Suitcase of Love and Shame (Jane Gillooly, 2012, 70 min.), screens on Saturday April 27th at 6:45 P.M. at the Somerville Theatre. A suitcase purchased on eBay, filled with reel-to-reel tapes recorded in the 1960s, reveals the secrets of an adulterous affair. Cate McQuaid wrote in The Boston Globe, “Gillooly says the imagery is intended to spark free association. Being guided by the sound, rather than pictures, prompts a rich internal engagement, like listening to a radio drama or reading a great novel, in a way that most visually dynamic films do not. The effect enhances the highly charged listening experience. Hearing the voices of the lovers on their private tapes, viewers become voyeurs.” See film page on IFFB web site.

Oxyana (Sean Dunne, 2013, 82 min.) screens on Saturday, April 27th at 9:30 P.M. at the Somerville Theatre. Dunne earned a Special Jury Mention at this years Tribeca Film Festival for this documentary about Oceana, West Virginia, the epicenter of an OxyContin epidemic among the backdrop of abandoned coal mines and the resulting unemployment. Residents tell their stories of day-to-day living under the stranglehold of drug addiction without sensationalism or excessive dramatization. See film page on IFFB web site.

The Act of Killing (Josh Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn, and Anonymous, 2012, 115 min.) screens on Sunday, April 28th at 5:45 P.M. at the Somerville Theatre. Yosef Brody wrote in Truthout, “Try imagining what reality television starring war criminals might look like and you will begin to get an idea of the surreal, outrageous, and courageous new documentary The Act of Killing, which won the top prize at this year’s CPH:DOX film festival. Mass murderers are encouraged to describe their past atrocities through dramatic art, by creating their own movie.” See film page on IFFB web site.

It was hard to pick only three, there are so many amazing documentaries screening at the festival this year.

See you there!

This year I organized and will be moderating the opening plenary session, New Forms – New Opportunities, examining short and interactive documentaries, two key trends that are transforming the industry and connecting subjects, filmmakers, and audiences in new ways. I will orchestrate the conversation with two thought leaders: Natasha Deganello Giraudie, CEO and founder of Micro-Documentaries in San Francisco, and Sarah Wolozin, Director of the MIT Open Documentary Lab. We can never predict what’s going to happen next, but by facing the future with fascination rather than fear, we become receptive to opportunities and find the positive side of change.

The other sessions scheduled for the day include:

• The Double Bottom Line discussing how designing a measurable social impact campaign can help you engage audiences and secure project funding;
• Working with Scholars on how to work effectively with scholars which is key to securing funding from funders like the National Endowment for the Humanities and other federal granting programs;
• The ever popular Art of the Pitch during which five filmmakers will do live pitches in front of industry experts; and
• Media Communities exploring how filmmakers connect and collaborate with each other in virtual and physical environments, in distribution and online game communities, and when telling interactive stories.
• In addition to these sessions there will be an opportunity to schedule one-on-one consultations with industry professionals and participate in a delightful end-of-conference networking reception.

For more details on the complete conference agenda and to register, visit the Making Media Now 2013 page on the Filmmakers Collaborative web site.

I’m convinced this will be the best Making Media Now ever. I know everyone in the media making field is very busy this time of year, however, I can personally assure you this will be a day well spent, offering fresh insights and valuable networking opportunities, so register now before the event sells out! Imagine Magazine published an article about the conference, available in their print edition (April 2013) available at selected New England locations (including Rule/Boston Camera, Filmmakers Collaborative, etc.) or as a PDF download.

I hope to see you there!

To put it in one sentence, sound is vibrations in air that touch us. Like the proverbial tree that falls in the forest, if nobody is around to hear it, did it really make a sound? The vibrations caused by the falling tree don’t become sound until they touch us. And these waves literally touch us, according to developmental psychologist Ann Fernald, who describes sound as “touch at a distance” in the Musical Language episode of Radiolab. I believe the intimacy of touch Fernald is describing has something to do with why there’s such a strong connection between our emotions and sound.

In their landmark book, Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?: Experiencing Aural Architecture, Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter suggest that social relationships are strongly influenced by the way that space changes sound. Every environment has an aural architecture, whose attributes contribute to the fabric of human culture. We can sense spatial configurations through hearing, for example, with our eyes closed we can find an open doorway or know if we are in a room with low ceilings. The aural imprint of Tokyo is quite different from that of New York, and once we have experienced one of these cities we are likely to recognize their aural imprint much in the same manner we recognize images. Sound recording on a documentary need not just be about getting clear dialog, it can also be about capturing the aural imprint of the spaces we are observing. Whenever possible, when I am out observing with my camera, I try to record stereo ambience as well.  Given that a good stereo audio recorder can be had these days for about $200 there’s no reason a separate audio recorder can’t be capturing the aural landscape when you are out capturing video with your camera. In fact, given where things are heading technologically and aesthetically, perhaps we should go the distance and record surround ambience. It is all well and good that Hollywood features create amazing soundscapes during the post-production process, but as documentarians, we should try when we can to capture the actual aural landscape of the locations we observe.

A particularly impressive example of the aural landscape as an integral component of a documentary is Habana – Arte nuevo de hacer ruinas (2006, Florian Borchmeyer, English title: Havana – The new art of making ruins). For Borchmeyer the beauty of Havana lies in the poetry of its ruins and through this documentary he presents a portrait of the inhabited ruins of Havana in their final moments before the majestic buildings of pre-Castro Cuba either crumble or are renovated. When I spoke with Borchmeyer at the Rio International Film Festival the year the film was released, I told him I was impressed by the dimensionality the aural landscape in the film. He explained that when he shot the interviews, he also recorded surround sound of the environment. As a viewer I was transported into the buildings and the stories the interviewees were telling, but there was something more going on, I felt as if I was enveloped by the landscape in a manner I have rarely experienced in a documentary. All too often capturing the aural landcape is the farthest thing from a documentarians mind, however, listening to and recording the aural landscape can create a sensory experience that will engage viewers in a deep, primal manner. The following version of the film on YouTube does not do justice to the film as I saw and heard it, but it is what it is. You will get the basic idea. I recommend viewing and listening to this clip with headphones.

From a documentary filmmaker’s perspective, sound offers a way of capturing the auditory sense of space in a manner complimentary to the camera’s visual recording of that space. Blesser and Salter remind us that from prehistoric multimedia cave paintings, to classical Greek open-air theaters, through the time of Gothic cathedrals and French villages, auditory spatial awareness has been a prism through which cultural attitudes and a sense of space are revealed to us. Their book really opened up my ears to the importance and potential of sound as an integral component expanding the sensory dimension of documentary.

What is the physical nature of these vibrations that touch us the way they do? A movement, for example a hammer striking a table or those made by human vocal cords, creates waves in the air, much like when you thrown a rock, or pour a stream of water, into still waters. You see waves that move out in all directions away from the point of impact. It’s important to appreciate that these waves go in all directions, bounce off walls, travel around corners, it’s very messy. In addition, the intensity of these waves falls off quickly the farther you are from the source of the vibration.

Sound is not like light, which travels in a straight line. Recording sound is not like taking pictures with a camera, there is no equivalence to the edge of the frame. Sound travels around corners. Reflections from hard surfaces add unwanted reflections that smear the sound. Other sounds from all over the place mixes in with the sound you want to record. Sound waves are promiscuous little devils compared to the stoic light rays. With your camera the frame is the frame. You don’t see what’s out of the frame, but not so with sound, we hear everything around us and so does the microphone we use for recording. And while our sensory apparatus is good at separating a salient sound out of a collection of sounds (a phenomenon known as the cocktail party effect), the microphone and the recording systems we use capture everything with annoying equality.

The process of recording sound involves capturing an analogue of the sound waves and converting the signal as faithfully as possible into a stream of digital data. This is usually accomplished with a microphone, an electromechanical device with a delicate diaphragm that vibrates in response to the waves that fall upon it. These movements are translated into an electrical signal, which is amplified and then sampled (converted into a stream of digital data) and then stored in a data file. Two common audio file formats used in production are WAV (Waveform Audio) or AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format). Both formats are uncompressed and can reproduce the exact same signal on playback that was initially stored in them. How this process occurs through the signal chain from microphone to data file has an effect on the quality of the sound. Microphone technologies, the designs typically used in documentary work, along with various recording options, will be discussed in a future installment, as will microphone placement strategies and noise management techniques. In later posts we will also get into more details about audio files and other technical details.

For now, what’s most important to remember is that when you’re out in the field with your microphone and recording device, your microphone is always picking up a mix of three things:

1. The direct sound from the source you want to record,
2. reflected sound from surfaces close to the source (including troublesome reverberation from walls in a space), and
3. noise, common sources being the natural background sounds in an environment and wind noise.

In addition to these three, you also get as a bonus noise caused by electrical circuits in the signal chain, and if your unlucky, you might pick up some interference from a nearby sources of electromagnetic radiation or perhaps crackling sounds from a defective cable.

You always want to maximize the relative level of #1 while reducing #2 and #3 as much as possible. Move away from reflective surfaces, get the microphone as close in as possible (but not too too close, there’s the proximity effect, bass exaggeration when sources are very close, that works well for radio announcers but is not always what you want for dialog recording). There are also issues with breath pops (wind screens help with that).

Not only does sound radiate in all directions, it also falls off so the intensity falls off quickly the farther you are from the source, or from a physics perspective, sound radiation follows the Inverse Square Law, which is a fancy way of saying that sound intensity from a point source of sound drops off at a rate proportional to the square of the distance. Or simpler yet, double the distance from the source, you get a quarter of the original sound energy. That’s why it’s so important to get that microphone close to the source you are recording.

When you play back the sound you recorded, the reverse process takes place, the sound you recorded, stored as a digital representation (created through sampling and encoding) is converted back to an analog signal which is amplified and in turn causes the movement of the speaker diaphragm, creating  vibration in the air. The sound waves that result are never exactly like the original, there’s always something that changes in the process. There’s always noise and distortion added along the way. We try to minimize these problems using good techniques and good gear.

Some terms that will come up a lot when working with sound include the Decibel, frequency, and more. An overview of human hearing, intensity, signal levels, frequency, along with some other fundamental terms and concepts, will be the topic of our next post. Hopefully these will provide a foundation that helps us better understand what we’re doing when we work with sound. After that we will dive into tools and techniques. Until then, good night and good sound.

Image credits: 1. “Water Spire’ by likeablerodent; 2. “Three things” by the author.

The visual design of the site captures the eerie feel of the black tsunami waters. The design is simple, calm, there is no animation calling for my attention, only a full screen slide show with slow dissolves between images playing under the title text. A single orange button invites me to view the table of contents. I click it and the site reveals a collection of chapter headings, each paired with an image and a brief caption.

Skip ahead to the interview >

The chapter “Erasure” reveals new images and text that reads like a terse journal entry, “Following the tsunami I slept in a center for the displaced meeting people who lost their homes and people they loved. At night we’d drink whisky and eat little good things that we managed to find in convenience stores.” The site reveals a map of the region, with icons indicating the availability of photos. Each of the icons reveals a slide show. This chapter is quiet, I’m left to contemplate the images. The map combines post-tsunami street views and photos of Yuriage at a variety of locations. This chapter provides a sense of the destruction and the geography upon which subsequent chapters build upon with more emotional and poetic layers.

The “Aftermath soundscape” chapter adds sound to a series of photographs shot while the black waters receded, presented as a video. The soundtrack is varied, and ends on the sound of rushing water over black.  The navigation (throughout the site) is straightforward and familiar, much like the navigational structure of a book. At any point in this and other chapters, I can click on a orange button in the upper right hand corner that will take me back to a scrolling index with an entry for each of the chapters from left to right.

The “Lights for the Departed” chapter presents a video and slide show documenting the Obon festival in which people make lanterns to call their relatives back home so the dead know they are not forgotten. Yuriage lost one in seven people to the tsunami. The video documents the first Obon in Yuriage after the tsunami, the lanterns take on added significance as they were placed in the sea to guide the spirits back out into the ether. I appreciate the ability to read about the festival prior to seeing the video without having to leave the site. UnknownSpring makes good use of the web browser’s ability to present multiple media types on one page. Some things are better in words, others as video. A web documentary provides makers with the ability to present viewers with choices driven by the subject matter, depending on the maker’s approach this may be confusing or welcome. In the case of UnknownSpring the choices are straightforward and sensible.

After about thirty-five minutes on the site I’m left with a sense of a seaside town. While the news reports at the time made clear the intensity and scale of the destruction, UnknownSpring  brings specific people and rituals into my consciousness. The poetic prose and personal profiles balance the devastating images, and thankfully without the ponderous voiceover of traditional television documentaries and news reports. I appreciate being able to linger on the words, slide shows, and videos. The ability to book end the photos and videos with words makes it possible for the images to work on their own with just the right amount of context the words provide, each medium touching a different part of me.

Navigating through UnknownSpring has a meditative quality. In spite of the devastation, the people of Yuriage are presented as survivors who continue with the rhythms of their daily life the best they can. Each of the chapters presents respectfully observed documentation of the survivors, devastation, the cleanup, traditional celebrations, and personally important milestones since the tsunami devastated the area. The ambient sound incorporated in the work is used effectively to enhance the photographs, bringing the sonic texture of Yuriage to the experience.

UnknownSpring demonstrates how web documentaries can make use of prose, typography, photography, video, and sound in effective ways. To be able to stop and linger on a photograph or text in UnknownSpring, or carefully study statistics and background articles as presented in other web documentaries like Prison Valley, gives the viewer a level of agency akin to browsing the library shelves, but with the advantage of the documentary maker’s curatorial choices. Is it a photo essay? A documentary? A web site? The only term that seems right to describe UnknownSpring  is a web documentary. This emerging genre has little in common with a traditional linear documentary, but it has a lot in common with the notion of documentary as described by Robert Coles in Doing Documentary Work, “…an essay allows for more space, for a mix of literacy and analytic sensibility, for that other mix of factuality and opinion, and for the particular writer’s idiosyncratic approach to a given topic” (Coles, 1997).

After visiting UnknownSpring several times I was curious about the back story so I got in touch with Jake Price in order to ask him several questions about the work. What follows is an edited version of our e-mail exchange.

David Tamés:   What is the genesis of the project, how did you get started working on UnknownSpring?

Jake Price:  UnknownSpring came together organically in every way. I was in New York when the tsunami struck. At first I wasn’t even going to go to Japan. When I read about it upon waking up I felt a deep sadness for what had engulfed Japan. The previous year I spent working in Haiti after their earthquake. I don’t consider myself a disaster photographer nor did I think that my presence in Japan would mean anything so I just stayed home reading accounts of what was happening.

Over the next 48 hours something was nagging at me though, I didn’t know what it was but it kept growing in me. The following Monday I was on a plane bound for Tohoku. When I got on the plane I started thinking about all the influences Japan had in my life. We have dear family friends who are from Japan and their art has always surrounded me. Because of these works a seed was planted in me, which lead me to tell a more artful story of the disaster.

When I got to the Tohoku region I was all alone. I didn’t have transportation and the days and nights were raw. I hitchhiked around the region the first few days and then found the village of Yuriage that was completely washed away. One in seven people perished there. I found the survivors living in a shelter in a neighboring town and though a friend I made, I arranged to sleep on the floor for three nights.  I ended up staying with the refugees for three weeks and many of them are still friends.

People really let me into their lives and became my friends. Although we spoke different languages we bonded through food, another cultural aspect that has always been in my life. At night we’d drink whisky and eat little things we could find in convenience stores. When I discovered that a new friend I made liked a particular food I’d always look to pick something up in the store. I think the most beautiful thing about Tohoku is that people are always doing these little sweet things to give to each other. I fell into that as well. By observing what others enjoyed in life and then giving them those things we paid each other through kindness. In those days it was a treat to have anything that reminded one of normal life and pleasures. So, much of this project came about because of my bonding through food, giving and being given to.

Tamés: How did this evolve into the site that is now online, and why a web documentary?

Price:  As I really got to know the people and the town I felt a need to tell a story more deeply and poetically than what is produced by the larger outlets. It took nearly two years and about ten trips back to Yuriage to produce UnknownSpring .  I worked with an amazing designer Visakh Menon and we went through I think twelve versions of the site. We had no budget for it, all of it came out of our own pockets and the generosity of the people of Tohoku.

Having made such an effort to produce this site, we also just wanted to prove that a project like this one could be done by only two people and without a budget. We wanted to prove that a major project could be done with a mixture of frugality, perseverance, and heart.

Tamés:  I think you certainly demonstrated what can be done with a small, dedicated team. I’m curious, what kind of work were you doing prior to creating this site?

Price: I’ve worked in Haiti, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Pakistan as a photographer. But I didn’t feel that I was connecting with those places as I did with Japan. My work in those countries was journalistic for the most part and while I felt for what people were going though, the Japan project resonated more deeply with me. It’s hard to describe, but being there I just felt at home so there was a more internal connection.

Tamés:  You said you created UnknownSpring with no budget, but even no budget productions require time and resources, how did you fund the project?

Price: Along the way I produced pieces for the BBC to help pay for the trips, but there wasn’t much money in that. I was greatly aided by the generosity of one man in particular, Ken san who would almost insist on driving me around and helping me out. Without him this project would have never been possible. Looking back on it I could have raised money and been a lot more self-sufficient. But that would have kept me from forming the relationships I did. On my travels I’d always stay with survivors and their families. Because of that I think I was able to provide a deeper more human portrait of the people and place.

Tamés:  What were some of the unexpected surprises along the way?

Price: The relationships I formed.

Tamés:  Why were you motivated to do this as a web documentary rather than a book, photo essay, or another traditional form and venue? Is there some particular aspect of this subject matter that calls for expression as a web documentary?

Price: This project is a kind of collage. I shot with just about every format there is: panoramic black and white, two video formats, 6×7 chrome, digital, 35mm,  iPhone (still and video), Leica 35mm and recorded hours of ambient audio. I was in a transitory phase in my career as I began to shoot more video. In the end, I just used what inspired me and decided that I would piece everything together later.  The web was the perfect way to weave all of the elements. I’m not a fan of including stills and moving image together. But I wanted those elements to occupy the same space and to compliment each other. Again, the web let me do that whereas a film or a book would not.

Tamés:  Can you give me a specific example?

Price: There’s one chapter entitled “Recovery of Memory.” The story behind that is that there was this school gym where every personal item that was found in the wreckage was taken to.  It was tremendously touching to see everything form the smallest of wallet photos to a piano taken and saved in this space.  As I was shooting I began to think of a creating a space that would further hold onto all that was lost and could not be washed away by an angry tide.  In a way this site is an extension of the Yuriage gymnasium. It holds the last fragments of the town forever, located on multiple servers.

Tamés:  What were your sources of inspiration in terms of the visual approach you took with this piece?

Price: From the beginning we approached this project viscerally and poetically.  I wanted to transcend the notion of a web site as just a collection of portfolio type galleries. I wanted to entire site to be a story itself forming a cohesive narrative.

The films of Ozu were absolutely essential to my understanding of Japanese culture because he so purely portrayed daily life. I was always on the lookout for the small graces that he captured in his films to include in my work. The way people shared, laughed, and suffered quietly I found to be very dignified. I didn’t want to portray the people around me as victims but I also didn’t want their suffering to go unnoticed or unappreciated. With his gentle and detailed approach, Ozu taught me how to bring out the smallest of graces in situations that were not inherently dramatic.

I’m inspired by the films of Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky and the writing of William Faulkner. The photographers Josef Koulelka, Cartier Bresson and Sebastião Salgado have been strong influences in my life. With these influences in mind I wanted to create a new storytelling language for the web, one that guides a viewer from one state to another.

Tamés:  I think you succeeded quite nicely as far as storytelling and guiding the viewer between states. What has happened since you launched the site?

Price: The response has been wonderful. The project took an honorable mention at the World Press Photo and I’ve received letters from colleagues, many of them who have been in the most difficult and  hardened situations, saying that this work moves them.

Tamés:  I see you are also working on a video documentary, how is that project connected to / different from UnknownSpring?

Price: In my heart I’m a filmmaker, so I wanted to make a film. Cpm 703 is mainly traditional filmmaking so it’s very different In that I’m only using video and audio to tell my story. The film focuses on people living in Fukushima, another causality of the tsunami. The film is simply another chapter in the aftermath.

Tamés:  Is UnknownSpring an ongoing project? Where do you hope to take it? Would you describe it as an evolving documentary or is it now a static entity?

Price: I will always return to Yuriage. Now people are having babies, trying to make something grow from their ancestral lands. I’ll be back to see what grows in the future.

Since it’s on the web it’s pretty much everywhere already, but I hope that the components will find a home in other venues. I am working on series of exhibits where we will make a kind of living website in a physical space. For that we will make traditional prints, create Lightbox tables that are illuminated from below of the portraits that people will walk through similar to the way the navigate between chapters on the site, include video and interactive maps of Yuriage.

Tamés:  Are there some other web documentary works you consider good examples of the genre and its potential?

Price: UnknownSpring won the World Press Prize along with Alma: a Tale of Violence  and Bear 71. I admired these works a lot. In general the CBC is doing a lot of nice stuff.

Tamés:  I am impressed with what the Canadians have been doing in this genre. From a site production standpoint, the state of web development is in flux and there are lots of tools to choose from. I see you developed the site with Javascript, CSS, HTML, and some Javascript libraries. Why did you choose the specific tools you did?

Price: We didn’t choose technology for the sake of technology. For example we were going to use Popcorn.js, but it didn’t fit so we took it out. It was tempting to use it because it was new, but ultimately we just wanted to tell a story and picked the tools to do it. The important thing about the site is the way one navigates through it, which the coding structure allowed us to do.

A key rule of the project was that we do not use technology for technologies’ sake. We used technology only if it would have furthered the story. If it didn’t fit, no matter how cool we thought it might be we didn’t use it. Now we have a big suitcase full of stuff to use for the next project.

Tamés:  What do you want from your web development tools that they don’t currently provide?

Price: The programming was done by Visakh Menon so this might be a better question for him.

Tamés: I’d like to know from  your perspective as a photographer and filmmaker?

Price: Right now from what I see the tools provide headaches. CSS, JavaScript, etc. It’s a big digital soup and gets very complex.  On the plus side, however, there are clearly defined parameters in working with these elements and you just have to work within them. They make a storyteller be concise and decide what’s important. Editing is always key in every art form.

Tamés:  Would you do anything different today?

Price: No, well, yes. More content! And a little bit of funding would have made my life easier while on the ground.

Tamés:  What advice would you give to someone who is about to embark on a web documentary project?

Price: Immerse yourself and enjoy it.

References

Coles, Robert (1997). Doing Documentary Work, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 24, print, ISBN: 0195124952.

Curtis, Elissa (2012). “Postcards from Tohoku: Japan, One Year Later,  The New Yorker, blogs, March 7, www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2012/03/dispatch-from-tohoku.html (accessed February 19, 2013)

Photo credits

All photographs and screen shots  © Jake Price, all rights reserved.

This post is the first in a multi-post series on this blog that will collectively present an overview of practical techniques and a guide to the basic tools for recording, editing, and mixing sound for documentary video. Collectively these posts will help you improve your work whether you are a beginner, intermediate, or experienced media maker. Whether you are shooting with a mobile phone, consumer camcorder, D-SLR, prosumer or professional camcorder, sound is an important element of the documentary makers craft. We’ll cover the range of consumer, prosumer, and professional gear, since as documentary makers we find ourselves (more and more it seems) working in a wide range of situations, each requiring a different set of gear. Surprisingly good results can be obtained with consumer gear in a wide range of circumstances  yet professional gear provides specific affordances, so we’ll cover both along the way. Throughout the series you’ll find links to resources for further study and some gear recommendations based on real world experience.

In our first installment we’ll start with an overview of eight fundamental concepts that will guide our discussion of sound for documentary throughout the series. Here we go, let’s dive in.

1. Sound coveys emotion, picture coveys information

Think of the scene in Jaws of a woman swimming in silence. Now add those two famous bass notes. A totally different experience. Consider the emotional impact. Sound carries the emotion of your video, it’s half of the picture. Paying attention to sound, both in terms of good recording and how it’s mixed and the use of sound effects and music, can make a real difference. Even if you’re only doing a simple interview with dialog only, a rich sounding human voice will make a difference. You’ll find a wonderful collection of essays at FilmSound.org by Randy Thom who worked on Apocalypse Now as a sound effects recordist back in the day and since then has worked on an impressive number of films and has received multiple Academy Awards for sound. Thanks to G. John Garrett for this Jaws example.

2. Viewers expect transparent audio

Several years ago while preparing a presentation for New Media Expo in Los Vegas I visited Vimeo to find some videos to show as examples during my session. I was amused when I came across the video shown above: the filmmaker left a note saying that he would be fixing the sound as soon as possible. We usually don’t apologize for slight imperfections in terms of our video image quality, as most viewers will overlook them, but sound is different. Peter knew he had to say something about the sound issues in his piece in order to reassure his viewers he would soon be fixing the sound (which he knew would bother them). Sound is that important. People expect transparent (good) sound.

3. Microphone placement and noise management are the primary factors differentiating amateur and professional recordings

The problem with most amateur sound recordings is excessive ambient noise from a variety of sources and low sound levels (relative to the ambient noise). As a result, it’s difficult to understand dialog, and emotional impact suffers. This situation usually boils down to improper microphone placement. Learn to listen to your recordings and experiment with different microphone types and placement options. Getting the microphone as close as practical to the sound you want and as far away as possible from unwanted noise is a good starting point. In addition, when recording outdoors, you’ll probably need to control wind noise with a windjammer. In a future post we’ll cover microphone placement in detail and discuss different types of microphones and what task each is best suited for. With a litte bit of study and a healthy amount of practice, you can obtain very good recordings, regardless whether you are using consumer or professional gear. Placement and controlling noise are much more important factors determining your final result than the cost of the gear you are using.

4. Setting proper levels and monitoring your recording is crucial

For the best recording you’ll need to actively set recording levels. Not too loud to avoid distortion. Not too soft so your sound is not lost in the noise. Always monitor what you are recording with good over-the-ear headphones (or quality in-ear fitted earbuds that provide good sound isolation) so there are no surprises while editing. With digital recording devices you can’t record anything beyond full scale (indicated as O dBfs on most meters) so if you exceed this limit your recording will sound terrible, unless your camera or sound recorder has automatic gain control (AGC), a circuit that automatically adjusts recording levels,  or a limiter, a circuit that can automatically soften audio peaks without changing the overall sound level. In a subsequent post we’ll dive into reading meters, setting levels, using a limiter and even AGC in a pinch (though right off the bat I’ll say that in most cases AGC is not a substitute for manually setting levels, but with some consumer gear you will not have a choice).

5. Don’t buy into the shotgun myth

Shotgun microphones don’t “reach” farther, they don’t work like a telephoto lens. Sound, unlike light, is promiscuous, it travels in all directions and goes around corners. Shotgun microphones have their place, they are useful in noisy environments, especially when you can’t be as close to your subject as you’d like, however, they do not perform magic. Instead of reaching farther, they respond to off-axis sound differently in terms of reduced level, coloration, and a null point. They might look impressive, but many recording situations call for other types of microphones. In subsequent posts we’ll go into detail about various microphone types, pick-up patterns, how they differ, and in what situations you’ll want to use each of the microphones commonly used in documentary production. Given the choice between a $30 lavalier properly placed on a person talking vs. a $2,000 shotgun microphone mounted on the camera too far from the subject, I’ll take the $30 lavaliere. On the other hand, that $2,000 shotgun attached to a boom in the hands of a talented boom operator will certainly sound great, but it’s not always an option in terms of logistics, placement,  or budget. This is why my first microphone purchase was a TRAM-50 lavaliere. I eventually followed that up with a shotgun microphone. Since the majority of the work I was doing in the beginning was interviews, I knew the lavaliere should be the priority. I’m lucky to have had good teachers who set me straight early on in my path as a documentary filmmaker.

6. Judicious use of compression and equalization can make a big difference during editing

Compression and equalization are two essential post-production audio effects you’ll want to become familar with and practice using them when editing the sound portion of your video. A bit of audio compression on dialog tracks can help them sound louder and cut through other sounds in the mix, but don’t overdo it. Some equalization (emphasizing some frequencies and/or deemphasizing others) will sweeten the sound of dialog, amibience, effects, and music. For example, through equalization you can make thin dialog sound a little richer through enhancement of the lower frequences and reduction of some of the high-to-middle frequencies. In a subsequent post we’ll dive into how to use these audio effects to balance and sweeten your audio tracks. Some effort in processing your sound tracks will pay huge dividends in how your video feels when you audience is watching/listening to it.

7. Eliminate the phrase “we’ll fix it in post” from your repertoire 

“We’ll fix it in post” is a silly thing to say, if you record bad sound, it usually stays that way, it’s very hard to fix most poorly recorded sound.  For example, if you record dialog with the microphone too far from the speaker in a reverberant room (think gymnasium acoustics), you’re going to get a series of multiple echoes from the hard walls mixed in with your dialog. You cannot fix this in post, reverb and most ambient noise is impossible to remove from the recording. There is no such thing as a remove reverberation filter and most noise removal filters do horrible things to the original sound. Record your sound effects and dialog as dry as possible by recording close to the source and controlling unwanted noise. You can take dialog that sounds too dry (because it was recorded too close to the microphone and thus has very little of the room characteristics in the recording) and add reverb and ambient sound. So get your recording right in the first place and add things like ambient noise and reverb later.  Always record the sound of the spaces you work in order to build ambient sound beds you’ll use during editing. We’ll certainly spend more time on these issues in subsequent posts.

8. Consider spending as much on sound gear as you spend on camera and lighting gear

As a documentary maker you are usually recording both video and audio while observing subjects or doing  interviews. You don’t just need a good camera, you need good microphones, the right accessories for mounting and support, as well as wind control, good cables, headphones, and possibly a mixer.  Your investment in quality audio gear will pay off,  and will most certainly outlast your camera. For example, I purchased a TRAM-50 lavaliere about thirteen years ago. It’s still a solid performer. I use it on the majority of my shoots (and even when I don’t it’s in my camera bag ready to go). Since that time I’ve gone through four video cameras. The video gear comes and goes but good sound gear is something you’ll have for a long time. My rule of thumb is spend about as much on your sound kit as you do on your camera kit. It’s a bit out of balance to spend $4,000. on a prosumer camcorder and expect to record all of your sound with only the stock microphone mounted on the camera. Even if you’re shooting with a consumer camcorder or an iPhone you can take your work to the next level with a good consumer-level microphone or two, and these will not set you back too much. When I suggest spending as much on sound gear as you do camera gear I don’t necessarily mean you should do this right off the bat if you are starting out, purchase gear slowly over time as you figure out what you need for your own style of shooting. If you can take, take gear out for a spin before you buy: either by attending a trade show, visiting a local retailer, renting from a local rental house, or borrowing from a friend. For a basic consumer-level starter kit, take a look at my recent post Basic Documentary Video Starter Kit (consumer level gear).  I work with a mix of gear, some of it consumer-grade (e.g. the small lavaliere I often use with my iPhone) and other components are professional (e.g. my shotgun microphone and wireless lavalieres that I use with my Panasonic HPX170). Each tool has its place. We’ll go into detailed gear recommendations for a wide range of requirements and budgets in this series.

Until the next post, good night and good sound.

Continues in Part 2

Acknowledgments. I’m more of a camera person, I’m not really a sound person, however, I’ve had to learn along the way how to record, edit, and mix sound for my documentary work. I would like to thank Philip Perkins, G. John Garrett, Bill Shamlian, Peter Rea and Alex Griswold, five audio professionals from whom I’ve learned a lot about audio recording and post over the years. Any wisdom in this area I owe to them, any bad habits are strictly my own.

Photo credits: Jaws promotional materials copyright 1975 by Universal Pictures; sound recordist and boom microphone in a field: sound-hero by notArt; sound recordist with shotgun on a beach: shotgunning the wavicules by Strangeless; video editor at work: Jeffrey by bigredpenguin; other photos by the author.

The olloclip wide angle lens approximately doubles the standard iPhone lens field of view and the macro lens multiplies the magnification of the iPhone lens by a factor of about ten. The overall fit and finish of the olloclip is very good. It’s obvious they have gone through great lengths to assure quality manufacturing and probably accounts for the additional cost compared to other adapters.The optical quality is reasonably good, chromatic aberration is not excessive, however, with the fisheye, you’ll see quite a bit of lens flare from light sources in or close to the edge of the frame that will exhibit blooming, much like when you stick a Soft F/X or similar diffusion filter on your D-SLR or video camera lens. Shooting macro is a tad awkward because you have to unscrew the wide angle lens elemnent from the macro lens element before you shoot. The macro lens opens up a whole new landscape that is now within reach of the iPhone lens. Below is a frame grab from video shot with FiLMiC Pro using the macro lens and the iPhone solidly positioned on a tripod with a Glif:

I really like the olloclip. This lens kit is small enough to carry with you so you’ll get a lot of use out of it. As someone who’s been a D-SLR photographer with a collection of lenses since I was a teenager and later started shooting with 16mm film and professional video cameras, I have become accustom to having lens choices. But the Canon D-SLR and Panasonic prosumer camera I use for my documentary work are too large to take everywhere, especially both at the same time. Given the iPhone is always close at hand, it’s nice to be able to shoot wide or close with the iPhone when the situation presents itself. If you embrace the inherent characteristics of the olloclip, rather than expect it to provide D-SLR optics on a beer budget with a shot glass form-factor, you’ll be happy with how the olloclip expands the visual possibilities of the iPhone for both photography with the Camera+ app and videography with the FiMiC Pro app.

There are are four things to be aware of when using the olloclip. First, it can easily start to slide off the phone, so be careful that it’s kept in position and check it while shooting. Second, the wide-angle lens, which you don’t want to over-tighten, can come loose from the the macro lens base, so I check this with a gentle turn of the wide angle whenever I take the olloclip out of the bag. Since you need to remove the wide angle lens to shoot Macro, it’s also easy to drop or lose it if you are not carefull. Third, if you are a fan of flash photography, you will be disappointed that the olloclip covers the flash. Since I don’t care for the flash on the iPhone, this is not an issue for me. Fourth: it covers the on/off switch, so you have to remove the olloclip to power off your phone or perform a screen grab. A minor inconvenience, but given where the lens is positioned on the phone, what choice did the designers have? They could have designed a special case you put around the phone to hold the lens and make the switch accessible, but this option does not appeal to me, I like the fact it works with the bare phone, which is how I prefer to use it.

Below are three frame grabs from video shot with FiLMiC Pro to give you an idea of the relative angle of view among the lenses. The first was shot using the standard iPhone lems, the second was shot using the wide angle, and the third was shot using the fisheye. Both the wide angle and fisheye lenses exhibit some blurring around the edges, but is not as extreme when shooting video as compared to stills.

I recently shot the following images at the Engaged Practice closing reception at MassArt using the Apple camera app. The first was shot with the wide angle lens and the second with the fisheye. Note that when shooting stills you get more of the fisheye effect since the image is not being cropped to the 16:9 aspect ratio. These are both full frame images in their original aspect ratio. While some vignetting is evident with the wide angle and even more with the fisheye, the lighting in this situation exaggerates it and in general it’s tolerable. I was literally up against the wall shooting both of these photos, they could not have been composed the way I wanted with the standard iPhone lens. The olloclip has become an essential element in my bag of iPhone accessories expanding the field of view of the iPhone lens whenever I need a wider, or closer, perspective on the world.

The iPhone can double as a small and versatile video camera. Given the small size and the fact you probably have it with you all of the time, this opens up a lot of creative options. Sometimes holding the phone in you hand is not enough to get the shot you want.  To this end, I’ve put together a minimalist yet versatile support kit that fit snugly in a small pouch that I can throw into my backpack and called it into service when I want to do some shooting with the iPhone. There are times when I don’t want to carry my Panasonic HPX170 with me but I still want to shoot.

I suspect the HPX gets a tad jealous when I shoot with the iPhone, however, I remind it that there are still plenty of shoots for which I need the superior images that a prosumer camera like the HPX170 produces. To each task there’s the right tool. I think of my iPhone like a Super8 camera and my  HPX170 like a 16mm camera. There’s more to say about that but I’ll stick to discussing the support kit for now.

The Joby Gorillapod Original ($20, available from Amazon or direct from Joby) is a mini-tripod with flexible, multi-segmented legs that’s my favorite tool for attaching the iPhone to objects or just setting it down somewhere. Each of the joints bends and rotates, making it easy to conform the legs to uneven surfaces or wrapping it around objects. The rubberized feet assure that your Gorillapod will not slide and the quick release plate makes for easy to set-up and removal of your camera.

The Glif ($20, available from Amazon for the iPhone 4/4S or iPhone 5 or direct from Studio Neat) is an adapter for attaching the iPhone to a monopod, tripod, or any camera support device with a standard 1/4″-20 stud. This beatifully designed adapter is available in two versions, one for the iPhone 4/4S and another for the slimmer iPhone 5. The Glif is made of rubberized plastic that holds the phone snugly in place (it only works with a bare iPhone).

For more secure attachmment, there’s the Serif, an extra piece that attaches to the top of the phone and to the base of the Glif in order to keep the phone tightly held in the Glif when there might be movement that could shake the phone out of the Glif. The Serif is available as part of the Glif+ package ($30, available from Amazon for the iPhone 4/4S or iPhone 5 or direct from Studio Neat) that consists of a Glif along with the Serif and a Ligature, a keyring loop that fits into the thread on the Glif. The Glif may also be used to position the phone at various angles for hands-free ,movie viewing or video chatting  I’m really happy how well the Glif works when I use it to attach my iPhone to a monopod or to my two handle rig (described below). A lot of copies have appeared in the marketplace and if you read the reviews online it’s a mixed bag, some people are happy with the less expensive copies, while others have had trouble with them. As far as I’m concerned, I suggest the original Glif, accept no substitutes.

If you’re going to use an outboard microphone, an LED light, or a wireless receiver with your iPhone, or if you want something solid to grab onto, or perhaps even both, you’ll need to choose something from the many accessory shoe brackets available. The choice can be overwhelming and there are so many designs and price-points. I like the Vello CB-500 Dual Shoe Bracket ($19, available from Amazon) because it is reasonably priced and has a standard 1/4″-20 threads that mount between tripod and camera, has a rubber side grip, sports both top & side accessory shoes, and is well made. When combined with the Glif, it provides a cost effective and versatile device for holding on to the iPhone and attaching accessories.

I like to place a hand grip like the iKan Universal Grip Bar ($19, available from Amazon) between the Vello CB-500 Dual Shoe Bracket and the Glif for a complete support configuration that can be held with two hands for maximum stability and control. I use this as the basis of my iPhone shooting rig (described below) that provides the flexibility I need to build it in a variety of configurations depending on the requirements of a particular shoot. This versatile grip can also be used alone with the camera mounted on it via the Glif or it can be used as a remote pistol-grip for a shock-mounted microphone or LED light.

In order to use an external microphone with the iPhone, you’ll need something along the lines of the iPhone Microphone Input Jack Adapter ($24,50 from KV Connection). This cable allows you to plug a self-powered microphone (with a 3.5mm plug) into the iPhone. The adapter incorporates passive components providing DC blocking/isolation for device protection. It also has impedance matching components enabling the use of a wide variety of microphones.

An alternative to consider is the iPhone Microphone Input Jack Adapter with Headphone Jack ($28.50 from  KV Connection) that’s useful for plugging in both a microphone and set of earbuds or headphones at the same time (although FiLMIC Pro does not support real-time audio monitoring while recording). This is the cable I opted for because it’s nice not to have to keep switching plugs between the mic for recording and the headphones for listening to what you recorded.

I suggest rounding out your kit with a lightweight monopod. A good value would be the Davis & Sanford Vista Trailblazer ($20, available from Amazon). This will allow you to make smoother shots by resting the lip of the grip bottom in your cupped hand to form a mount. By extending the legs you lower the center of gravity of the camera and you can make very smooth shots, similar to what you might get using a Steadicam-like device. Your arm is taking the place of the Steadicam arm and the monopod and your cupped hand taking the place of the Steadicam sled and gimbal mount. With some practice, you can create smooth, gliding shots.

An interesting alternative to the Glif is the SmartMount ($20 from Cinetics). This small device provides a simple and stable approach to attaching an iPhone 4, 4S, or 5 to the standard 1/4-20 thread stud found on most tripods and camera support devices. The SmartMount also doubles as a stand. This little critter, like the Glif, is designed to attach to a bare iPhone. The SmartMount is made from black anodized aluminum and has soft pads that form a tight grip on the phone but will not scratch the phone. Check out the Cinetics web site, they make a range of devices for supporting and making smooth moves with small cameras.

Below you see my iPhone attached to the iKan Universal Grip Bar using a Glif and Serif which in turn is attached to the Vello CB-500 Dual Shoe Bracket. The wireless receiver output is connected to the iPhone with the iPhone Microphone Input Jack Adapter with Headphone Jack from KV Connection. Total cost of rig is around $90.  While this rig makes it easier to handle the iPhone and hold accessories, it does not come close to the results you can get with a camcorder like a $350 Canon VIXIA with an accessory bracket. This is something to consider before you sink a lot of money in accessories trying to make the iPhone work better as a video camera.

You can strut the iPhone around like a video camera, but at the end of the day, the ergonomics are not those of a video camera. On the other hand, it’s a compelling proposition to carry one small device that can do it all (with some help from some carefully chosen accessories). I chose to construct this rig from standard accessories rather than buy a complete rig because the parts I’ve chosen have multiple uses. The iPhone will be replaced with something else eventually, but standard photo/video accessories can have a very long life, as long as they are not designed for a specific camera. I like having a rig I can easily configure in different ways depending on the shoot. I find some of the specialized devices being sold for the iPhone are not only more expensive, but often less versatile. In the configuration pictured above I’m using it with my Sennheiser wireless kit. In another situation I might have placed an LED light and/or shotgun microphone on the bracket. Having two accessory shoes on whatever bracket you get is essential. All the gear fits in an Eagle Creek pouch. In the pouch I also keep a lavalier microphone and some lenses.

In subsequent posts I write about the audio and lens accessories I’ve been using with my iPhone:

• Olloclip expands iPhone field of view (March 3, 2013)

FiLMiC Pro, when combined with an iPhone 4, 4S or 5, makes a sweet and respectable video camera out of the iPhone. This application provides you with more control over the function of the camera than the Apple Camera app does. Focus and exposure sampling areas can be selected and locked. The current white balance setting can also locked. Image stabilization can be disabled for better looking shots when the iPhone is supported with a tripod or stabilization device. To help in composing your video, FiLMiC Pro sports aspect ratio overlays (4:3, 16:9, 2.35:1) and a rule-of-thirds guide, both of which may be turned off.

The image capture rate can be set from 1 to 30 fps and the output rate can be set from 1 to 60 fps for a variety of slow and fast motion effects. File names can be set to reflect the project name along with scene and take numbers. When the slate feature is enabled, the slate can display the project name along with scene and take numbers. The application settings screen is well-organized and easy to understand. There’s also a set of clearly structured help screens you can scan through that help you figure out how the application works.

FiLMiC Pro offers three exposure/focus modes. In Double Reticle Mode two separate adjustable reticles (spot exposure sampling and focus sampling) are displayed in the viewfinder. In Single Reticle Mode a center fixed positioned spot sampling reticle appears in the viewfinder and determines both exposure and focus. In Full Frame Mode FiLMiC Pro determines both focus and exposure by sampling the entire frame. The viewfinder information includes audio meters. Apple’s audio filter can be disabled when using an external microphone. The sampling rate can be set to 44.1kHz or 48kHz and the audio encoded either as uncompressed (Linear PCM) or compressed (AAC). FiLMiC Pro records mono audio using either the built-in microphone or an external microphone connected to the 3.5mm TRRS jack on the iPhone. It is possible to record in stereo with a compatible third-party audio interface but those are expensive and bulky. At some point you gotta say, this is a phone.

If you are using an external microphone, an essential accessory for audio recording is the iPhone Microphone Input Jack Adapter sold by KV Connection that allows you to plug a self-powered microphone (with a 3.5mm plug) into the iPhone. The adapter incorporates passive components providing DC blocking/isolation for device protection. It also has impedance matching components enabling the use of a wide variety of microphones. KV Connection also sells a iPhone Microphone Input Jack Adapter with Headphone Jack that’s useful for plugging in both a microphone and headphones at the same time (although FiLMIC Pro does not support real-time audio monitoring while recording). This is the cable I opted for because it’s nice not to have to keep switching plugs between the mic for recording and the headphones for listening to what you recorded. But I digress, back to FiLMiC Pro.

Video can be recorded in the Apple Standard format (H.264 @ 4 Mbps) as well as FiLMiC Quality (H.264 @ 6 Mbps) and FiLMiC Extreme (H.264 @8 Mbps). Resolution can be adjusted to one of four settings (960 x 540 iFrame, 1280 x 720, 1280 x 720 iFrame, or 1920 x 1080 full HD resolution). Given the many setting options, you’ll appreciate that FiLMiC Pro allows you to save six custom presets.

After shooting video you can go to the media directory screen to review you video clips. For each clip FiLMiC Pro shows you the name, frame rate, size, and length. From here you can delete the shot, copy it to the Camera Roll, copy it to iTunes (via USB cable), or upload it to Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, Dropbox, or an FTP server. Large files can take quite a bit of time to upload even when you’re on a fast WiFi connection. Don’t try uploading media when you’re on a 3G network unless you have the patience of a monk. For my workflow I’ve settled on copying the keepers to the Camera Roll and then using the Image Capture application on the Mac to drag the video files into the desired media folder on my hard drive for editing with Final Cut Pro X or Adobe Premiere Pro.

I’ve shot video using FiLMiC Pro occasionally and I can tell you that shooting video with an iPhone is no cinematographic nirvana by a long shot. I’m certainly not planning to replace nor curtail my use of my beloved Panasonic HPX170, however, I’m thrilled I can use the iPhone for impromptu shooting or capturing pick-up shots. Video displays serious rolling shutter artifacts and the iPhone lens is not as wide as I often want for close quarters shooting. In addition, since I can’t zoom the lens into telephoto mode, there’s a lot of shots I simply can’t shoot with an iPhone. The digital zoom is by no means a reasonable substitute for a telephoto lens.

One thing that irks me is I can’t monitor audio while I’m shooting, so for anything important that requires the aural dimension, I’m going to shoot double system sound with my Roland R-09HR recorder (no longer sold but Roland replaced it with the R-05, a dandy little recorder). Another issue is that if you shoot a lot of video, you’ll quickly run out of battery or storage space or both on the phone. Having to juice up with an external battery or finding a wall plug, or downloading video so there’s room to shoot more, this all adds to the hassle factor if you’re doing anything beyond casual pick up shots or behind the scenes documentation. Given that every 10 minutes of video shot in Apple Standard at 1,280 x 720 resolution is going to take up 1 GB of storage, depending on the storage capacity of your iPhone, you might find yourself needing to upload media more often than you’d like. Power and storage management issues place some constraints on the iPhone as camera concept.

While there are numerous accessories available that allow the use of macro, wide-angle, and zoom lenses for the iPhone, along with contraptions that enable attaching a light or microphone to the iPhone while making it easier to hold the iPhone in a more stable manner, by the time you purchase all of these accessories, you’ll start to wonder why you didn’t simply get a small camcorder that can do almost everything you need to do in one small package. I’ve seem some impressive work done with the add-on lenses, so they certainly have their place. At the end of the day, however, the iPhone is still primarily a phone and micro-tablet. And while the quality of the video may be compromised, the versatility and portability go along way in making the iPhone a sweet and respectable video camera, the Super8 camera of today, albeit with some serious limitations.

I suggest starting out with a basic kit and upgrade only when the demands of an advanced project require it. Media production technology is constantly changing, so purchase only what you need today, and in the future you can take advantage of new technology when the time comes to upgrade your kit. Estimated street prices are listed for budgetary purposes and will vary between retailers. The following starter kit is based around a consumer camera and consumer microphones and should be taken only as a starting point and not a hard and fast recommendation. I encourage you to do your research, and try things out for yourself whenever possible. Theres a lot of capable gear available to choose from. Whatever you do, make sure you assemble a kit that will allow you to record good sound and video in a wide range conditions.

Canon VIXIA HF M500 camcorder ($350.) or a similar model. This camera records full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) video onto SD or SDHC memory cards using the AVCHD video codec. The memory card slot supports cards up to 64GB in capacity. The camera can also can take 2.07 Megapixel still images. The camera provides touch focus and exposure controls via the LCD touch screen. The most important feature for documentary production is that regardless of the specific camcorder you get youll need one that has both microphone and headphone jacks. Models change quickly, but the HFM500 is recommended at this time as a good entry-level camera with a larger 1/3-in. sensor compared to the 1/4-in. sensor found in other small camcorders. The larger sensor offers slightly better low light performance and slightly shallower depth of field.

Roland RH-5 Headphones ($39.) These dynamic headphones offer good quality at a very affordable price-point. The closed-back design and around-ear cushions provide comfort and good noise isolation. While not as good as the industry-standard Sony MDR-7506 headphones (my favorite), the RH-5s are a good choice if youre on a tight budget. The 10-ft. cord terminates in a standard 3.5mm plug and a 1/4″ adapter is provided for connecting to gear with a 1/4-in. headphone jack.

Audio-Technica ATR3350 lavaliere microphone ($30.) An affordable condenser lavaliere microphone with an omnidirectional pickup pattern that comes with an integrated 20-foot cable that terminates in a 3.5 mm mini-plug that connects directly into most small camcorders with a microphone input. Consider getting two and using them with the splitter cable listed below in order to mic two people at a time. The microphone comes with a tie clip, battery and a foam windscreen. Youll want to have some extra LR-44 batteries on hand as its very easy to forget and leave this microphone on. Always monitor your audio to make sure the microphone is working properly. If you encounter low volume or any distortion, change the battery. While professional lavalieres are quieter and more versatile in their attachment options, this microphone is a perfect match for consumer cameras at a very affordable price point.

Hosa Stereo 3.5mm mini-plug to two Mono (1-Tip and 1-Ring) 3.5mm mini jacks adapter ($6.). Use this adapter (or a similar one from another manufacturer) to plug two microphones with 3.5mm mini-jacks into two separate audio channels on the camcorder. The downside of using this arrangement is that you cant adjust the levels independently on most small consumer cameras, but if youre counting on Automatic Level Control (ALC) youll be OK. This is consumer gear, after all, you can only expect so much, however, being able to route two separate lavalieres into the camera at the same time, or a lavalieres and a shotgun each into its own channel, is quite useful.

Rycote lavaliere windjammer ($25.). Add this to your kit (available in white, grey, or black) if youre planning to shoot outdoors on a windy day with the ATR3550 lavaliere (use the windjammer over the standard foam windscreen, the two work together as a system).

Sennheiser MKE 400 compact shotgun microphone ($200.). This microphone is designed for use on small camcorders and offers surprisingly good sound for such a small microphone. Way more directional than the microphone built into the camera, this mic will provide superior dialog recording. This microphone is powered by a AAA battery, and you should always carry a spare.

Rycote windjammer for MKE400 ($35.). Add this to your kit if youre planning to shoot outdoors on a windy day with the MKE 400 compact shotgun (use the windjammer over the standard foam windscreen provided with the microphone, the two work together as a system). While not as effective as full-sized windjammers, it does a pretty good job and retails the compact form-factor of the MKE400.

Rode VC1 10-ft. microphone extension cable ($12.). In the event your subjects are not right in front of the camera, consider adding a microphone extension cable to your kit.

Rode PG1 pistol grip ($30.). This grip is designed for accessory shoe mounted microphones (like the MKE400) for either holding the mic in your hand or attaching it to a boom pole.

Accessory shoe adapter. This will allow you to mount a shoe-mount microphone like the MKE400 microphone or a wireless receiver on your camera. The small Canon camcorders like the HF M500 dont have a standard accessory shoe, so youll need to get the accessory show adapter if you want to attach standard accessories to the camera. There are several adapters on the market, including the Canon Mini Advanced Accessory Shoe to Universal Shoe Adapter available from Adorama ($29.) or the Cool-Lux MSA-1 Canon Mini-Shoe Adapter available from B&H Photo/Video ($20.). Canon sells a special microphone that fits their special shoe, but then you are stuck using the mic on the camera and a lot of times youre going to want to place the microphone in a position separate from the camera.

Rode mini boompole ($130.). There are a variety of boom poles on the market, this model is among the most affordable. You can get away without a boom, but eventually youll find yourself wanting to place the shotgun close to the speaker but just out of frame, and this, along with the pistol grip and mic extension cable, will make that possible.

Canon BP-718 Battery Pack ($75.) Youll want at least one extra battery to extend your shooting time. The advantage of the BP-718 is that its small and lightweight, but consider the higher capacity BP-727 if you do a lot of extended shooting when you cant use AC power.

Canon BP-727 High Capacity Battery Pack ($110.) In addition to significantly higher capacity than the BP-718 battery, the P-727 sports a 4 LED battery life indicator on the battery itself so you can tell at a glance what the state of the battery is.

Canon CG-700 Battery Charger ($95.) If you do a lot of shooting youll want to get a changer in order to charge your extra batteries while shooting. Consider two high capacity batteries and this outboard charger. In addition, when you charge batteries overnight you can charge one battery with the camera and a second with the charger so you can start the day with two fully charged batteries.

MK393-PD Photo-Movie Kit QR tripod ($72.) is an example of a lightweight (2.8 lb.) tripod that rises up to 4.65 feet with the column extended and collapses down to 18.9 inches long for ease of transport. Leg angles can be individually set for uneven terrain and lengthened or shortened quickly via the flip lever leg locks. The quick release pan head has a tilting handle. This tripod that may be a little large for the VIXIA, however, its capable of supporting cameras up to 5.5 pounds. The center column can be removed and inverted. While much can be accomplished hand-held, there are many shots for which a stable camera is essential. A solid tripod is an essential component of any kit. There are many other good models out there, each with its own pros and cons, look for one that feels stable with smooth head movement and fits within your budget.

Roland R-05 Sound Recorder ($200.) While having a separate audio recorder is optional, I like to travel with one most of the time. Often you’ll find yourself needing to record audio separately from video. This small, inexpensive recorder is a handy thing to have. Sometimes I’ll park it somewhere and leave it running on a shoot to collect stereo ambient sound. It’s also makes for convenient recording of audio-only interviews and voice-over narration. You can attach an external microphone to it and it also has a line in in the event you want to run sound from a mixer into the recorder. A versatile addition to your kit.

Carrying case. Youll want to keep you kit in a carrying case that you find convenient to travel with. Keep your gear ready to go at all times in one place.

Editing. As far as editing goes, a recent vintage laptop or desktop computer capable of running your choice of non-linear editing software (e.g. Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro X) will be required for editing, along with external hard drives for media storage and backup. For editing audio youll eventually need to get a good pair of near-field monitors for critical listening to your sound mix, since it will sound very different on headphones compared to speakers, however, it makes sense start slowly and then add gear as you hone your craft.

Lighting. I’ve not mentioned specific lighting gear for a starter-kit because in most cases, the new generation of camcorders are sufficiently sensitive to shoot in most environments, and using lights will be annoying to most of your subjects. No doubt using lighting in some circumstances will be required, and there are many good, small LED lights out there. Among the most versatile lights are those that allow you to dial in separately how much daylight-balanced and tungsten-balanced light you need to blend into a wide range of situations. Less expensive lights will usually be daylight balanced, but you can use gels/filters to change the color temperature as needed. Some models are available as tungsten or daylight balanced. Usually it’s better to get a daylight balanced unit and use a gel/filter over the light when you need to mix it with warmer tungsten-balanced light sources.

Additional camera support options. At some point you’ll want to add some form of camera support to your kit that takes you beyond the tripod. There is a wide range of options available and the right choice depends on the type of shooting you want to do: A Monopod (from $20. to $100. depending on design and materials) makes it easy to stabilize the camera for smoother hand-held shots by lowering the center of gravity of the camera and allowing you to hold the camera with a grip under it. The Davis & Sanford Steady Stick ($100.) is a good device to use when you want to keep the camera stable as this rig rests on your shoulder and connects to a belt via a telescoping stick. For the ultimate in floating tracking shots you’ll need something more elaborate like a Glidecam HD100 (around $400 for this hand-held model, other models with vest and arm start around $1,800) or the Steadicam Merlin ($800 for the hand-held model or $2,100. with an arm and vest). Both the Glidecam and Merlin are based on the original Steadicam device that revolutionized Hollywood filmmaking in the late 1970s. Back when the Steadicam was first invented camera support rigs had to be heavy in order to support the heavy 35mm cameras of the day. Today there is a wide selection of smaller, lighter devices, many of which are inspired by the original Steadicam, designed to work with smaller cameras, including a plethora of home-brew options.

Learning the craft. Twice a year I teach theDocumentary Video Boot Camp, a one-week intensive class in which youll learn about the craft of documentary video production in a focused and supportive setting. The boot camp is offered in Boston through Professional and Continuing Education at MassArt, visit the link above for information about the class and to take a peek at a recent syllabus and some of the handouts. MassArt also offers additional documentary courses including a four week Summer Film School program (of which my Boot Camp is the first week).

More kits. In a future post I’ll cover a good prosumer-level starter kit for documentary makers that are seeking higher production values and are ready for more creative control over their sound and image. In addition, I’ll also be posting some suggestions for accessories that will enhance the use of an iPhone for shooting documentaries. Stay tuned! Subscribe to e-mail updates or follow me on Twitter (either or both via link on the sidebar of this page) to find out about updates to this site including future starter kit postings.

Resources for documentary makers. Visit the Resources for Documentary Filmmakers page on this site for a listing of resources of value to emerging and working documentary makers.

With Inventing the Medium: Principles of Interaction Design as a Cultural Practice (MIT Press, 2011), Janet Murray, with her background in humanistic computing, interactive storytelling, and profound understanding of design as a cultural, aesthetic and ethical practice, provides media makers with a readable and practical introduction to interaction design covering essential vocabulary, concepts, and methodology. Media convergence means that familiar forms of radio, television, cinema, photography, books, music, performance, etc. are all converging into new media which is essentially the medium of computation that processes the universal material of data.

Murray builds on her landmark work Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (MIT Press, 1998) and re-examines the four affordances of digital media: procedural (composed of executable rules, I prefer to call this affordance computational), participatory (inviting human action and manipulation of the represented world), spatial (navigable as information repository and/or virtual place), and encyclopedic (containing very high capacity of information in multiple media formats). These affordances comprise the palette for representation in any genre of digital media. Inventing the Medium offers a methodology and principles of design for the collective effort of maximizing the expressive power of each of these affordances. Each chapter presents design explorations that can be use by students as exercises or as thought experiments for professionals. The theory presented in the book is clearly tied to practice and helps reveal to those new to the field the hidden assumptions that the best professionals incorporate intuitively in their work.

I’ve been looking for an interaction design book I could recommend to documentary filmmakers interested into expanding their practice beyond linear video and towards mobile devices and the web, and this is it. This is one book you’ll want in your library and after reading it you’ll keep going back to for inspiration and clarification.

TapLynx (taplynx.com) is a development framework for Xcode that helps you create an iOS app from your website without writing any code. All you have to do is edit some configuration files. It makes use of RSS so you can stream your blog, social media streams, photos and videos live to your app and asily customize the app to match your branding. The SDKs are free to download and evaluate, and once you are ready to push to production all you’ll need to do is purchase a license key. Pricing is $299 for an iPhone app and $499 for an iPad app. One license key is required per production application.

App Press (app-press.com) is a web-based tool with an easy to use interface for creating apps for iOS and/or Android. You create pages using a layering motif. Link to other pages in your app or external websites through hotspot layers. You can access your designs anywhere, at any time via a web broweser. All of your components are kept in an Asset Library with 100 MB of space and a Pro account has unlimited space. You can create applications with non-linear navigation or a linear navigation like a magazine. A free trial is available. A basic plan is $30/month and users with a .edu e-address can sign up for $5/month. Pro and Team accounts offer more features for more money.

PhoneGap (phonegap.com) is an HTML5 app platform that allows you to develop native applications with web technologies and still get access to native APIs and app stores. PhoneGap is essentially a browser, so your code will run in web browsers too. You can develop and test your app in your desktop browser and then use the free open source PhoneGap framework to package and distribute your app. Or, you can use the PhoneGap build service to upload your assets to the service and it will return to you an app-store ready app for iOS, Android, and several other platforms. PhoneGap build is free for Developers. There’s a monthly charge depending on how many private Apps you deploy. Nitobi has been acquired by Adobe who is expected to add PhoneGap/Build integration to Creative Cloud.

This year the event will mark Filmmaker’s Collaborative’s 25th anniversary and takes place on Friday, June 8, 2012 at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. The conference will feature sessions on: New models of funding, collaboration and distribution; Media-fueled impact; Kickstarter and other models of crowd funding; Speed dating for new strategic partnerships; and the ever-popular Art of the Pitch, an opportunity to observing media makers pitch their projects and listening to the feedback from the panel of industry decision-makers. If you’d like to pitch your own project, the deadline for submitting proposals is May 11th.

Visit the Making Media Now conference page for more information and to register for the event (you will save money if you register on or before May 11th).

If you’re an independent media maker working in New England, this is where you will want to be on Friday, June 8, 2012!

In 2010, the last sardine-canning factory in the United States—the Stinson Seafood cannery in Prospect Harbor, Maine—closed its doors, devastating the already economically depressed area and laying off 130 workers, some of whom had worked at the facility for 40 years or more. Enter Antonio Bussone, an Italian immigrant and owner of a Boston-based seafood company, who decides to buy the factory and convert it into a lobster-processing facility. Where others see the end of an era, Antonio sees opportunity: not only to build a new business, but also to bring exported jobs back to New England and revitalize a region. In a time when most US industries have moved offshore, Antonio’s idea seems almost foolhardy, but it galvanizes the community and makes him into a local hero. Still, Antonio will have to overcome small-town politics and overwhelming financial odds to see his dream to fruition.Girl Model meditates on numerous relevant issues: the demise of American industry, the struggles of the small-business owner, and the plight of an aging workforce that can’t afford to retire. But what makes the film truly riveting is the stalwart vision of the many colorful characters—from the proud factory laborers to the grizzled lobstermen to the outsider willing to sacrifice everything—who rally together and try to keep a sinking ship afloat. Directors David Redmon and Ashley Sabin will be in attendance. { Film description by Kristina Aikens, courtesy of Independent FIlm Festival of Boston }

Links: IFFB Film Page | Official site.

Lyda Kuth is feeling anxious. Her only daughter is preparing to leave home to begin a new phase of her life in college, and Lyda finds herself stuck in neutral, worrying about what the future holds for her and her husband as new “empty-nesters.” Rather than suppressing these anxieties, Kuth allows them to inspire her and, with a camera in hand, begins to formulate questions about love, loss, and long-term commitment that lead her on an intellectual journey of her own. Love And Other Anxieties is a thoughtful meditation on the motivations and challenges of love in the 21st century. The film asks: What drives us to attach ourselves to others? Does the meaning of love change from generation to generation—or is it universally understood? Kuth interviews family members and friends, as well as filmmakers and writers such as Kyle Jarrow and Stephanie Coontz, in an effort to answer these complex questions. What she discovers is something more fulfilling and deeply personal than she ever expected. Director Lyda Kuth will be in attendance. { Film description by Amy Woodbury Tease, courtesy of Independent FIlm Festival of Boston }

Links: IFFB Film Page | Official site.

Despite a lack of obvious similarities between Siberia and Tokyo, a thriving model industry connects these distant regions. GIRL MODEL follows two protagonists involved in this industry: Ashley, a deeply ambivalent model scout who scours the Siberian countryside looking for fresh faces to send to the Japanese market; and one of her discoveries, Nadia, a 13-year-old plucked from the Siberian countryside and dropped into the center of Tokyo with promises of a profitable career. After Ashley’s initial discovery of Nadia, the two rarely meet again, but their stories are inextricably bound. As Nadia’s optimism about rescuing her family from their financial difficulties grows, her dreams contrast with Ashley’s more jaded outlook about the industry’s corrosive influence. Girl Model is a lyrical exploration of a world defined by glass surfaces and camera lenses, reflecting back differing versions of reality to the young women caught in their scope. As we move farther into this world, it more and more resembles a hall of mirrors, where appearances can’t be trusted, perception becomes distorted, and there is no clear way out. Will Nadia—and the other girls like her—be able to find anyone to help them conquer this maze? Or, will they follow a path like Ashley’s, having learned the tricks of the labyrinth, but remaining unable to escape its lure? Directors David Redmon and Ashley Sabin will be in attendance. { Film description by Callista Burns, courtesy of Independent FIlm Festival of Boston }

Links: IFFB Film Page | Official site.

Paul Simon’s album Graceland was released to acclaim as well as criticism in 1986. Recorded in conjunction with local musicians in Johannesburg, it is an ebullient hybrid of western rock, pop, and a cappella infused with theisicathamiya vocal style and mbaqanga music indigenous to South Africa. The album went on to sell over 14 million copies. Twenty-five years after its release, filmmaker Joe Berlinger chronicles Simon’s journey to South Africa to reunite with the artists including Ladysmith Black Mambazo who collaborated on the opus declared by Time Magazine to be one of the top 100 albums of all time. Simon recounts the album’s tumultuous origins, the ground it broke musically, and the charges made by detractors who accused him of breaking a political boycott at a time when South Africa was still bound under the abhorrent apartheid policy of racial segregation. These opponents suggested that Simon was a cultural opportunist exploiting these African musicians and perpetuating colonialism. Conversely, he also garnered praise from others for showcasing the work of musicians subjugated under apartheid, who would otherwise never have been heard. Under African Skies reflects on the complicated collision of art and politics as it explores the role and responsibilities of artists in society. The recollections of Simon and his musical partners reveal the context and magnitude of their achievement and its long-lasting influence on the world-music movement. { Film description by Callista Burns, courtesy of Independent FIlm Festival of Boston }

Links: IFFB Film Page | Official site.

The Garden (Scott Hamilton Kennedy, 2008, 79 min.)
This politically charged, Oscar-nominated documentary tells the story of the fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles which at one time was the largest urban garden in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community. The film follows the South Central Farmers as they struggled to protect their urban farm from predatory real estate developers who used the Los Angeles political machinery to their advantage in order to throw the farmers off the land. The film serves as a metaphor of the environmental struggle we all face today. Links: Film web site  |  Netflix movie page (available via Streaming or DVD).

Ingredients (Robert Bates, 2009, 66 min.)
This documentary examines the shortcomings of America’s industrialized food system in comparison to the rising local-growth movement, whose proponents are shrinking the gap between farmland and dinner table.The quality, taste and nutritional value of the food we eat has dropped sharply over the last fifty years. Shipped from ever-greater distances, we have literally lost sight of where our food comes from and in the process we’ve lost a vital connection to our local community and to our health. This film will take you on a journey revealing the people behind the movement with chefs Alice Waters and Greg Higgins as guides. You’ll be introduced to growers, restaurateurs and consumers around the country who discuss their methods for bringing food production back home. Links: Film web site  |  Netflix movie page (available via Streaming or DVD).

While I do admire Wikipedia’s bravado regarding this issue, other Internet players have taken a more subtle approach, encouraging action by putting up a splash screen (Mozilla) or changing their logo (Google) but not blacking out the entire site for a day. Why has Wikipedia blacked out the entire site for the SOPA and PIPA issue, but has not done so for other issues that may be even more important, like hunger, poverty, human rights, etc? It is an issue worth thinking about. Why do we take particular actions with particular issues, and what does that reveal about our deeply held values? Food for thought.

David Tamés: How did you get involved with Septentrional in the first place?

Whitney Dow: I got involved with Haiti because a friend of mine, Jane Regan, who is also one of the producers on the project. She lived there for a dozen years, and she and her partner, Danny Morel, who’s also a producer on the project, had come to me after the fall of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and they had all this footage. They had traveled with the Cannibal Army and wanted to know if we could develop some films together.

Tamés: What films did you develop?

Dow: We developed three films: this film, one on democracy, and a third on betrayal that’s going to be about Aristide, the gang leader, based on Julius Caesar. I’m not sure if the third one’s going to get made. When I was down in Haiti making the film about democracy Jane and Danny introduced me to the band. I was really interested in the idea of making a film bout something in Haiti that worked, this band that’s been around for 60 years.

Tamés: And so you filmed the band, their performances, and touring?

Dow: I started to make a film about the band, and I thought it was just going to be about the band, just about music, and when I cut the film and showed it to people, it was boring. It didn’t have any context. So their talk about things being tough sounded like whining because the imagery was so pretty that things did not look so tough.

Tamés:What year was this?

Dow: I think I finished that cut in late 2007.

Tamés:So then what happened?

Dow: In 2008 I showed it to a lot of people. I took it back to the funders, and we talked about it. And I went back to the drawing board and decided to make a film that was about two stories, the rise of Nicole, the main character in the film, and the fall of Aristide and compare and contrast their leadership styles and what makes a successful leader. And I made that film and it was pretty good, I thought, and then the earthquake happened.

Tamés: And what happened in the wake of the earthquake?

Dow: It did two things. One, people wanted something about Haiti, you had to have the earthquake in it, and, Two, it made me realize that what I was doing by making the story about Aristide was again reducing Haiti to a particular component because before the earthquake, Haiti was Aristide. Before Aristide, Haiti was Duvalier. Before Duvalier Haiti was an American occupation. Before that it was colonialism. It’s always being reduced into this thing, and I said, in effect, if I want to get the earthquake, all these things have been earthquakes. Columbus was an earthquake. Colonialism was an earthquake. Slavery was an earthquake. The revolution was an earthquake. The American occupation was an earthquake. Duvalier was an earthquake. Aristide was an earthquake. All these earthquakes built up to create the conditions for this massive natural disaster to take place that was really, in effect, a human disaster built over 500 years.

Tamés:Part of what made it so devastating was the infrastructure was unprepared for any kind of disaster. It was so fragile to start with.

Dow: Yes. There’s no state in Haiti. I mean, it’s actually one of the things I like about Haiti, especially post-9/11 where the state is more and more intrusive into our lives on a day-to-day basis, how we could travel in the air, driving our car, what you can take pictures of. And you go to Haiti, and there’s no state. You have to enter this organism, which is the society, without a safety net. There’s 3,000 police for seven million people. There’s no one to go to, if there’s a problem. You have to figure out a way to navigate it yourself, and it’s an incredibly freeing, yet scary feeling to spend time in that environment.

Tamés: In the film you begin the earthquake sequence with stunning surveillance camera footage. Tell me about that. How did you find that footage?

Dow:I was looking for a way to tell the story of the earthquake, and I felt — and we’ve all seen so many images of disasters, news footage and everything, I was trying to figure out how do you tell the story so it doesn’t feel rote or disconnected or how do you make emotional connection? And a friend of mine, Mario Delatour, who also worked as one of the field producers on the project, was in the camps one day and this guy came up to him and said, “Mario, I crawled into the wreckage of the palace, and I found the hard drives from the security cameras. Do you want this footage? I’ll load it onto your laptop.” And he said, “Of course.”

Tamés: That’s an incredible scenario.

Dow:Yes. So he then gave it to me and said, “This was just amazing footage, You should look at it, Whitney.” And I was really stunned by it because it was the first time I felt an emotional reaction, a very, very, personal emotional reaction to earthquake images through these objective computer-generated images by the security things. Because there was nobody behind the camera, it had much more impact just seeing those images.

Tamés: I was filled with a sense of fear and empathy for that person in the view of the camera trying to find a way out.

Dow: And you know what it is also because you know someone’s not behind the camera. You know he’s alone. You’re so used to — when you see a camera, you’re like — some people I hear say, well, there’s a guy with him. There’s a crew. There’s someone around, and he’s dying alone and you’re watching.

Tamés: There was that sense of helplessness. That footage really got me. It hit me in the gut.

Dow: The first time I saw it raw brought me to tears. I mean, I was stunned by it, and the other thing that was interesting about it is that as you watch the film — the palace is a recurring shot. You see the palace throughout the history of the country, and then you see it destroyed as a metaphor for the country. Seeing this constant in the country utterly destroyed is also very devastating.

Tamés: What led you to weave together the story of the band and the history of Haiti? In many music films there’s only a little, if any, context but with When The Drum is Beating it feels like I’ve seen two films in conversation with each other. There’s a film about Haiti’s history and there’s a film about these musicians and there’s a beautiful ballet between the two.

Dow: That’s exactly what I think it is; a conversation between the two films. This idea about context and context is something I constantly think about, the context of how I lived in America, the context of our conversation, the context of everything because content is driven by context. And I think that many times people confuse context with narrative or context with that people are their context. And what I wanted to do was show two things, this immediate context of Haiti today in the aftermaths of the earthquake but also this broader context of history, the events that you’re watching now doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Tamés: So what we watch connects us with the world?

Dow: It’s part of a point on a continuum, for me that was the epiphany moment in my development as an adult. I remember so clearly being in school and taking a course and suddenly realizing that everything I learned was one thing, that art was connected to history, was connected to politics, which connects to architecture was connected to music. And up until then I thought I was learning these individual disconnected ideas but without the certain political events … certain paintings don’t exist without the context of these things, it was all one thing. Going back to this idea, context provides a way of understanding the crisis de jour. I think it’s also an altruistic thing. When I did a film a few years ago called Two Towns of Jasper, I remember getting down to Texas after this murder, and I was so consumed with figuring out what happened. Well, the guy left here and he walked here. He was picked up there and they drove him. It was 2:00 O’clock in the morning. They dropped him off. And suddenly I realized, I think that by understanding what happened, I’m going to understand why it happened, and they’re two different things. What happened doesn’t really matter at all. Why it happened is a much more complex question and a complex investigation, and I immediately pulled off the case, essentially, and went into the community and started talking to the people. And again, that’s what I feel about the earthquake in Haiti. What happened in Haiti doesn’t interest me as much as why and the real why. You can’t take steps to go after [the story] until you can understand the why. You often hear people say, we must remember so this never happens again, but nobody really wants to remember. They don’t want to know. If you talk about September 11th, people don’t want to talk about the causes of September 11 since cause can implicate.

Tamés: It hits too close to home?

Dow: It hits too close to home (pause).

Tamés: What has been the band’s reaction to the film?

Dow: There’s been two reactions. One, they’re incredibly proud that a film was made about them, they were a little confused by the film because they thought I was making a film just about the band, and they didn’t know what to expect. The younger guys, loved it. I had them literally in tears over talking about it because they were so overwhelmed by seeing their story played out the way it does, one member said, “I’m so proud of this film. It doesn’t matter that I’m in it because my band’s in it. My country’s in it and it tells a story. I want this to go out to the world and people can see it.” I think some of them recognized that a story just about the band is not going to be that interesting, you need a broader context to bring people to the table. So in their mind the broader context brings people to their music. Maybe in other people’s mind the music brings people to the broader context. But they probably will never tell me what they really thought about it, because of my relationship to them. Oh, we love it. It’s great. Michel Tassy (vocalist) refuses to see the film.

Tamés: Really? Has he given you a reason?

Dow: He came to New York for the Tribeca Film Festival and wouldn’t come to any of the screenings. He didn’t want to watch it. He said, “I’m a singer, not an actor.” He said, “The movie business is for other people. I’m a musician.” All the guys would say, “Well, you’re the star of the film — one of the stars of the film,” and he likes that. When they came to New York, Tribeca had them play at the drive-in. I think his voice is slipping. He doesn’t want people to see that, if you hear the old music in the movie, his voice was just beautiful, I mean, just phenomenal. And now, it’s still the most interesting voice in the band, but it’s a different voice. It’s the voice of a 70-year-old man who smokes, as opposed to a 30-year-old man who doesn’t smoke.

Tamés: It is what it is.

Dow: Yeah.

Tamés: The film is currently in the festival circuit. It got very positive reception at Tribeca and the audience here at the New Hampshire Film Festival loved the film. What are your plans for the film? How are you going to get this out into the world beyond film festivals?

Dow: Everybody wants their films to be seen, and I’ve been lucky enough to make this film. It’s been at a number of really great festivals, Silver Docs, Hot Docs, Traverse City, and a couple Korean festivals. It’s going to IDFA. It’s doing as well as a documentary can be doing, and because of that I’ve had two offers. First Run Features has picked up the film, and they want to put it in the theaters in February, and PBS is going to put it on Independent Lens in April, however, there’s a caveat: I’m in deficit on the film, and I need to raise money for rights clearances. I need to raise money to clear the archival footage because I never thought I was going to have so much archival footage in it. I also made a deal with the band that if the film was done and we got distribution, I’d pay them a fair rate to the rights to their music used in the film.

Tamés: So how are you going to raise the money you need to get the film into distribution?

Dow: I’ve started a Kickstarter campaign where people can go and contribute to the campaign. In return they can get rewards that include downloads of the music, DVDs, albums, tickets to the premier, depending on your level of contribution. I feel this is a context setting film, and I hope, when people see it that it helps them see Haiti and, by extension, places like Haiti, differently, and that they see the people not necessarily as helpless victims of their circumstances, but people who live their lives within those circumstances, not who are defined by it. I remember so clearly the War in the Balkans, you’d see Sarajevo on the news and two women crouching in doors with kids with snipers shooting at them, and I was asking, why are they there? Why don’t they leave? Why are they staying there? And it wasn’t until September 11th, I live in Lower Manhattan, and my first reaction was Goddammit, these motherf*ck*rs, I’m not going, did you think that I would leave my city? I’d been in New York 20 years at that time, when I first really felt like a New Yorker. This was an attack on my city, and there was no way that I would leave there. Now, I don’t think I necessarily did a good Kickstarter pitch in that answer.

Tamés: Perhaps not, but this conversations is not just about Kickstarter. My wife and I have a friend who lives down in the Wall Street area. I remember standing on her roof deck and looking over at the World Trade Center only a few blocks away. We were visiting her only a few weeks after 9/11 And I can relate to the reaction so many people I know in New York had at the time, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Dow: Yeah. It’s like, this is my home, dangerous smoke or not.

Tamés: Let’s get back to Kickstarter, why is it so critical to get funding from your audience?

Dow: People think of movies as sort of this business, and in a sense the documentary world is not a traditional market the way a Hollywood movies are. It’s more like the non-profit world where you get money from PBS for a film, they’re not looking for a financial return on it. They’re looking for me to create something that communicates a message and gets something out, and I think that that’s how now you have to look at these films, that it’s not a market. And so because of that, we, as filmmakers, are now put in this position. We’re always been fundraising, but the traditional avenues of fundraising are getting more competitive and shrinking. And this great thing about the Internet is now you can avoid gatekeepers and be your own gatekeeper and go out to bring your project to the world. So I hope that people will visit the When the Drum is Beating page on on Kickstarter and look it over and if they think it’s a valuable project and a valuable message, that they’ll consider contributing to it and help get the film out there. The deal is, if I can raise this money, it will be seen by millions of people. It’s a sure bet. I’m not someone saying, fund my film. When I get it done, it’s going to be great. I have these offers on the table from PBS and first run. If I get the money, it will be seen by millions of people.

Tamés: So there’s a high likelihood of success in this campaign if it resonates with enough people. [Disclosure: I have contributed to the campaign.] Success from the point of view that if I donate, you’re going to achieve your goal?

Dow: Yes. The film is finished. It’s won awards. It’s been to a number of festivals. It’s doing well, and how many documentaries get actual distribution and national hard feed broadcast slots? There’s not that many slots out there. So to have that opportunity and be able to take advantage of it is something that I’m really hoping will happen. I think it’s important.

Tamés: It’s great you have those slots waiting for you. Now, it’s up to us through Kickstarter to help you get there.

Dow: Absolutely. Have you been involved in other Kickstarter campaigns?

Tamés: So far only as a donor to several projects. I know a number of filmmakers who have used Kickstarter to help fund their films, it’s rewarding to see someone you have contributed to reach their goal and know you helped make that happen. I hope to do one for a documentary currently in development that I’m involved with, but that’s a ways off. I think it’s important to demonstrate that the funds you are contributing will result in a project being completed, getting into distribution, some major milestone.

Dow: What’s interesting about Kickstarter, one of the nicest thing about it for me has been the community, for example, the guy who’s really running the Kickstarter campaign, started a music festival in Florida on Kickstarter. Raised the money for it. Called me and said, “Can I have your film?” And I looked at what he was doing. I said, “Sure. Of course you can have the film and show it.” He really liked the film, and now he’s helping me run the campaign. He said, “I love what you’re doing. I love the film. I want to help it succeed. I’m not really doing much right now. I’ll work on it. I’ll help you.” He’s been my coach, gave me a list of 10 things I have to do every day, and I’m meeting people who are in the same boat. If you donate to me, I donate to you. We can build this community to support each other’s work. I’ve helped him, and he’s helped me.

Tamés: Well, the good thing about movies is just because somebody watches your movie doesn’t mean they’re not going to watch my movie. I mean, people watch a lot of movies.

Dow: Exactly.

Tamés: It ties into what Tiffany Shlain was saying a while back about how independent filmmakers have to start thinking of themselves as interdependent filmmakers and help each other out because there really are two film businesses. There’s Hollywood, and then there’s the rest of us.

Dow: Hollywood is a franchise, basically it’s a marketing program with story grafted on top of it. So you can’t get stuff made in Hollywood without having all the marketing tie-ins built into it first and the product base and all that stuff. And then the stuff is retrofitted with an action movie or romantic comedy, and that’s not to say there aren’t some great films that come out of Hollywood. I think that there is, but in general that it’s a very different thing that people are doing in Hollywood than independent filmmakers. Whether they are documentary filmmakers or narrative filmmakers, it’s a very, very different thing that we’re doing.

Tamés: I hope your Kickstarter campaign is successful and When The Drum is Beating gets the release it deserves.

Dow: And thank you for coming to the film. Again, I hope that I can find a way to position it so that it does find an audience.

Tamés: Will there be a soundtrack album?

Dow: I’m trying to raise money for that as well. Branford Marsalis has agreed to produce an album, if I can raise the money.

Tamés: That would make another interesting Kickstarter project. Before we wrap up, let’s get back the film. I’d like to hear more about why this topic, why this approach?

Dow: I had the opportunity, I had access that nobody else had in Haiti. I wanted to make what in my mind was a big concept film. While doing the first film I read a ton on Haiti. I read tons of history. I watched tons of things. I saw movies and books and everything, and it was a big epic story. And I felt that it was a story that hadn’t been told before. When I thought of the idea of music and history, it scared me, something I haven’t seen before, and my thought was, I don’t know if I can pull this off, but, if I do, it’s going to be amazing. And I really took it as a personal challenge that to try and undertake this idea. Haiti’s history was a big canvas.

Tamés: And why you, as an outsider?

Dow: I’m very wary of perspective, I look at myself and ask, who am I as some middle-class white guy to think he can tell some sort of definitive story about Haiti? Why should I do that? And I feel I’m very, very sensitive to this idea of white people telling black stories, and I was — and I’m — sort of doing films on race, I’ve thought a lot about this and that why — who am I to be telling this? And I got a lot of push-back originally. What do you have? And I really sort of felt like it was more for me in a selfish way an artistic undertaking that I really wanted to tackle as a way of challenging myself as a filmmaker. A big portion of my body of work is on race, and I think about it. It’s one of the things that fascinates me. It’s something that I constantly think about and am working at.

Dow: I think also that race is — I’m not the first person to say it, but race is — a fault line in America that we’re constantly navigating and constantly look at. That’s the reality that we live in. And I also think that our experiences living in the world as white, black, or Latino are so fundamentally different that we are fundamentally different. Under the skin we’re not the same. Our experiences are so different that we’re living in a fundamentally different reality, and so of course we’re different. We have different experiences but we’re attracted to the difference. We’re attracted to what’s different about us. I’m attracted to difference. That’s what excites and interests me, as opposed to being attracted to something that we share. I’m not so much interested another film about some horrible thing that white people did in the past or the current.

Tamés: We could talk about this for another hour, but I know you need to get on your way to New York. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me about your film.

Dow: Thank you.

David Tames: What was the impact of Who Killed the Electric Car? from your perspective?

Chris Paine: The film told the story of what happened to about 5,000 electric cars out in California that most people had never heard about. That motivated a lot of people (including me) to keep the pressure up for change and that in turn motivated a lot more people both inside and outside industry.

Tames: How did Revenge of the Electric Car evolve?

Paine: We started hearing rumors that the car industry was rethinking its decision to quash electric cars. High gas prices in 2008, national security pushback around oil dependence, and people fed up with gas car impact also played a role. We had some connections so we decided to go inside the system and see how things can — sometimes — change from the inside out.

Tames: What’s different this time around as far as electric cars go?

Paine: Most people understand that oil is finite and putting it in cars is not smart when you can use electricity and get a better result. Technology costs have come down and a lot more people know about them. You also have some incredible people leading the charge.

Tames: How did you decide to focus on the people you did end up focusing on in this film?

Paine: We started with about seven folks and over three years, narrowed our focus to four of the most fascinating who we were able to stay in touch with.

Tames: Were there some people you spoke with that did not make it into the film?

Paine: Hundreds. You meet so many interesting people of all kinds in the course of a long form documentary and eventually you have to decide how many your audience is going to be able to track in 90 minutes. Better known people include Shai Agassi who we tracked in Israel, Dave Barthmus, GM’s corporate spokesman in first film, Simon Peres, Rainn Wilson, the President of Iceland, a couple getting married on electric bikes and on and on….

Tames: Are there some people you wanted to talk with who would not talk with you about their work?

Paine: Plenty. We approached many car companies at first and few would take the risk of letting our crew in.

Tames: What are you driving right now? How do you like it?

Paine: I traded in my Prius and bought a Chevy Volt, for full price I might add. Got to know the car over its development and it won me over. 40 miles electric then turns into a 38 mpg car for longer trips. My girlfriend drives a Leaf and that’s pretty great too. And of course, I still have the very early edition Tesla I bought after finishing the first film.

Tames: What do you hope viewers will take away with them?

Paine: I hope they take the time to test drive or if they can afford it, buy one of these new generation plug-in cars. What got me going on this originally was how emotionally thrilling it was accelerating in all electric mode. If the film inspires that, I’ll be happy. It really makes for a better future if we continue to use cars.

Tames: What was the most challenging moment while making the film?

Paine: End of 2008 when markets collapsed and all the characters we were following hit the wall. Like them, you have to pick up the pieces and keep moving…

Tames: Are there filmmakers or other artists you draw inspiration from?

Paine: Everyone I work with – my co-writer Peter, my producer Jessie, my editor Chris, our composer David, and on and on. I get the credit for a big team effort. Outside of our crew, I really like the wit of Kurt Vonnegut and almost anyone making really entertaining films that don’t rely on a gun to move the story forward.

Tames: What has been the most dramatic change in terms of making a film back when you were making Who Killed the Electric Car? and now with Revenge?

Paine: Aside from the digitalization of the entire production process, I’d say it’s the changing nature of the audience and distribution of films. Documentaries can reach people in more and more ways even without the theatrical launch we’re lucky enough to have and marketing via social networks (like yours) makes the difference between success and failure.

Tames: How did you get started as a filmmaker?

Paine: My 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Landreth. “Gold Rush – SUtters Mill” class movie. Super 8. Hooked me.

Tames: That’s amazing, for me it was my 5th grade teacher, Miss Beachum, we made a film in class about the American Revolutionary War, Super 8, that hooked me too! So what happened as far as filmmaking after 4th grade?

Paine: My friend Roger (a producer on both Who Killed the Electric Car? and Revenge), and I made short films in high school and then in college I spent a summer at Stanford University’s documentary program. That led to a semester at NYU and a summer job at AFI. I had a turn with an MTV pilot series the wake of the Velvet Revolution and several other TV jobs So a bit here and there leading to an assistant job for Michael Tolkin (The Player, The New Age) who impressed me with his brilliance. If I was going to stay in LA, I had to work for someone really smart. Eventually one of my old friends the UK pulled me into his documentaries, and somewhere in there, I decided to try my hand directing a feature documentary.

Tames: What advice would you like to share with the next generation of documentary filmmakers?

Paine: Find amazing people, build trust, let them tell their stories without interrupting, ask hard questions, listen.

Tames: The film is now showing in theaters. What are your hopes for the film from this point forward?

Paine: That more and more people hear about it and see it and get inspired. For me it’s much more than a film – though my job as story teller is first.

Tames: Filmmakers always have to kill some of their darlings, is there something you left out of the film you wish you could have covered?

Paine: One of the biggest users of electricity in the country is the oil industry – simply to refine gasoline from crude oil. Wish I could have fit that story into this film. Maybe the next one. All we need to do is put that electricity directly into our cars and bypass the oil.

Tames: Sounds like we have a lot to think about. It’s been a pleasure talking with you today.

Paine: Thanks for doing this!

Links:

Revenge of the Electric Car (Official Site)

Who Killed the Electric Car? (Official Site)

User engagement
For Patricia Aufderheide, Director, Center for Social Media, American University, and author of Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction, the biggest macro trend is, “user engagement, which can be seen in Facebook creating ways to share info on what people are watching, in HTML5 options to provide many ways to engage with material, and with crowd-sourced stories such as Life in a Day.” On July 24, 2010 thousands of people from around the world uploaded videos of their day to YouTube in order to participate in this documentary about one day on earth. From over 80,000 YouTube submissions (about 4,500 hours of footage), director Kevin MacDonald, working with a team of researchers, crafted a 90-minute documentary film showing the cycle of life on earth played out in one twenty-four hour period. MacDonald said, “I learned to appreciate the beauty of some of this amateur footage. There’s a great and very specific beauty to material that’s shot on handicams or even on cells phones and the kinds of shots that they can get, the kinds of shots that an amateur can get that actually professionals couldn’t get,” see: Conversation: Kevin MacDonald, Director of ‘Life in a Day’ (ArtBeat, PBS NewsHour).

Competition from distraction
David Kung, a fellow MIT Media Lab graduate, tells me that competition from distraction is a major issue, he observes that “the Media Industrial complex has failed to capitalize/monetize Distraction (a.k.a. “Snack Culture”) the opportunity to provide ubiquitous (afforded by mobile technology) and elastic content (entertainment that lasts as long as you want it to,” He points to key examples, including: a short experience with Angry Birds; watching a “viral” video; ending/reading a Tweet, etc. Kung is concerned that, “because of intellectual property/copyright restrictions, the traditional players won’t ever be able to compete in these areas which has allowed for new players to emerge… Facebook, the App Store, etc.”

Social consumption is changing how viewers experience media
Ryan Evans, Director of Experience Design, Corey McPherson Nash, observes that “social consumption of media is going to change not only the way consumers learn about their options, but also how they experience video, music and art together.” This trend is enabled, “not only social networks but mobile devices, but geolocation and video streaming too.” Evans illustrates this with two examples of social networks built up around media consumption: Into_Now and GetGlue. Evan adds that Foursquare and Facebook are enabling social connections around events including movie screenings, concerts, festivals, for example, see: Foursquare Goes Beyond Place; Adds Movies, Music & Sports and Facebook Lets Users Check In to Events via the Touch Site, Soon the iPhone. Furthermore, Evans sees the integration of YouTube with Google+ Hangouts, “takes things further by making social connections in realtime with video conferencing,” as described in YouTube Gets Google+ Hangouts (PICTURES).

Fragmentation of the media experience
Writer and director Federico Muchnik expresses his concern over fragmentation of our media experience. It appears to him that long form narrative is in peril as it gives way to short bite sized “video-ettes,” a product of our decreased attention span fueled by a cornucopia of choices at our fingertips, something Cyber-Surrealist lou suSi has referred to as “Media Snacking.” Muchnik says that viewers today, rather than watch a single film, are often watching what he describes as, “…disparate narratives, music videos, ads, talking head shots, cute kittens, porn, news clips, random material, animation, experimental, and documentary clips we confabulate [into] our own customized two hour ‘virtual narrative’ whose beginning, middle, and end are of our own choosing, whose characters are legion, and whose conflict is unknown at the start of the experience.” Muchnik adds that this experience is “often interrupted by phone calls, emails, trips to the bathroom and the fridge,” This is the digitally enabled equivalent of multiplex hopping, taken to a new level of digital efficiency. We are now in a role where we can extract our own story. Muchnik reflects with a mournful tone, “god died when we acquired the ability to change the channel, once we used to trust the storytellers, now the storytellers are commodities.” That’s one prediction I don’t want to be true, but it rings true, and we know for whom the bell tolls: our old friend, the long form narrative. Long may it live.

Are hyper-linked, fragmented, media forms evolving?
Working in a form that may appear as a living nightmare to Muchnik, artist and provocateur Geo Geller highlights what he calls a “micro trend [...] a very small one indeed,” in what he calls Social Sculptures, “where the story is a non-story story a non-linear experience that like the mind our eyes and ears and senses are attuned to see/listen/smell/feel, especially heightened in times of danger.” His work suggests that we “think of a treasure hunt as the new trend” and that this process “happens in your mind but also in some instances it will be eavesdropping on conversations mixed with options of video/audio/still/text/smells etc” providing an experience allowing your to follow your curiosity and “jump all over the place.” Geller’s work provides a fragmented, hyper-linked, multi-layered, media experience outside the confines of traditional, linear, media forms. More of his work can be seen at silentmusicvideos.com and myownprivaterevolution.com. We’ve been able to create links and fragments ever since the web was created (and before that with Ted Nelson’s vision of the ultimate hypertext in Literary Machines), and yet much of the media we create is not deeply hyper-linked and easy to repurpose at a fine granular level as evidenced in Geller is working in an evolving form that may become more common in the future.

The boundaries between genres and styles are slipping away
Anne Marie Stein, Dean of Professional and Continuing Education at Massachusetts College of Art and Design thinks that “while production costs may be relatively more inexpensive, navigating distribution is a much more difficult proposition than ever,” viewers are inundated with more media options than ever. She asks, given our limited time, “what are you going to pick with the huge amount of stuff that’s out there?” Therefore, there is a need for new forms of curation to come into the mix. From a creative perspective, Stein observes that the “boundaries between genres and styles is pretty much gone, there are documentaries that are made like narrative films that use experimental film language, and narrative films that pretend they are documentaries,” which results in a lot of interesting and innovative work, however, she believes “for the viewer, it underscores just how important it is to be media literate.”

Apple has become a primary driver of media and entertainment trends
Brian Lucid, Professor of Design at Massachusetts College of Art and Design points out that when it comes to Macro Trends, Apple has become “one of the primary drivers of the trends influencing media and entertainment” with their “shift from a hardware company to a service design company” which has led to the development of “new ecosystems that include content, licensing, distribution and consumption.” Apple has changed the way we think about photography, music, movies, phones, “even operating systems and applications.”

Who’s going to pay? Content remains “King”
Brian Henderson, a Boston-based Cinematographer, believes the key question regarding the future of media and entertainment is “how do we pay for it?” He predicts that the current format of television as an “half hour by half hour schedule in the long run will evaporate,” and we’ll move to a format in which “people can chose to watch their shows whenever they want, on whatever device they want (TV, computer, phone, cerebral implant…).” Henderson sees that “advertiser’s money is being spread very thin” and that “there is a limited amount to spread around,” which in turn leads to “a problem for advertisers (the people who fund our work) [...] appointment TV is dead.” Right now advertisers have to reassess the entire business model. Henderson point out the simple economic reality that, “as advertising dollars get stretched across more platforms, budgets will drop, and shows may get shorter.” Perhaps one way to make up for lost ad revenue will be “more product placement in shows and movies.” What may be an opportunity for innovative producers and advertisers is that “smaller productions will become more accessible, independent films and programs made privately or for small markets will be viewable by people everywhere [...] on the web, they may even compete with the the established [...] networks because as we say, ‘Content is King’.” Henderson adds that “if the story is good enough, people may chose to watch some thing made by high school students in Wala Wala Washington rather than by NBC Universal.”

Embedded in our media technology are hidden consequences
Audrey Kali, a professor who teaches rhetoric and communication at Framingham State University in Massachusetts, brings to light some of the political and environmental consequences hidden inside the information technology devices that connect us. For example, their manufacture drives demand for coltan (Columbite-tantalite), which is used in the manufacturing of capacitors used in smart phones, tablets, computers, and the like. This concerns Kali, as “media and entertainment become increasingly more digital and accessible to more consumers, it drives increasing demand for rare materials like coltan that are causing political and environmental havoc, desire for this mineral is connected to violence,” for example, “Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi smuggle coltan from Congo, using the revenues for a violent war.” Kali observes that “It’s so absurd, when I think about it, I’m writing about the horrors of a mineral that is causing so much human pain and environmental destruction with the technology that actually supports those horrors.” While it’s possible to avoid “conflict diamonds” it’s more difficulty to avoid “conflict coltan,” adding a new twist to Marshall McLuhan’s phrase, “the medium is the message.”

Crowd-funding provides new ways to fund projects and connect with your audience
Many of my respondents concurred that crowd sourced funding is a key macro trend. The two leading examples of services enabling this are Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. These services differ in siginifiant ways in terms of how they operate. Kickstarter is a community limited to fundraising projects that meet their curatorial goals, and projects don’t receive any money unless the fundraising goal is reached. This is good in terms of providing funders confidence their money will go to a project that will be completed. On the other hand, IndieGoGo is an open community allowing anyone raise money for their creative project. If you don’t make your goal, you can still keep the money you raised to put towards your project. It’s clear that we’re in the middle of a rapid rise in the number of creative professionals leveraging crowd funding to support their work. One of the most impressive examples to date is Jennifer Fox’s Kickstater campaign for My Reincarnation in which she raised over $150,000 in order to get her film into distribution.

Digital production tools expand opportunities for expression
For Caroline Blair, a Cinema Instructor at City College of San Francisco, the most significant trend she’s observed is the effect of digital filmmaking (cameras and editing) on her program. As a “community school trying to meet the needs of the population it serves” the school in the past “experienced difficulty serving lower income groups” before digital technology became widely available. She illustrates this with an example, prior to the use of digital video, City Shorts [their annual film festival] was struggling with “very few submissions.” Today City Shorts is a “well attended film festival” with a good selection of quality work shot on digital video, much of which is also shown in other Bay Area venues.

Democratization of taste-making
Cinematographer and director Charles Papert, who has experience in both high-end and indie productions, tells me the big trend is “the democratization of the taste-making process in entertainment.” Papert reflects that “whereas in the past a talent or project would be discovered, packaged and groomed” in what he calls an “insider process” that would move through “a corporate machine to determine their worthiness to be presented to the masses,” we now have the ability for unknown talent to “become popular with the masses” through a process of “viral exposure” and after that “traditional media takes it from there.” He explaining this is a “reversal of the process,” and illustrates this with the observation, “in the heyday of radio, an influential DJ could break an artist, as radio became more corporate with mandated playlists, artists were manufactured.” But new options now exist, “now an unsigned and unknown artist can build their brand via iTunes and social media and gain wide exposure.” Papert has been working with Garfunkel and Oates, a musical comedy group, who’s been able to quickly built a following via “low-tech ‘couch videos’ of them simply singing to camera and are currently on the comedy circuit, selling out 500-600 seat venues.” Papert adds they now have an HBO development deal, providing a crisp example of the big trend. He’s pleased that “the possibility of creative freedom” provided by this new environment is “encouraging.”

Non-traditional distribution channels are gaining traction
Philip Hodgetts, Technologist, Author and President of Intelligent Assistance observes that “non-traditional distribution channels – iTunes, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix as well as AOL – are getting traction from brands now, such that it’s beginning to be possible to create and distribute without the traditional network gatekeepers.” Yet Hodgetts points out that, “of course brands end up still controlling the media,” but in parallel to this, “the rise of crowd funding is making producers less dependent on having advertising support at the distribution end.” You can see a list of the most funded Kickstarter projects on their site. Hodgetts points out Habib Kairouz’s article, Buckle up: Traditional TV is in for a heck of a ride, in which Kairouz points out that in order to find out how television is going to change “we’ll all be tuning in (on multiple devices) to find out.” One example of this is AOL spending on original series.

Circumvention of traditional media outlets
Julie Mallozzi, a documentary filmmaker and teacher observes we now have a “global communications infrastructure that “enables everyone to both create and consume media anywhere, anytime – and share it with the entire world within seconds.” Mallozzi sees the “circumvention of traditional media outlets” by Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Boston, etc.to get their message straight out to people as a significant trend. These groups have “all kinds of people out shooting video – on cameras, phones, whatever – editing it right on the spot using laptops or ipods, and uploading it for the world to follow their actions via Twitter, Facebook, etc.” She adds, “they are inspired by the Arab Spring – who of course used these methods, too.” This makes our connection with current events more intimate and meaningful. We now have the ability to learn what’s happening from a variety of perspectives beyond the television news establishment for which ratings, not newsworthiness, is the prime directive. In addition, social media has made it easier to organize, participate, and get people involved in these events both directly and indirectly. For example, when Mayor Bloomberg announced that he was going to clear the park on the morning of Friday, October 14th, MoveOn.org immediately launched a petition drive to let the Mayor know how citizens in New York and beyond felt about his intended actions. The mayor was given a clear read of public reaction to the clean sweep, it was telephone calls from elected officials to the owners of the park that stalled the clean-up, but you can bet they were responding to the groundswell of support that was expressed. Social media is enabling citizens to make their voice heard and connect with current events in a manner that is way more intimate and meaningful than possible back in the day when broadcast media was the only conduit for live, breaking news.

Citizen journalism is influencing how mainstream media handles news
Artist Perry Bard observes how citizen journalism is influencing, “how mainstream media handles news,” pointing to the example of Police beat and pepper spray protesters on 10.05.11, a YouTube video in which a police officer discusses how he hopes to be able to beat protesters with his nightstick later in the evening. This is not something mailstream media may not have covered in the past. See also: MSNBC/Lawrence O’Connell on NYPD Police Brutality during Occupy Wall Street (not the same event). Now that amost everyone has cameras, more points of view come into play. During the launch of Iraq war Bard followed Riverbend’s blog, Baghdad Burning which, according to Bard, “gave daily accounts about electricity outages, food availability, i.e. effects of war on daily life.” The blog was later published. Bard points out the “difference between then and now is dramatic, more people with more devices and the ability and organization to upload instantly,” is making a significant difference in how news is being covered.

Smaller and larger screens
Videographer Chuck Green observes that, “millions consume video, music, photos, and more (plus compose and read their correspondence) on micro devices, iPod nanos, mobile phones” while at the same time we’re seeing the rising popularity of large screens, “IMAX and IMAX3D is growing, as are home television/media center screens,” Green suggests this might be “weird for producers” and represents the challenge of “divergence,” which is developing media for both small and large screens simultaneously. Other trends he sees include “collaboration on editing, mashups and such,” and these he finds scary and exciting at the same time. For Green it’s ultimately about embracing the expanding palette and opportunity with both smaller and larger screens.

Greater flexibility in communication and collaboration
Kathryn Dietz, Executive Director of Filmmakers Collaborative, observes that “there are far more outlets for our creativity.” She explains, “If I have an idea, I can conceive of it as not just a movie … which costs a lot and takes a lot of time.” Instead her idea can, “take the shape of a game or short video clip shared on YouTube or maybe be a blog post or a comment on someone else’s media.’ This now all comes to us at “lower cost and far greater flexibility and opportunity for collaboration.” One implication of this is that media makers don’t just one thing anymore. Kathryn ran a production company for 23 years, always producing feature length documentaries. Now, she has three jobs (executive director of a non-profit, a producer, and as a writer). Kathryn is currently writing a feature length documentary being made in collaborative manner and she’s producing a series of web shorts for the new England Journal of Medicine in collaboration with another filmmaker. Much of this is possible because today it is “easier to manage” multiple projects because of the “ease of access and communication.” She pointed out to me that she and I were able to have a conversation over email while I was in Rio de Janeiro at the film festival and she was on a “lovely long kayak trip,” providing a sharp illustration of her point.

Beyond product placement: brand as character
Artist and filmmaker Jon Goldman sees a trend towards the convergence of storytelling and brand messages being “integrated into story-driven, serialized content positioned in web-based space straddling commercial spots with episodic enticement.” This work is a response to viewers becoming increasingly allergic to ads. As we move beyond traditional media forms, there’s a demand from advertisers to find new ways to create engagement. Jon has been working with StoryPoint, an organization responding to this challenge by creating compelling stories embedded with a brand. The brand message becomes an integral part of the story and character mix. Why should ads interupt our stories when the story can be the ad?

Our tools let us convey emotion to anyone, anywhere, at anytime
Artist and educator Philippe Lejeune says that “to create a tool so well designed that anyone can use intuitively to project to someone else our emotion through a complete set of communicative applicaitons is remarkable … tools are becoming transparent enough to let our emotion be carried to anyone anywhere at anytime,” this represents, “progress that is revolutionizes our desire for better communication and individual expression between each other.” Lejeune asks, “this media is ours … who needs anymore his/her 15 min. of Fame?” observing that he is part of the 99% of the once anonymous who “today have a voice and a name,” to illustrate this, Lejeune remixed Apple’s 1984 commercial giving it “a new meaning with today’s concerns (Occupy Boston),” reflecting that citizens now have, “the tools to prevail.”

Be the one you’re looking for
Kevin Brooks, UX Product Manager, Motorola Mobility, believes that “non-profressional producers creating the media they want to watch,” is the most significant trend. With the “increasing quality of production equipment we carry in our pockets and purses, the general population is more ready to capture what they see and express what they experience.” However, Brooks points out that what’s still missing is “deeper creative empowerment.” At this point in time we “have the tools in our pocket to create high quality crap.” Brooks thinks that “Once we start seeing compelling videos about producing compelling videos, or films about making films that aren’t about how zany, wacky, crazy, sex crazed or financially foolhardy it is to make films, then more people will make films.” He adds “as Brother Blue said and as I think Steve Jobs implied, ‘Be the one you’re looking for’.” Brooks sees a lot of “brave filmmakers who distribute on their own, they want their story out there and believe in it, so they skip over many of those concentric circles to go directly to the public.” He says that “Sita Sings the Blues is just one example, though a favorite of mine.” Brooks is encouraged that people “have found and will continue to find more creative ways to build theater – more creative ways to bring eyes and ears to their art,” but along the way, “many traditional business models and mechanisms will have to change the way they do things or disappear.”

Rise in multi-screen viewing
Lee Morgenroth, Founder and CEO of leemail.me, sees “an increasing number of new ventures looking at multi-screen viewing, or the idea that while people are watching television, or other video content, they are also on their laptops, tablets, or phones.” He believes that parallel viewing, “may lead to a more interesting ‘interactive’ experience than trying to force all of the experience through one screen/medium.” On the negative side, Morgenroth is concerned that, “legacy licensing and copyright issues still bind so much content, both new and archive.” Therefore, without a updated approach to licensing materials, we’re going to restrict the evolution of a “global audience of viewers and makers that are defined more by social graphs than by geographies and territories,” and without that, “we won’t see the full potential of innovation in media & entertainment.”

Perpetual escalation and insinuation of shock and awe
Nathan Felde, Chair of Design, The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, believes that the most significant trend influencing Media & Entertainment today is violence. He asserts, “now that attention is the new and only valid currency in the global economy, perpetual escalation and insinuation of shock and awe into media are needed to continually renew and raise interest rates while double digit hyperinflation of significance and attention deficit take their toll and tax our minds.” Related to this, by making it possible for humans across the earth to be linked in a digital world, technology has opened a Pandora’s box of possibilities, as Felde writes in From wilderness to bewilderment: Which frontier does your type face? Of visual frontiers, pattern recognition, mass media, and the survival of the human species. (DMI Review, 14:4, Fall 2003). Felde also shared this photo of 6,000 students at a school for animation, video games and comics, in Changchun, China.

The process of DIWO: Do-It-With-Others
Slava Rubin, founder and CEO of IndieGoGo observes that we’re, “moving from a world of transactions to a world of relationship.” He thinks that instead of a DIY ethos, things are moving to what he describes as, “DIWO (do-it-with-others),” this is, “the new breed, instead of millions, it is now the power of a dollar.” Since production and distribution have become ubiquitous, Rubin says, “it becomes a challenge of attention.” He suggest that “Youtube turned everyone in a TV channel,” and as a result, “crowdfunding will empower everyone to become a banking channel.” This will lead to storytelling evolving, “across mediums based on the customer touchpoint.” He paints this picture, “kind of like how banks now know how to best optimize their customer channels – physical location, ATM, website, mobile, etc.” His company, IndieGoGo, is currently providing the integrated social media tools that help creative people run their crowd-funding campaigns including community building and outreach, empowering creative people to fund, make, and distribute their work through the process of DIWO (do-it-with-others).

Media and entertainment becomes a catalyst for a wider dialogue
For Sean Flynn, an indepedent filmmaker and Producer of the Points North Documentary Forum, the most exciting possibility right now is, “location-based participatory storytelling,” pointing out that software like Ushahidi can, “extend the web to anyone in the developing world with a cell phone.” He’s been observing the proliferation of mobile apps that, “happened much more quickly than anything dependent on broadband.” Flynn looks at this and is rethinking what he does, saying, “as a filmmaker thinking about interactive, participatory models of storytelling, these technologies force me to reconsider the concepts of authorship and ownership,” changing the role of the filmmaker. Flnn reflects, “the content I produce isn’t necessarily the end result of my work, but can be a catalyst for a wider dialogue.” Flynn concludes that, “media and entertainment are no longer just about delivering a message or story through content, it’s about facilitating social interactions, dialogue, and community.” Perhaps it’s always been that way but to Flynn, the web is “opening up more feedback channels.” In addition to Ushahidi,Flynn as also been looking at Zeega and VoIP Drupal as possible tools of production for his next documentary project in India. He points to Mapping Main Street (by the co-founders of Zeega) as a good example of participatory documentary.

Big media talent listening and talking with their audience
For Steve Garfield, a video blogger and author of Get Seen: Online Video Secrets, the most significant trend in media and entertainment today is, “talent, from big media, listening and talking to their audience, social media is driving this change.” Garfield has observed that, “many old-timers are figuring this out, sometimes too late. He tells me about several stories in which, “news anchors, posting on a Facebook page, get fired from their jobs, only to hear form hundreds if not thousands of people that say they are going to miss the anchor on TV.” Garfield points out the cultural divide, “it comes as a surprise to these news people that they can interact with the audience.” But this is changing, now there is a growing number of TV journalists you can subscribe to right now in response to this trend of connecting with the audience. Garfield explains that several years ago, “I became friends with Jimmy Fallon because of his video blog, he reads, comments and responds,” (related video). Garfield adds, “I regularly chat with the FOX 25 news anchor, Maria Stephanos, on twitter, where she shared her cookie recipe with me.” (related blog post).

High speed internet connections/instant gratification
Jeremy Osborn, an Adobe products training specialist, believes that “high speed broadband connections are more important than ever since they facilitate instant access to media.” Osborn observes that his 10 year old son’s relationship with online media, “reminds me of myself as a kid but with books in the library” but in his son’s case, the relationship is with movies. Kids are growing up with a lot more motion media consumption and are accustomed to getting it on demand vs. appointment, compared to the previous generation, and this will drive huge changes as these kinds become adults. Osborn is, “ambivalent about this ‘instant gratification’ tendency,” and, “think it opens up a lot of troubling issues, but without a doubt it is a macro trend.” On a lighter note, Osborn points me to Adrian Curry’s posts offering critique on movie posters.

Hollywood is driving the divide between major and indie films farther apart
Zak Ray, a recent film school graduate currently working as a freelance cinematographer and editor, thinks one of the most interesting trends, “has not been a shift in the content itself, but rather the way it’s consumed, indeed, when content has shifted in recent years, the cause can often be traced to modes of consumption.” He suggests one example of this is, “the proliferation of transmedia,” and continues, “whether you like it or not, this is a format created entirely as a response to those consuming media on a variety of platforms, and as web series have shown us, such content need not exist only in support of a broadcast television show or feature film, and some content may actually be better suited to the web.” Ray points out that the economics of this trend can’t be ignored, “the ability to distribute one’s film on web and mobile channels is both a blessing and a curse, the blessing is that it’s free; combined with the democratization of every aspect of the filmmaking process. As a representative of the generation of filmmakers Ray does not have to raise a $1,000,000 budget, nor even $10,000, to make his next film. The flip side, Ray continues, is that, “monetizing such distribution has not yet been solved in any meaningful way, the notion of the internet being free is a hard one to break, and even with much web content moving from free to fee (read: paywalls), consumers seem unwilling to shell out for digital goods, with exception to subscription services like Netflix.” Ray laments, “that’s assuming the customer decides to pay at all, piracy plays no small role in this.” As far as the major industry players are concerned, Ray observes, “Hollywood seems to be driving the divide between major films and indies further apart, the result being the consolidation of all their eggs into summer tentpole baskets, and the relegation of smaller filmmakers to the web and other platforms.” Ray expresses concerned that there is, “very little in between, not necessarily a bad thing, but something filmmakers will have to learn to fit their films into.”

Photo credits:
1. People-Watching by Stuart Richards (CC BY-ND)
2. Tools are Transparent by Philippe Lejeune (CC BY-NC-SA)
3. 6,000 Students by Nathan Felde (Copyright 2011 by Nathan Felde)

Minor revisions were made to this document on October 17, 2011 to correct missing links and fix some typos..

1. Broadcast Network => Group Forming Network

We’re seeing a gradual decline in television audiences while people are spending more time on social networks and this is wreaking havoc on business models. A traditional broadcast network grows in value along a linear scale, therefore the community value can be calculated based on the number of viewers. The value of social networks (a.k.a. group forming networks) grows along a very different curve as dictated by Reed’s Law. The significance of Reed’s law is that eventually the network effect of potential group membership can dominate the overall economics of the system. David Reed discovered that the community value of large networks–particularly social networks–scales exponentially with the size of the network. The number of possible sub-groups of network participants is 2 to the power of n, where n is the number of participants. This explains the phenomenal growth in the value of social networks. Adding an additional 100,000 viewers to a television audience of 1 million is no big deal, but adding 100,000 network participants to a 1 million participant social network has a significant effect of the value of participation in the network. Networking pioneer J.C.R. Licklider wrote in 1968, “we form communities of common interest, not common location.” David Reed explains these concepts in the article “Weapon of Math Destruction: A simple formula explains why the Internet is wreaking havoc on business models” (Context Magazine, Spring 1999, link) along with “That Sneaky Exponential—Beyond Metcalfe’s Law to the Power of Community Building,” a companion article originally published as an online suppliment to the “Weapon of Math Destruction,” article.

2. Institutional Funding => Crowd Funding

The internet and a growing number of people paricipating in a variety of online communites is making it possible to raise money for creative projects online. Two services that stand out inlcude: IndieGoGo and
Kickstarter. These services differ in siginifiant ways in terms of how they operate. Kickstarter is a community limited to fundraising projects that meet their curatorial goals, and projects don’t receive any money unless the fundraising goal is reached. This is good in terms of providing funders confidence their money will go to a project that will be completed. On the other hand, IndieGoGo is an open community allowing anyone to raise money for their creative project. If you don’t make your goal, you can still keep the money you raised to put towards your project, however, a lot of funders might not like they’ve given money to a project that does not have the funds needed to be completed. To some people this seems to give Kickstarter the edge with their all or nothing approach. At this time, Kickstarter is only available for projects made in the United States and you must have a U.S. bank account and a U.S. place of residence in order to use the service (even though contributions can come from anywhere in the world). In favor of IndieGoGo is that it’s open to any project (not just creative, and no gatekeeper) and they have a more global perspective with campaigns in almost every country. This year (so far) fourteen films have made it to top festivals after crowdfunding on IndieGoGo, see: “IndieGoGo Films Showcased at World-Class Festivals in 2011” (Adam Chapnick, Tribeca Future of Film, September 30, 2011). There’s a rapid rise in the number of creative professionals leveraging crowd funding to support their work. One of the most impressive examples to date is Jennifer Fox’s Kickstater campaign for My Reincarnation in which she raised over $150,000 in order to get her film into distribution, she shares what she learned doing in her guest post, “How MY REINCARNATION Broke All Kickstarter Records & Raised $150,000” on Ted Hope’s blog.

3. Independence => Interdependence

In our connected world, filmmakers are moving away from the paradigm of “independent” filmmaking and embracing the notion of “interdependent” filmmaking. Unlike many industries, we’re not in competition with each other and we can benefit more from cooperation. This idea is being championed by Tiffany Shlain, Her film Connected is about the impact of the Internet on our lives and a call for to embrace a new philosophy of interdependence, for more details see see: 10 Big Ideas for the Future of Film by Tiffany Shlain (Mediashift/PBS.org, April 20, 2011) and The Power Of One: Food For Thought 2011 by Sawn Parr (Fast Company, Jun 1, 2011).

4. Oligopoly => Constellation of Gatekeepers

Once upon a time talented filmmakers and/or promising projects would be discovered and/or packaged by the Hollywood studios. With high barriers to entry (e.g. specialized knowledge, scarce resources, a lock on distribution, etc.) the major studios has a tight control on the industry and operated like an oligopoly. With access to inexpensive digital technology for production and postproduction–along with social media making it possible to establish a connection with an audience–filmmakers with the talent and drive to make it have the ability to take themselves from a state of being unknown talent to becoming popular with an audience through a process of lots of hard work developing an audience on their own. It used to take an influential executive at the studio to give you a green light for a project, now you can take your work directly to an audience an see if what you’re doing resonates with them. It may still take lots of money to make a film, but the ecosystem is growing into a constellation gatekeepers working a variety of levels, for example, film production is not within reach of many organizations who may choose to fund films that promote their agendas. One example that stands out is Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007) a supernatural horror film. It was originally produced as an independent feature with a home movie camera, but was later acquired by Paramount Pictures after a representative saw the film and was impressed. It has become a very profitable film along with a very effective social media marketing campaign, see “Paranormal Activity Rides the Social Web to Millions at the Box Office” by Christina Warren (Mashable, October 13, 2009). Realistically, cases like Paranormal Activity are the rare exception to the rule, it’s still as hard as ever to find an audience, but it you have a film that resonates with an audience, there are less factors in your way, as the oligopoly has given way to a constellation of gatekeepers that are more attuned to enabling rather than limiting your potential. Scott Kirsner’s book, Fans, Friends And Followers provides a good survey of how various people have developed their audience in the new media landscape.

5. Auteurs => Collaborations

Normal Hollyn, an editor, teacher, and author of The Film Editing Room Handbook (now it a 4th edition) wrote a delightful blog post titled, “Collaboration and Why The Auteur Theory Is Bull,” in which he argues that, “it’s impossible to make a film by yourself.” He points out that not every idea the director is going to have is good, and not all good ideas are going to come from the director. Film is a highly collaborative art form. Hollyn suggests the ideal way to work with any creative person is to, “come to the table with an idea (the ‘thesis’), let that person come up with a different idea (the ‘antithesis’) and then to let those two opposing notions contribute to a third, usually better, idea (the ‘synthesis’).” Hollyn argues that directors who think they are the, “sole auteurs of their work, and are too afraid or guarded to open up to other ideas, will generally miss out on those ‘third, usually better’ ideas, and their work will suffer.” Today it is easier than ever with email, Twitter, Facebook, DropBox, etc. to share and communicate and keep an open dialog as a project develops over time. But these just facilitators. The important trend is a change in mind-set in terms of what it means to be an “auteur” vs. “visionary” director. A visionary director can articulate a clear vision while orchestrating the process of synthesis that Hollyn discusses in his essay, which leads to the best work. Even Orson Welles, perhaps one of the greatest “auteurs” in Hollywood history, surrounded himself with amazing collaborators who made significant contributions to his films. He had so much respect for Greg Toland’s cinematography that he shared a title card with him. Behind the most successful “genius,” whether it be an Orson Welles or a Steve Jobs, is not an auteur in the classic sense of the term, but a visionary who collaborates effectively with creative people. There’s a huge difference between the two, and the difference boils down to creating an environment that supports synthesis.

6. Media Objects => Media Fabric

I believe Blu-Ray disks are the last physical media distribution format consumers will ever see. Everything is moving to the cloud. I love the convenience of Netflix streaming and I find it annoying I still have to wait for many movies to arrive as DVDs. Why can’t they all simply be streamed to my Mac or iPad? While licensing deals will keep a lot of media tied up in knots for a while, eventually it will all end up on the cloud. See “Apple, Hollywood Close To Streaming Movie Deal?” by Thomas Claburn, Information Week, October 13, 2011) and “Movies in the Clouds” by By Michelle Kung (Wall Street Journal, October 11, 2011). But the concept of Media Fabric (which I borrow from Glorianna Davenport) goes way beyond the notion of media living on the cloud. Davenport’s idea is that of, “a semi-intelligent organism where, lines of communication, threads of meaning, chains of causality, and streams of consciousness converge and intertwine to form a rich tapestry of creative story potentials, meaningful real-time dialogues, social interactions, and personal or communal art- and story-making.” The idea is that media is becoming something integrated into our everyday lives, connecting us in new ways that we are shaping through the very process of our interaction with each other. See “Media fabric — a process-oriented approach to media creation and exchange” by Glorianna Davenport, et. al.

7. Specialized Competence => Media Literacy

Media was was once the domain of specialized individuals working in specialized organizations. Today, the trend is towards media production and dissemination becoming a core competency of every organization, as well as every individual. Many of us shoot a lot of casual video to share with friends, which helps us develop a sense for working with a camera. Increasingly we are purchasing smart phones equipped with spectacular cameras. Small videocameras like the Canon VIXIA provide high-quality high-definition images in the form-factor of a small camcorder. Things like smart-auto focus with face recognition makes it easy to produce good, sharp, point-and-shoot video. The ubiquity of video cameras has made it easy for anyone to pick up a camera and try their hand at media production. In the late 1990s it was essential for everyone to have a web site. Today it has become essential to enhance that web site with video. With video sharing sites like Vimeo and YouTube, we have at our fingertips an easy way to share video with others. With all the traditional barriers gone, writing with a camera is poised to become almost as ubiquitous as writing with a word processor. See my blog post, “Cinema will eventually become a flexible means of writing.”

For additional perspectives on these trends, see my companion post, “Researching Seven Macro Trends,” which provides a survey of the background research I did while preparing for this presentation. It includes micro-interviews with: Patricia Aufderheide, Perry Bard, Philip Hodgetts, Brian Lucid, Caroline Blair, Charles Papert, Steve Garfield, Chuck Green, Geo Geller, Jon Goldman, Julie Mallozzi, Kathryn Dietz, Kevin Brooks, Lee Morgenroth, Nathan Felde, Philippe Lejune, Ryan Evans, Slava Rubin, Zak Ray, Anne Marie Stein, Audrey Kali, and Brian Henderson.

This post was revised on October 17, 2011 to fix some typos and links.

After two days of pouring over the entire online manual and editing with Final Cut Pro X I have to say there are things I love about it that I’ve always wished Final Cut Pro had (performance, integrated metadata support, background processing), and things that are deep disappointments (lack of XML import/export, lack of multitrack audio editing, splitting tracks, exporting stems). Final Cut Pro X is like a precocious teenager that still has some growing up to do before they are ready for the adult world, but they have prospects, and we simply have to take a wait and see attitude. I can’t depend on it for mission critical work, however, I will use it for editing and see what it can do, and over time, and as it evolves, it might become part of my professional workflow.

I like the product and I think Apple did more things right than wrong. We have to take a moment to pause and reflect this is a version 1.0 product, not 10.0 like the splash screen states. But the things that are missing are not consistent with the hype, and there lies the rub. It’s possible that the way this product was released at the same time support for the current version was dropped may have done huge damage to the brand among professionals, but on the other hand Final Cut Pro X bring excitement and sizzle to the majority of people editing everything besides professional productions that require complex workflows and resource sharing. This much larger group is the future. Sophisticated editing has become democratized. Apple is betting on the new generation. When it comes to shareholder value and market share, there is no room for nostalgia or catering to the old ways. Leave the pros in the dust, their days are numbered, at least that’s the message I hear through Apple’s actions. Apple can say they support professionals, but their actions say otherwise, and as Aristotle reminds us in The Poetics, character is revealed through action. It’s clear that the future lies in tens of millions of individual editors, not in tens of thousands of professional editors. I’m sure many of the missing pro features will be added.

Here are three interesting threads I’ve been following this week:

Larry Jordan: Ain’t Nothing Like It In the World

My response to Larry’s blog post:

Larry, this post has been very useful and thought provoking. While Final Cut Pro X has a slick interface and provides sizzling performance, I can’t imagine using it in a professional environment. Without the ability to place audio in individual tracks for exporting to a sound editing and mixing application, without multi-cam, without the ability to import legacy Final Cut Pro projects, without EDL or XML export for transferring work I can’t take it seriously in a professional environment. This resets the clock back to version 1.0 and it’s a travesty. [PAUSE] sip on Apple Kool-Aid [PAUSE] Final Cut Pro X is revolutionary, it’s awesome, it’s what we’ve all been waiting for! 64 bit performance, background rendering, new interface, none of this could have been done in an evolutionary way the way Adobe does with their applications, Apple is about revolution and what Apple tells us we’re going to like, we’re going to like, and two or three versions later, we’re all going to say, why did we not do it like this all along?

Philip Hodgetts: What are the Answers to the Unanswered Questions about Final Cut Pro X?

My response to Philips’s blog post:

At the end of the day, I think much of the anger and frustration is ultimately about the gap between what works today (Final Cut Pro 7) and what is promised (some future version of Final Cut Pro that supports a professional workflow). In this interim many of us will have to continue using Final Cut Pro 7 with no idea how long this gap is going to be with our work, our livelihood now depends on an unsupported product. Imagine the outcry if Avid did the same thing to their users? But Avid would never do this, their editing applications are their livelihood, on the other hand, Final Cut Pro is a tiny sliver of Apple’s business, and so given this fact we have plenty of justification in being concerned, it’s hard not to feel as a professional and educator that the rug has been pulled from under me and there is no soft landing in sight.

DVinfo.net: FCP X Now available to buy and download from App Store.

One of my contributions to the discussion thread:

Goes to show that in the wake of all the hype, reality is now setting in. This is becoming a fascinating case study in expectations, and the meaning of the “Final Cut Pro” brand. It’s a risky strategy to kill off an old product, replace it with a completely different one, and call the new version “awesome” as if it was the second coming. As “iMovie Pro 1.0″ FCP X is brilliant. As the next version in the Final Cut Pro line? It’s ludicrous. It’s going to take the hyperspace edition of the reality distortion field to fix this situation…

In some ways this break between the old ways of Final Cut Pro and what would have better been called iMovie Pro 1.0 gives us all a chance to re-evaluate our choices of editing tools. I started on Avid, perhaps it’s time to take a look at where they are at, I stopped using Avid with the introduction of Final Cut Pro 4.5 in what now seems like ancient times. This might also a good time to see if Premiere Pro is worthy of this role, since Adobe has a good track record of evolving applications and not leaving their professional users out in the cold as they evolve their products (I’ve been using Adobe Photoshop since version 1.0).

The time has come to look around and play the field, for no matter what happens in the future, one thing is for certain, Final Cut Pro as we know it has come to the end of the line, it is a dead product with no support. We have to consider the tradeoffs of jumping over the chasm between where we are with Final Cut Pro 7 and the promises that Final Cut Pro X will grow up fast enough to meet out needs and fulfill our desires. For now I will continue editing my mission critical work with Final Cut Pro 7 and experiment on short projects with other tools and see what happens. The day Final Cut Pro 7 stops working due to an OS X update or new hardware incompatibility will force a change, but for now, it’s still smooth sailing with a lot of underlying anxiety that comes with editing on a dead platform.

Video from Abattoir Rising, a work-in-progress documentary by Audrey Kali and David Tames. 

I’ve been contemplating the evolution of the documentary this summer and I was delighted to see that The MediaGuardian’s recent Sheffield Doc/Fest 2011 coverage includes ten articles providing a refreshing perspective on how documentary makers are finding new ways to reach their audience. These articles provide a view into a crystal ball in which we can begin to see a vision of the future. Here are links to the articles, worthwhile reading and a good starting point for further reflection and discussion.

Social media influences documentary-makers
Social media have had a truly revolutionary effect, enabling film-makers and citizens to disseminate their own stories

Adam Curtis: happy to be different
The maker of classic documentary series such as The Trap and The Power Of Nightmares believes he is still learning his trade

New technology opens up documentary-making
Recording devices are always evolving – from 16mm cameras to iPad apps – offering film-makers the chance to innovate

Jay Hunt: Social media promotes a better viewer experience
Using multiplatform and social media is an incredibly important part of what we’re doing at Channel 4

Can you make a film and a profit?
Making money from documentaries is no easy task, but there are some business models that are generating revenues online

How the internet is galvanising support for social justice documentaries
Films that form part of a campaign for social justice are regularly appearing online – greatly increasing their reach and impact

Tools of attraction: creating multimedia content for games and TV shows
Audiences now expect stories to be told in new ways across different platforms, but commissioners often fail to produce compelling ‘transmedia’ content

The impact of Twitter on TV shows
For producers, posts on Facebook and Twitter are seen as indicators of success – but do they influence ratings?

BBC documentary boss wants programmes that do more than entertain
Commissioning editor Charlotte Moore favours quality and craft over feelgood and populist

Steve James hails a ‘golden age of documentary film-making’
Prior to his visit to the Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival, director says attitudes towards docs have changed

Image credit: Crystal Castles by Frogman (2008).

Documentary Video Boot Camp, January 2009, Photo by Anne Marie Stein

The four sessions being offered this summer are:

• June 6 – 10: Documentary Video Boot Camp with yours truly.
• June 13 – 17: Producing the Documentary with Maria Agui Carter
• June 20 – 24: The Documentary Camera with Stephen Maing
• June 27 – July 1: Editing the Documentary with Bill Anderson

For course descriptions and instructor biographies visit the Documentary Filmmaking A-Z page on the MassArt web site. You can register by calling MassArt Professional and Continuing Education at 617.879.7200. You are welcome to contact me if you have specific questions about the Documentary Video Boot Camp.

DETAILS

Installation: Reflective Space meets January 3–14, 2011, Monday–Friday, 9:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. in N-379, the class earns 3 credits and is offered through MassArt Professional and Continuing Education, visit their web site or call 617.879.7200 for more information or to register for the class. Download a flyer for the class as a PDF.

DESCRIPTION

Installation is a relatively recent art form that challenges traditional categories of art because of its impermanent nature and tendency to incorporate a multitude of influences. This course explores installation practice using diverse media, including but not limited to sculptural material, photography, drawing, video, and sound. Assignments encourage experimentation while reflecting on physical, psychical, and sociopolitical content in relation to the site, and include a shorter and more substantive project. Presentations, group discussions, and critiques enhance classes. Relating meaningful techniques and material to the space is emphasized over mastering shop skills. Students must have some experience with object making and the media they intend to incorporate in their projects.

INSTRUCTOR


Danielle Sauvé is a sculptor and installation artist. She received her BA from Laval University, Quebec, and her MFA from Concordia University, Montreal. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout North America and internationally. She has created permanent public art installations, and has pieces in the permanent collections of several museums, including the Montreal Contemporary Art Museum and Joliett Art Museum in Quebec.

Photo: Danielle Sauvé’s Promises (Seeking Recognitions), 2010 (photo by Richard-Max Tremblay).