By: Robert Labossiere
The Toronto documentary film festival Hot Docs was held April 30 to May 5 in Toronto. Straight Goods' digital culture columnist Robert Labossiere went there in search of all things digital. Have a look. Or a listen. Or participate.
Cutting Truths - the role of new media in documentary reporting.
The Pitch: Best spiel wins production money for filmmakers.
Pennebaker's "Startup.com" tracks death of dotcom dreams and dollars.
Is film dead? Film revolt versus digital revolution - a filmmaker discussion.
NFB legend Colin Low looks back, with some regrets on Board moving production to regions.
Digital documentary TV, a new avenue to an audience for filmmakers.
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Digital media intersects - maybe even reacts with - the tradition of documentary making at Toronto's Hot Docs film festival |
Cutting Truths - the role of new media in documentary reporting.
The Toronto documentary film festival Hot Docs launches with a day-long session on "new" media. A year ago that was a soaring idea but now, in the aftermath of dot com meltdown, you'd think Cutting Truths, ironic name, would have had much of the wind taken out of its sails. But while the tone of E-vangelism is definitely quieter now - there are fewer digiteratti milling about and those hanging in there admit they know less rather than more - I'm struck by the strengths of the digital projects presented by Cutting Truths panellists:
B92, the independent Internet radio station twice shut down by the Milosovic regime in Serbia, shows how connecting to the outside world kept critical perspective alive against disinformation. (www.free92.net)
Picture Projects have been experimenting with online documentary since 1995 and have just launched 360 Degrees, about the U.S. justice system. (www.picture-projects.com - www.360degrees.org)
Victoria Mappleback's project Smart Hearts tracks a couple online through a grisly breakup. (www.channel4.com/smarthearts/smart/flash...)
Dutch new media gurus Crossmedia experiment with wireless; you call up and watch an interactive animation over the Internet. (www.cut-n-paste.nl) Witness, a U.S. based human rights group, distributes digital cameras to activists, then posts their documentaries on its website. (www.witness.org)
Blast Theory's "Kidnap" stages an online lottery with a real two-day kidnapping as the prize. (www.blasttheory.co.uk/kidnap)
For the most part these projects are focussed on issues, on content, on effectiveness; this is the tradition of documentary. At the same time, they show how digital media change the way we gain knowledge of issues. Not only is the technology cheaper and more accessible, but distribution is also cheaper and worldwide. New media producer/curator Neil Sieling addresses the deeper industrial transformation that is taking place. For only a little more money than a big documentary costs, he says, a wholly independent media delivery system using digital technology can be created, if that's what you want to do. But is that what most documentarians want to do?
Sieling is a lone cock crowing the digital future. Most panellists here are humbler, admitting to the obstacles they face. Radio B92 relied on voluntarily donated web hosting. Now that the crisis is over the station is having trouble raising money. Similarly, Smart Hearts' host, Channel 4 in Britain, waffled on its commitment to supply bandwidth for the project's voracious live cams, audio and chat rooms.
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The recent Hot Docs film festival makes it clear that digital media has changed at least some of the rules for documentary filmmakers |
The Pitch: Best spiel wins production money for filmmakers.
As documentary goes online, it is inheriting some of the film industry's quirkiness. The pitch, where aspiring filmmakers compete onstage for producer and broadcaster support, is a big part of the new media world. Hot Docs new media pitch session holds up a carrot, a $5000 prize. Public spectacle notwithstanding, these pitch sessions are instructive to film/new media makers. The winner, an interactive documentary called Tightrope, about the Flying Wallendas, a family of high wire acrobats, is strong on innovation. It's the only pitch that has a grasp of that buzzword, "interactivity": the project puts the viewer on a virtual tightrope where, coached by the Great Karl Wallenda himself, they balance to keep the story moving to its harrowing conclusion.
Pennebaker's "Startup.com" tracks death of dotcom dreams and dollars.
"New media day" concludes with the screening of StartUp.com, a U.S. film that sees two high school chums burn through $60 million in eight months, from start-up to melt down, ruining their friendship en route. Filming began well before anyone even considered that the dot com plum might wither on the vine. The film, although it packs too much into too small an envelope, can claim to be the definitive dot com story. Created by veteran documentarians DA Pennebaker (Don't Look Back, The War Room) and Chris Hegedus, Startup.com betrayed its digital video origins only in a few outdoor scenes, testifying to the power of good story, no matter what medium is used to tell it.
Is film dead? Film revolt versus digital revolution - a filmmaker discussion.
Not all filmmakers agree the future is digital. Canadian filmmaker John Walker (www.thefairyfaith.com) argues convincingly that film is better quality, film cameras are just as portable and more reliable than video cameras, and that film stock is no more expensive in the long run.
Filmmaker Kevin McMahon is more circumspect: it depends on what you want to do, he says. Two reps from Panasonic (digital) and Kodak (film) look uncomfortable at having to face off in public. A young man in the audience asks the panel sheepishly whether cinematographers are as supportive as he's found videographers to be. He is reassured. But the question that remains is who will be making celluloid films ten or 15 years from now?
NFB legend Colin Low looks back, with some regrets on Board moving production to regions.
Colin Low is 75, sharp as a tack and full of the wisdom of a long and illustrious career. He says a remarkable thing. He laments, or at least expresses reservations about, the decentralization of the NFB. Low helped build the NFB's Challenge for Change program in the late 1960s. He knows how strong the NFB once was. Challenge for Change introduced a new approach to community development. The idea was to film the people and the problems of a community, play back the films to them for discussion and criticism and see what solutions might emerge. He and an NFB crew went to Fogo Island in 1967 in response to the federal government's plan to move the entire population of 300, then mostly dependent on welfare, to the mainland. Low and crew made 27 films, which, after review and approval by the community, were circulated around Ottawa. The result was investment instead of relocation, a shipbuilding yard and, at the community's request, a co-operative to manage the fishery. Ten years later the fishery was producing profits of $1 million a year. A hundred and forty-seven films were produced by Challenge for Change between 1967 and 1980, advancing the use of film as an instrument of social change.
In the 1970s the NFB began to decentralize, setting up operations in the provinces. While Low doesn't doubt that this helped localize filmmaking, he wonders what is lost when there is no strong centre. The clips of Low films chosen by Glassman are poignant. I'm feeling it too, anxiety at the dissolution of familiar institutions, changes in technology, new guards replacing old guards.
The digital future is supposed to be more democratic, more accessible, more informative, a better place. What I'm hearing is a mixed message. Yes, there's a lot about digital technology that holds promise but the question of whether that promise will be realized remains.
Index of NFB Fogo Island films - www.nfb.ca/FMT/E/seri/N/Newfoundland...
Biography of Colin Low - www.nfb.ca/E/2/6/1/bioclow.html
Current Fogo Island web sites - www.nfcap.nf.ca/central/Fogo
Digital documentary TV, a new avenue to an audience for filmmakers.
The broadcast industry is not helping the cause of celluloid. I hear filmmakers complaining about pressure to produce faster and cheaper films, just long enough to fill a broadcast spot and in the video formats convenient for editing and broadcast. This year 289 digital broadcast licenses were approved by the CRTC. Twenty-one of those (16 in English) will be offered to subscribers this fall. Others will be carried by cable, also starting in the fall. This should be an incredible window of opportunity for filmmakers, but producers caution that broadcast license fees will be lower and that very few original documentaries will be commissioned.
Consumers will need a special set-top box to decode the incoming digital signal, which can be received via cable or satellite. The producers estimate a Canadian audience of around 2 million is already equipped for digital TV. In this relatively small market, competition will be fierce and channel producers at this seminar are not hiding their anxiety about whether subscribers will support them.
Obviously they have a good product: quality 24-7 programming without commercial interruption. Set your VCR, record exactly what you want and watch it when you want to. But in today's commercially numbed-out market, who knows?
An index to some of the digital channels that will be available this fall - www.playbackmag.com/articles/pbi/20010101/Newspecs.html
Robert Labossiere works from his home in Toronto and gets pretty well wherever he needs to go by bicycle.
Posted: May 21, 2001
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