuned, but they could have made much better music selections.

One element that I did like was the narrator's choice to tell his story with a very specific persona to his character. Whether he actually was or not, the narrator portrayed himself as an old time Hollywoode tour guide. Even though some of the facts he shared and land marks he took us to may have been boring to someone who has read the prosecuting attorney's version of the story, it really made it seem like you were on a tour of Hollywood and following the steps of the dangerous Charles Manson. All of the same facts were there, it was just told through a little different lens.

The main thing I can take away from this documentary is that when telling a story, it is important to think about the way you're telling it. What makes you the right person to tell that story? Are you connected in anyway to the story? If not, how can you portray yourself as a relevant source of the story. The narrator in this documentary did just that. Because he was a Hollywood tour guide that spent many years driving tourists around the city and rattling off facts here and there, he was a valid option for telling a very famous story that hit Hollywood by storm. Now it's my job to figure out how I can do this during my next presentation, pitch, or any time storytelling is necessary.