Social media/new documentary filmmaking, citizen journalism vs. the mainstream media.

Lund University Internet InstituteSeminar 30 January 2014

By dr. Joshka Wessels

Definition and Theory

“ Documentary cinema is a genre of representing the historical world”

– Hosseini & Wakkari, 2004

Documentary is "a creative treatment of actuality”

- John Grierson

The worlds’ first documentary

1922

Mobile camera

• Robert J. Flaherty (1884-1951) was the first who combined actualities, scenics, and storytelling in a structured montage.

• First anthropological AND documentary film.

Documentary Filmmaking

• Film as a tool for ethnographic/geographic research

• Filming unscripted and unrehearsed human behaviour

• Analysis of “the other”• Medium to present research data or findings

Documentary Filmmaking

• Film as a tool– Observation, listening and inquiry– Anthropological research process– Unedited footage or filmrecord– Transcribed film text– Differs from human perception– Reflections of physical and social realities– Heisenberg principle

Documentary Filmmaking

• Selectivity (angle, frame, focus, time, placement of microphone, etc. etc.)

• Ruby (1982) inspired by Thomas Kuhn and Clifford Geertz: film does not convey reality.

• Pictures are a way we structure the world around us not a picture of it (Sol Worth, 1981)

• Jay Ruby: reflexivity

Documentary Filmmaking

• Personal, theoretical and cultural biases influence the information we collect, they shape our filmed material.

• Taking up the camera is inherently subjective and selective

• Point of View (POV)

The Authored Documentary

Capturing Reality ?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPavxiKKT2w

Do you HAVE to film people you don’t like ?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWBYf7Je0AM

Anthropological film

• Fieldwork, spending long time with the communities

• Film always in combination with other ethnographic and social information

• Creation of research films from existing footage• Film & video archives: Göttingen Institute for

Scientific Film, Smithsonian, RAI• Worth & Adair: giving camera’s to Navaho Indians

(1972)

Participatory Video

• Giving the camera away for: empowerment, consultation, testimonials, video diaries

• 3 CCD digital handy cams• Collective action• Grassroots movements• Documenting Human Rights violations• Video and citizen journalism• New technologies, mobile phone, smart phones• Collaborative documentaries

Burma VJ

Citizen vs. Mainstream

• Journalists are connected to broadcasters, newscooperations and newspapers

• Independents vs citizens• Video journalism vs Documentary filmmaking• Balance• What is the role of journalism ? Debate

Citizen vs. Mainstream

“Tomorrow’s Journalism will be the result of the collaboration between amateurs with good practice, and professionals who conceive, and produce the subjects in the form of enquiries and reportage”.

François Longérinas, the director of the EMI Information and Media school

Syria Deeplyhttp://alpha.syriadeeply.org/“Syria Deeply is an independent digital media project led by journalists and technologists, exploring a new model of storytelling around a global crisis. Our goal is to build a better user experience of the story by adding context to content, using the latest digital tools of the day. Over time the hope is to add greater clarity, deeper understanding, and more sustained engagement to the global conversation”.

Where is Gary ?

http://whereisgary.net/

• internet-collaboration between professionals and amateur

• The first Belgian webdocumentary project by Jean Baptists Dumont: “I chose the web-documentary format because it allowed the investigation and the reporting at the same time, live on the web.“

• Grand Prix award at the WebTV festival 2010.

The Aatsinki Season

• http://www.aatsinkiseason.com/

Experience one year in the life of a familyof reindeer herders in Finnish Lapland.And challenge what you think you knowabout man’s place in nature.

Web & Documentaries

• Documentary practice on the Internet intends to reflect the historical world.

• Some of the elements of documentary practice on the Internet have indexical relation with the real world.

• Documentary hypertext is built around an informing logic and provides historical and informative links to events and elements.

• Documentary practice in the internet utilizes a body of text in the form of commentary or interview. As in films, this speech can share conventions with diaries, essays, and also incorporate rhetoric devices and rules.

Hosseini & Wakkari

Web & Documentaries

• Documentary hypertext can use modes of representation to convey their perspective

• The voice of documentary hypertext is built from the treatment of each of the consisting elements as well as their arrangement.

• The practice of creating a documentary hypertext can be an individual practice or be supported by organizations that are known as supporters of documentary practices (such as the National Film Board of Canada).

Hosseini & Wakkari

Unique Characteristics

• Hypermediated. • Media is secondary material.• Clusters of information. • May have multiple authors and contributors. • Can have forums.• Use visual design, information architecture,

and interaction as voice. • Broadcast their material in real-time.

Hosseini & Wakkari

Web Documentarieshttp://www.thecreatorsproject.com/blog/the-6-most-innovative-interactive-web-documentaries

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/report/2154239/web-documentaries-easy

http://documentary.net/about/web-documentaries/

http://film.culture360.org/magazine/in-focus/webdocumentaries-be-when-it-all-started/

Web Documentaries

PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS

• Which webdocs did you explore ? • What was your favourite webdoc and why ?• Main characteristics of your favourite

webdoc ?• Do you think webdocs can play a role in social

change and movements ? How ?

Web Documentaries

Mainstream newspapers, magazines, television networks and publishers once merely republished their content online.

THE WEB: whole array of tools, features and formats.

Web Documentaries

• A web documentary is more than just a traditional, linear documentary transposed online. In addition to audio and still and moving images, a web documentary features multimedia tools that facilitate viewer interaction.

• “Web documentaries are hypermediated clusters of information that demand the audiences participation and interaction” - Hosseini and Wakary, 2004

Workshop multimedia stories

Combination of text, still photographs, video clips, audio, graphics and interactivity presented on a Web site in a nonlinear format (…..)The key is using the media form - video, audio, photos, text, animation - that will present a segment of a story in the most compelling and informative way.

http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/presentations/cat/storytelling

Workshop multimedia stories

Nonlinear means that rather than reading a rigidly structured single narrative, the user chooses how to navigate through the elements of a story.

http://www.360degrees.org/perspectives.html

Workshop multimedia stories

• five steps to a multimedia story are : – The subject & story, – Creating a story board, – Reporting with multimedia, – Editing for the web,– Producing the story.

Story board linear story

Story board non-linear story

Workshop multimedia stories

• Choose a subject • Define your target audience ?• Which media are you going to use ?– Film– Audio– Animation– Text– Music– Theatre, performance, dance (transmedia)

• Develop a non-linear story board for your story