Their inspiration owes less to traditional journalistic notions of objectivity and more to such pioneering documentarians as Robert Flaherty, who produced the 1920s classic Nanookof the North after spending years with his Eskimo subjects.
He posed with smiling Inuit children, took the controls of a submarine and stood on the deck of a frigate as three fighter aircraft roared over Frobisher Bay in a military exercise dubbed Operation Nanook.