It seems very rare that a behind-the-scenes documentary will earnestly try to show how the movie is made over trying to sensationalize the process. After all, who exactly is the demographic watching these things? Is it people who are genuinely interested in learning the techniques, or is it casual fans of a particular movie peeking behind the curtain? A good documentary caters to both – but above all should be honest in how the film was made. I’d like to explore some of the most earnest examples that I’ve come across. Either as stand alone films or DVD extras – these are documentaries that show, for better or for worse, the good and the bad aspects of the movie making process. This is stuff that no film goon should miss.

George Hickenlooper, the director of Factory Girl and the forthcoming Casino Jack, died on Friday at the far too young age of 47 from apparent natural causes. He was a noted narrative and documentary filmmaker whose stand out work was Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse which chronicled the production nightmare of Francis Ford Copolla’s Apocalypse Now and stands as one of the best examples (alongside Burden of Dreams) of documentaries about filmmaking. Hickenlooper died in Denver while doing press for Casino Jack, the film about disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff that sees a release in December. [Denver Post]