III. A Future for Documentary?
Published online on react-hub.org.uk
In this article, producer Matt explores some of the emerging spaces for the documentary form. He talks about how documentaries are shifting towards new platforms and technologies. They can not only be seen on TV anymore, but pretty much on every new platform emerging. They can be watched, re watched, paused, streamed, downloaded, bought and experienced in 3D, VR via so many different platforms and screens today. I wonder how the audience is dealing with all the changes.
“So what are these new explorations?
What are people doing at the intersections of documentary and digital?”
To explore these questions, the article outlines some of the commonalities between the new and unexpected forms of digital documentary storytelling and puts them into 3 categories :
- Interactive content
Interactive Documentary are docos presented in a non-linear form with photos, film, animation and data. This allows the audience to have a unique experience, and decide how they want the story unraveled and told to them.
- Citizen journalism
Citizen journalism is a new form of journalism where participatory and activist filmmakers use cheap devices like mobile phones to document stories and empower communities.
Moreover, the viewer today becomes so involved it can participate by uploading content to interactive websites. The audience almost becomes a filmmaker.
“These new forms of participation enable a greater investment in the story.”
- Make your own stories.
Platforms online now allow you to remix web videos your own way and share them on the internet.
“Both ‘Big Data’ sets and social media traces of individuals are becoming a rich vein of information and stories as a new generation of web browsers and tools is changing the game for online visualisation and interactive graphics.”
It seems the audience is now engaged more than ever with all the uprising technologies and platforms that allow you to experience a video content to its fullest, but also become the producer and share your own content.
Link(s) :
http://react-hub.org.uk/articles/future-documentary-0