"Am I an ambulance chaser?" Renowned film-maker Paul Watson asks this question to camera in a sequence in his new BBC2 documentary portrait of four alcoholics, Rain In My Heart, which was cut from the final edit.
In a masterclass at the Sheffield Doc/Fest this weekend, Watson - whose credits include The Family, Sylvania Waters and Malcolm and Barbara: A Love Story - discussed this and other practical and ethical issues thrown up by the making of the powerful and harrowing film, which was premiered at the festival.
Watson, making his first film after recovering from a serious illness, was originally commissioned by the BBC for a project looking at the process of making a documentary.
But as Rain In My Heart took shake, and he got more involved in the personal struggles of his four subjects with alcoholism - and in some cases its life threatening implications - he felt that to put this material in the same documentary as his musings about the problems of getting the film made seemed glib and inappropriate.
Watson explained in Sheffield: "People would have thought 'what the hell is this old fart banging on about?'. It was poncy. Yes, I wanted to have a go at reality TV - and I thought I did it quite subtly."
So the self-reflexive stuff about getting the film made was cut back - although some does remain, and there were people after the Doc/Fest screening of Rain In My Heart who felt it detracted from the often distressing subject matter of the piece.
In the sequence that was cut, Watson is talking to camera after filming material in which one of his subjects is told that their alcoholism is causing medical complications that could kill them.
He talks on camera about how this reminded him of how documentary makers may react with barely contained glee when they get material such as this - it's the sort of extreme situation that can make good TV. This prompts a soul-searching Watson to ask: "Am I an ambulance chaser?"
In the Sheffield session, he explained that he was asked to drop the sequence by his BBC executive producer - and agreed. Alan Hayling, the former BBC head of documentaries now at independent producer Renegade Pictures, who was chairing the Watson session, felt it should have been left in the finished documentary.
"It came out because it raised a question that I don't think TV is ready to tackle at the moment," Watson said.
"I think it would have raised some hares - among film makers at least. Right now we are in the dying days of a decade - 12 years - of reality TV. Let's make sure it is the dying days," he added.
"What are the elements of good telly? We've all be told we've got to have argument - got to get [a documentary] over the commercial break.
"There are more and more extremes [on TV] - not to the betterment of the person we are filming, it's about the betterment of ratings. It's all arse about tit."
Watson also said he felt the dreaded reality TV had hampered his attempts to get Rain In the Heart off the ground. He was turned down by more than 80 hospitals before finally finding an establishment willing to let the cameras in - and blames reality TV.
"It came down time and again to reality TV - we as an industry have really screwed ourselves. There's so much stuff out there that sets out to rubbish people," he added.
Watson himself of course is seen by some as having started the whole reality TV trend with Sylvania Waters, which is regarded as a forerunner to the 90s docusoap boom - though he himself rejects this.
"I make documentaries to be subversive - I make no bones about it. It's my job to look into our community and try to explain things," he said in Sheffield.
"I'm an amplifier. I'm trying to make a point, through the trust individuals put in me."
