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How documentary makers have swatted the fly-on-the-wall to tell their own stories. By Matthew De Abaitua

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"Max on Pete on Kate. Max on Pete in Kate. Max in Pete in Kate." It was with this mantra that self-declared filmmaker Max Carlish earned himself a footnote in the history of the documentary. Turning the camera on himself during his pursuit of drug-addled young rock star Pete Doherty, Carlish lasciviously spelt out the sexual pun at the heart of celebrity journalism. Max on Pete. Figuratively and (in his dreams) literally. Max on Pete in Kate - Kate being the supermodel Kate Moss, whose association with Doherty gave Carlish's pursuit of the musician tabloid currency.

Max Carlish put himself into his own film, following the example of Nick Broomfield, always seen shoving his microphone here and there, becoming part of the story even as he searches for it. But Carlish went further than Broomfield, overshadowing whatever story was there through his rapacious need for attention and his ineptitude when it came to having film in his camera at the crucial moment. In the end Carlish could not even make his own film; his patchy footage was sold and assembled by another production company, who recognised that it was Carlish's struggle and failure to make his film that was the real story.

'Stalking Pete Doherty' was a benchmark of sorts. The eye of the whirlpool of celebrity, reality and madness. Documentary makers have always messed with reality, quite dishonestly at times. In the Disney nature documentary White Wilderness in 1958, the filmmakers actually chased lemmings off a cliff - yes, animals were harmed in the making of that film. In 1998, The Guardian's investigation of Carlton documentary 'The Connection' led to the production company being fined £2 million pounds.

In the 1990s, 'The Connection' scandal was part of a general anxiety about fakery in TV documentaries, sparked by the shift of the form from worthy social polemic to the populist docusoap. From our perspective now, somewhere between 'Celebrity Love Island' and the brawling homeless men of 'Bumfights', the moral panic over faked guests on Vanessa Feltz's talkshow or the question of whether it was real heroin or just salt in 'The Connection' is rather quaint; the last gasp of a vanishing moral order. As soon as the documentary begat reality television, in which people willingly colluded in a distorted portrayal of themselves, everything changed. Reality TV forces conflict between real people, presenting biased and partial portraits of its participants to the public to drive lucrative phone voting. Veracity is not on the agenda. It's about creating an environment in which real people can become as dynamic as fictional characters.

Documentary makers have always known that their presence alters what they are observing. But the power of the form has relied on the audience being unaware of any manipulation. They need to accept it all as truth, for the form to draw its power.

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