Hollywood producer Jason Connell says ''access is everything'' when making a documentary - getting to the subject and convincing them to talk.
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''Without that, you don't have a story,'' he said.
Connell, who jetted in from LA to Canberra on Friday to be part of the national capital's first documentary festival Stronger than Fiction, produced the film GLOW: The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, which will close the festival on Sunday night.
The film was lauded for telling the story of the women who were part of an all-female wrestling show on television in the 1980s, revealing the heart behind the camp.
''And all the women, the beautiful thing is, they all came together without any effort. They all wanted to tell their stories,'' Connell said.
His other advice?
''You better be passionate about your subject,'' he said. ''A lot of people burn out early because it's not an easy thing to do. GLOW took us four years. The doc before that took four years. Those timelines - you better really know you want to do it.''
Connell, 42, was brought to the festival by its co-director Simon Weaving who met him through a mutual friend and subsequently saw GLOW.
''We just decided we had to have it,'' Weaving said.
Connell, who counts The King of Kong among his favourite documentaries (''such a strange, wild doc''), likes to focus on the humanity of the subjects.
His next project is called Jesse Heiman: World's Greatest Extra about a young kid in America who has built a career and following as a movie and TV extra.
''I want to be moved in some way,'' he said. ''I'm not a big historian documentarian. I tell more character-driver stories. That's more our MO.''
The films in the four-day festival are being shown at Palace Electric Cinema at New Acton.
Connell will also team with director Juliet Lamont at the cinema at 3pm on Saturday for a doco pitching slam in which participants have 60 seconds to talk up their idea for a doco. The best idea will get some development help from ScreenACT.
''I'm always looking for good stuff,'' Connell said. ''I'm excited to hear what they have. It might be my next project, you never know. Or it could be quite scary.''
And don't ever confuse documentaries with reality television.
''I can't stand reality TV,'' he said. ''I had a couple of guilty pleasures along the way but for the most part, they're the same. You've seen one, seen them all.
''I get approached by so many people who want to see our docs and strip them apart and make reality TV.
''It's more manufactured. They create drama and they wear a subject out.''
■ For full program details go to strongerthanfictiondocs.com/.