It is probably legitimate to say that since moving pictures made their debut way-back-when, the world has been obsessively staring with child-like amazement at screens displaying an assortment of moving images. I know I’ve spent my fair share of hours at the television or theater. My question today is, just because of the popularity of moving images is it a fair treatment of the documentary school of thought that this medium be the default for what people think of and produce as “documentary?” I mean, it makes sense given people’s infatuation with the moving image but should we let this mindset just take over? Or can we call people on it? How do we do that? Who do we do that to? What are your thoughts?! …use the comments link below this post to leave your ideas and thoughts.
Off the top of my head these are just some of the central mediums of documentary:
1) Written documentary (arguably the oldest form of documentary work);
2) Photographic documentary (a very well known medium in the history of documentary yet still often plays second fiddle to film);
3) Audio documentary (another well-established medium in the genre);
4) Documentary film…(an overly praised medium?);
Two brief examples that I have that cause me a significant amount of frustration are: I was in the airport recently and was having a brief conversation with a woman who said her husband did documentary film. When I told her I was doing an audio documentary she looked at me a bit puzzled and asked, “What is that? How do you do an audio documentary?”
Another graver example is the fact that the Social Documentation program I am in has a heavy emphasis on film and studies the discipline of documentary largely using ‘filmic’ vocabulary and perspectives (my opinion here takes into account both the emphasis of readings and the professors we are most exposed to and does not include any “outside” the program or information we may find on our own and on our own time). While this criticism of my program stands I do want to put it in context and that is that the program is only in its second year and to expect that it can answer everybody’s needs right off is a high expectation. So, I offer my criticism with the hopes that this program will quickly expand past this Hollywood-love approach and use the existing model of such programs like Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies as an example of how to approach the institutionalizing of documentary studies (http://cds.aas.duke.edu/).
Anyway, I would love to hear people’s thoughts on the questions I proposed above. Again, click the comments link below this post.
documentary studies
This has got to be one of the coolest tee-shirts around. Yes, that’s an actual, working sound bar that reacts to live sounds! Apparently powered by a battery that fits in a small pocket somewhere on the shirt it’s a wet dream for any audiophile, eh?! Check it out here
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Holy crap! I’ve never experienced jet lag before but now I know what it is…a fairly constant feeling of crappiness, unable to sleep when you “should,” and just feeling like yer out of place. Something to that effect anyways. Well, I feel like I’m back to normal and I’ve been transferring all my minidiscs to my hard drive and I’m going to start indexing tomorrow. The Winter quarter starts this week and it’s going to be full steam ahead from this point on! I’ll blog some info on my indexing and thoughts and such on the audio I got in South Africa. I am quite excited about what I’ve listened to thus far (some great ambient sounds and the interviews all sound like they are excellent!). I’ll post some for listening ASAP…
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