A few additional resources and connections gathered while at Hot Docs:
HotDocs Library
A wealth of Canadian documentaries you can watch online. In the youth zone be sure to check out the top shorts made by youth. Plus special sections for educators (including downloadable resource packages) and an industry corner where you can see the industry sessions held at HotDocs Film Festival.
Shooting People
An international network for independent filmmakers.
Arts Engine
Connects media makers and active audiences in order to spur critical consideration of pressing social issues.
Ideas from Cinereach
An assortment of articles, panels, case studies, useful links and more.
DocAgora
An open sapce to consider new forms, new platforms, new tools and new ways of financing creative and socially engaged documentary media.
Showing posts with label online docs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label online docs. Show all posts
25 May 2010
Peter Wintonick’s Soapbox
The often outrageous, sometimes prophetic, always amusing ramblings and insights of Canadian documentary filmmaker Peter Wintonick at HotDoc’s Soapbox where each person was allowed to pontificate about the state of documentaries for five minutes.
The first thing people ask is What is your film about? Let’s just try to ask the question without the word “about.” Films are more than what they’re about. They’re more than the content. We’re trying to make documentary cinema. It’s about form and aesthetics and art. It’s really about the communication of complex things rather than of the content. I’m interested in how you project what you see to the eyes of the people who are seeing it. For the last 80 years, documentary has positioned itself in the “about.” I instead ask What is the experience?
We’ll banish the word documentary and call it doc media.
Don’t make any more sad documentaries. The number of funny documentaries playing at festivals is usually three out of 300. Sadness and earnestness have become the sins of documentary. Sadness sells. Or feeling guilty. Problemetizing the world, making everything an issue is so prevalent.
Critic Pauline Kale once said about Godard’s fiction films, that he was actually making documentaries of the future set in the present, because capturing a moment before it passed was more important to him than presenting a finished fictional work.
And now for some speculations on where documentaries will be 20 years from now according to Peter Wintonick:
• Fiction will cease to exist. People will extract all the drama, character stories and pleasure from non-fiction doc media that they used to enjoy from fiction.
• Every doc citizen will have eye plants, this kind of third intuitive eye.
• Closed circuit cameras will become the next TV channels, the next theatres, the next opera houses.
• Documentaries will have saved the world. There will no longer be a need for documentaries. But we will make them anyway out of habit.
• Documocracy will replace ideology, religion and politics.
• Docutopian ideas.
• Happiness will rule and there will no longer be a need for sad documentaries.
• Everyone will become a documentary maker.
• Free will be the basis of the new economy. Although gossip may become the new currency.
• Documentary makers will not longer need to take the vow of poverty. We will be appreciated and well paid.
• Forget 3D. 4D holograms will replace it. Documations will come down off the screen to become people.
• HAL will direct all documentaries thus freeing us to rest.
Peter Wintonick founded the production company Necessary Illusions and started DocAgora, a forum to connect and find out about funding and distributing documentary media.
Linear docs are dead and the infrastructure to support them is dead.
The first thing people ask is What is your film about? Let’s just try to ask the question without the word “about.” Films are more than what they’re about. They’re more than the content. We’re trying to make documentary cinema. It’s about form and aesthetics and art. It’s really about the communication of complex things rather than of the content. I’m interested in how you project what you see to the eyes of the people who are seeing it. For the last 80 years, documentary has positioned itself in the “about.” I instead ask What is the experience?
We’ll banish the word documentary and call it doc media.
Don’t make any more sad documentaries. The number of funny documentaries playing at festivals is usually three out of 300. Sadness and earnestness have become the sins of documentary. Sadness sells. Or feeling guilty. Problemetizing the world, making everything an issue is so prevalent.
Critic Pauline Kale once said about Godard’s fiction films, that he was actually making documentaries of the future set in the present, because capturing a moment before it passed was more important to him than presenting a finished fictional work.
And now for some speculations on where documentaries will be 20 years from now according to Peter Wintonick:
• Fiction will cease to exist. People will extract all the drama, character stories and pleasure from non-fiction doc media that they used to enjoy from fiction.
• Every doc citizen will have eye plants, this kind of third intuitive eye.
• Closed circuit cameras will become the next TV channels, the next theatres, the next opera houses.
• Documentaries will have saved the world. There will no longer be a need for documentaries. But we will make them anyway out of habit.
• Documocracy will replace ideology, religion and politics.
• Docutopian ideas.
• Happiness will rule and there will no longer be a need for sad documentaries.
• Everyone will become a documentary maker.
• Free will be the basis of the new economy. Although gossip may become the new currency.
• Documentary makers will not longer need to take the vow of poverty. We will be appreciated and well paid.
• Forget 3D. 4D holograms will replace it. Documations will come down off the screen to become people.
• HAL will direct all documentaries thus freeing us to rest.
Peter Wintonick founded the production company Necessary Illusions and started DocAgora, a forum to connect and find out about funding and distributing documentary media.
16 May 2010
More Online Doc Sites to See
Examples of non-linear storytelling:
The Global Lives Project is a cross-continental collaboration aimed at building a video library of the human experience online. It started with a grassroots effort to document a day in the life of 10 regular folk around the world who represent the diversity of the world’s population.
havana-miami.tv
Each week, three videos from Havana, three videos from Miami, over three months. Follow everyday life as experienced by six young men and women from each city. Includes a timeline, profiles of people and a searchable graph that sorts videos by tagged topic.
theplaceswelive.com
The Places We Live is a series of stunning 360º photogrpahs and audio stories that take you across continents and into the lives of twenty families living in urban slums.
cityofmemory.org
City of Memory is an urban story map of New York City with stories from people and neighborhoods of the present and the past. Includes curated as well as user-submitted stories.
gdp.nfb.ca
GDP: Measuring the Human Side of the Canadian Economic Crisis is a bilingual project that features an interactive map and timeline embedded with videos, audio slide shows, photos and comments, sortable by theme.
prisonvalley.arte.tv
Prison Valley explores the prison industry and the Colorado community whose economy is based upon it. I haven't checked this one out yet. You have to register to take advantage of all the embedded interactivity and to explore the spaces and characters within the content. Supposedly a dense and richly rewarding media experience with stunning cinema verité video.
justvision.org
The creators of the feature documentary Budrus started a nonprofit to help fund the making of their film and talk about the issues involved. Their plan is to have 5-minute videos that you can pause and link to other videos or what people are saying about it or find more information.
oneocean.cbc.ca
One Ocean takes a more traditional approach where online content acts as a support to an educational documentary tv series. It's a place to learn more about the topic and play games.
Kensington Communications creates and produces television and interactive media. Check out the links to Interactive Projects in the right column. Here are a couple of examples:
The City Sonic project features location-based storytelling and a gaming component built around mobile smartphones. Each short film tells the story of one musician and their shared history with a noted Toronto music venue. You can get bonus information or prizes when accessing pieces on your mobile while you are at specific locations.
Diamond Road Online was launched in conjunction with a TV series about the gem. The site contains a database of over 300 documentary sequences with more than 10 hours of video. It allows users to follow their own interests. You can choose to follow a particular character or a specific theme or let the online recommendation engine tell you a more continuous story. Intelligent software analyzes what you've already seen, combines it with content ratings from other users and then recommends what should be seen next. At any time you can become an editor by creating, commenting on or sharing your own mini-documentaries with the online community. View a demonstration of how Diamond Road Online was constructed and how it works. Uses Web 2.0. Uses collaborative filtering and personal recommendations. Every piece of content is tagged with keywords. The content creator can also tag a sequence as an introductory clip so that it would play before anything else related to that story.
Online Doc Tool #3: Cisco Eos
Cisco Eos is a social entertainment platform that harnesses the power of social networking and connects your brand to your fans. Great for filmmakers, bands and media companies. Andy Whittaker, CEO of Dogwoof, was touting it, saying it’s a hub to link between your film and the issues and other relevant parties, to give information and education and build an online community. Allows you to create and manage a website that can provide more personal experiences around your film. Can include paid content. Features social networking capabilities, content management and audience analytics. Hosted by Cisco. Templates available or customize your own look. Can serve as a central publishing hub for artists to push content out to destination sites, but still be able to draw audiences or data back to their own site. Here are some sites using Cisco Eos:
dirtyoil.co.uk and tarsands.co.uk
paramore.net
blondie.net
clubdevo.com
circasurvive.com
maydayparade.com
dirtyoil.co.uk and tarsands.co.uk
paramore.net
blondie.net
clubdevo.com
circasurvive.com
maydayparade.com
Online Doc Tool #2: YellowBird
YellowBird is a new camera and technology that provides a totally interactive 360º view. The camera is similar to Google Streetview technology except that instead of photographs, the camera records video. The YellowBird Flash player then makes it possible to watch the 3D content interactively. The viewer is able to choose their viewing direction like you are actually there turning your head, looking around. Just check out some examples on their site and it will all make sense. Here are a few more examples:
Batavia Stad
Click on the Batavia Stad 360 Tour.
Day of Song
Highrise
The YellowBird part of the site is coming soon (July). Katerina Cizek, director and coordinator of Highrise, a project for the National Film Board of Canada, gave a preview of their current Highrise project in development: Out My Window. She described it as nuggets of stories from people who live in highrises around the world. Each person’s apartment is a 360º interactive environment where you can see the action and click on objects and people to access their stories, videos or informational blurbs.
The overarching Highrise project is a documentary experiment that takes a global look at the human experience of vertical living. Their aim is to challenge conventional notions of documentary and what it means to be an urban species in the 21st century. You can currently see The Thousandth Tower, their first Highrise project. Personal photo stories of six Toronto highrise residents equipped with digital cameras and powerful points-of-view.
Batavia Stad
Click on the Batavia Stad 360 Tour.
Day of Song
Highrise
The YellowBird part of the site is coming soon (July). Katerina Cizek, director and coordinator of Highrise, a project for the National Film Board of Canada, gave a preview of their current Highrise project in development: Out My Window. She described it as nuggets of stories from people who live in highrises around the world. Each person’s apartment is a 360º interactive environment where you can see the action and click on objects and people to access their stories, videos or informational blurbs.
The overarching Highrise project is a documentary experiment that takes a global look at the human experience of vertical living. Their aim is to challenge conventional notions of documentary and what it means to be an urban species in the 21st century. You can currently see The Thousandth Tower, their first Highrise project. Personal photo stories of six Toronto highrise residents equipped with digital cameras and powerful points-of-view.
Online Doc Tool #1: Korsakow
Korsakow is a piece of software you can use to create database narratives. Developed by Florian Thalhofer. Allows users without programming expertise to create nonlinear narratives. Free and open source for PCs and Macs. Watch some of the online video tutorials to get a better grasp of it. And here are some examples of sites using Korsakow:
thewayisawit.org
A look at Starbucks and Cosco from the employee's point of view.
forgotten-flags.com
Germans' changed perceptions of their country after the 2006 Soccer World Cup.
lovestoryproject.com
People from different countries tell their stories of love.
7sons.com
A personal trip to the Bedouins in Egypt.
13tershop.de
Stories of love, loneliness, greed and happiness from the Bremer shopping mall in Germany. A project where new film clips are posted daily and use the Korsakow system to link to each other. Computer terminals in the shopping center operate as video recording stations and give the audience the opportunity to record their own stories.
istanbul.arte.tv
Will include an interactive web documentary by Florian to be posted July 2010. About the Galata Bridge as the central structure and action of the city. Florian showed us parts of it in process at the moment. The site is already worth checking out.
thewayisawit.org
A look at Starbucks and Cosco from the employee's point of view.
forgotten-flags.com
Germans' changed perceptions of their country after the 2006 Soccer World Cup.
lovestoryproject.com
People from different countries tell their stories of love.
7sons.com
A personal trip to the Bedouins in Egypt.
13tershop.de
Stories of love, loneliness, greed and happiness from the Bremer shopping mall in Germany. A project where new film clips are posted daily and use the Korsakow system to link to each other. Computer terminals in the shopping center operate as video recording stations and give the audience the opportunity to record their own stories.
istanbul.arte.tv
Will include an interactive web documentary by Florian to be posted July 2010. About the Galata Bridge as the central structure and action of the city. Florian showed us parts of it in process at the moment. The site is already worth checking out.
How to Do Online Docs
Notes from a Hot Docs industry session about the Poetics of Online Documentary. Watch the session.
You can tell stories in a non-linear way. You don't have to make a single path.
Think of your doc website in this way – there is a subject and a space to work in, to tell stories.
The structure of your site should be story-driven.
Just use the tools you know. You don't have to use everything that's out there. (Florian)
Know your audience and talk to them. Bring users in on your project early to test it and get feedback.
Choose the appropriate amount of interactivity for your project and your audience and no more. Innovate just enough.
Think about how navigation can be content. (Katarina)
Give ways to engage. Link or collaborate with other organizations.
There are growing expectations to experience things on different platforms (web, smartphone) in different ways, not the same way on every platform. (David)
Education market – kids want to discover it for themselves, not be told. (Annette)
Florian Thalhofer, Interactive and web producer
Katarina Cizek, National Film Board of Canada
David Oppenheim, Kensington Communications
Annette Bradford, CBC Documentary Unit
Florian Thalhofer, Interactive and web producer
Katarina Cizek, National Film Board of Canada
David Oppenheim, Kensington Communications
Annette Bradford, CBC Documentary Unit
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