Luck has nothing to do with it

From the start of Good Night and Good Luck one would feel as though they are watching a real documentary of McCarthism. From the fast moving pans from character to character to the intentional out of focus shots on the characters, this movie has all the elements of a documentary, but it is not. That was a creative decision made to give the film as much credibility on its representation of the McCarthy years as possible. Other elements used was filming in black and white as well as using the real news footage and McCarthy speaking himself. This added the highest level of realism to the movie and that is what needed to be done especially if the film was going to market itself as based on a true story. Even though subplots were added for entertainment value, the viewer will still leave the theatre beleiving that that is what actually happened. Any filmmaker would know that the movie was exaggerated for the entertainment value, but that is also what the filmmaker will learn from. These techniques are used so the viewer has trouble distinguishing the difference between fiction and non-fiction. The Blair Witch Project made a bunch of filmmakers filthy rich doing just that, but it worked just so much better in Good Night and Good Luck.