As discussed in the earlier blog entitled, “The Digital Revolution” the very approach people are making today to watch television, movies, and even the news has radically shifted within a half-generation. With the advancement of digital technology a high importance in educating, informing, teaching, and raising awareness of specific issues and topics have underwent an important paradigm shift into the visual-spatial arena. It is in this shift documentary films will provide a unique resource to learning that it never had before. One aspect to the unique enterprise of documentary filmmaking is in filmanthropy.

Filmanthropy is the next profound impact digital media will make on the world through the digital revolution. Defined loosely, filmanthropy means the practice in filmmaking that raises consciousness on a specific issue and promotes solutions and outreach toward a specific cause. SnagFilms, the advertising-supported video-on-demand (V.O.D.) website for independent documentary films, was the first to coin the term. SnagFilms‘ founder and chairman Ted Leonsis utilized the term as a marketing tool and his company’s mission to describe the power documentaries have to inspire community action. The online site markets short-length and feature-length independent documentaries with that focus in mind. In a better understanding filmanthropy is philanthropy through filmmaking. Philanthropists, who now serve as a growing group of investors in documentary filmmaking have joined forces and collaborative efforts with filmmakers to produce socially relevant and impactful films on a wide range of issues affecting the world today. Although primarily focused in on documentaries filmanthropy can also include narrative, fictionalized short-length and feature-length films as well.

Back in the day—years before the internet reshaped the world as we know it documentaries played an archaic part in research institutions, university curriculum, library collections, and school resources. Once upon a time, an instructor would wipe the dust off of an old VHS cassette tape of a documentary and pop it into a VCR for the chance at teaching a subject matter for an engrossing, teachable experience to a diverse group of pupils—most likely in a lecture hall, classroom or academic/research conference setting. The documentary would be slow-winding video of a distant narrator speaking over stock archival footage parlayed with long soundbites from expert interviewees. Here, documentaries had one primary function—to teach a given subject matter on relevant topics for discussions, symposiums, conferences, and lectures through the limited space of distribution dominated mostly by colleges and universities. In this period, documentaries were an illustrated reference book of a topic in video form. Now—fast forward to today, documentary films have evolved into a whole new world of relevant digital media. With the means of distribution in DVD sales, online streaming, the film festival circuit, and on television documentaries have proven to be more powerful in impact than in subsequent years. Far from its once primary function as a resource to teaching in the halls of the academia and institutions of higher learning documentaries are seen practically everywhere with added functions and attributes: to provide media that prompts people to think differently on given topic, entertain people with an interesting focus of informing on a topic or issue, raise consciousness on a current event, and prompt engagement in people for necessary social action. Today, documentaries have expanded beyond its limits into a work of art that can serve as a social utility for activists, philanthropists, and community advocates bent on change, sustainability, re-development, and more. In fact, documentary filmmakers prove themselves to be the activists, philanthropists, and a community advocates who they collaborate with through their work.

In an internet culture of fast-pace trends, overemphasis of time in feedback and postings, and the pressure to provide enough visuals to keep an internet user stimulated enough not to click away documentaries have evolved through such a culture. Hence, the reason documentary films needed to take an entertainment angle to informing their viewers for the emphasis of being engrossing and didactic. Such liberties documentary filmmakers utilize for entertainment in their work has been the popular use of the director playing the role of the “omniscient narrator” by appearing as a storyline in their film which you see in all of Michael Moore’s work, Morgan Spurlock in Super Size Me, and Nick Broomfield in Kurt and Courtney and Bigge & Tupac—to name a few. Other means of visually-stimulating approaches and an entertaining focus documentarians are using today have been the use of graphic design particularly motion graphics, unique subtitling and title graphics, the “Ken Burns effect” where the camera pans and zooms in on a still image for a stimulating effect, and even Errol Morris’ use of the Interrotron, a device similar to a teleprompter where the director and his or her interview subject each sit facing a camera where the interviewee looks directly at a human face (the director) as he or she is looking straight into the camera. Such devices for documentary film story-telling has enhanced the appeal documentaries have on a mainstream culture while keeping in par to the niche markets of documentary enthusiasts and its community of fans. Here, documentaries do not seem to “sell out” to the mainstream for popularity and profit. This new way of creatively approaching a documentary is an important aspect to documentary films’ new focus in filmanthropy. Here, filmanthropy is not only seen as “preaching” or “spreading propaganda” of a specific issue and its cause but a visually stimulating media form that captivates a diverse audience of viewers needed to propel change for a common cause and action. Filmanthropy in this guise makes social issues cool to investigate and learn about and appealing to take part in for the sake of productive and effective solutions to the problem. Viewers in this light will not only see the responsibility to the cause the documentary film introduces but also the very need for documentary films itself to be that voice, channel, and platform to relevant topics that may not get its due attention in the mass, commercial media space.

So, while a director and producer of a particular documentary may be asked in a Q&A forum following a screening of the film: “Why did you make this film?” The director will answer in the same light the activist or advocate will answer to why he or she was motivated and inspired to take up the cause of a specific social, political, or environmental issue. Such a question would probably never be asked directly to a filmmaker of another genre because entertainment alone would be the given answer.

The revolution will not be televised but it may be on YouTube. As the world shifts ever more rapidly in the visual-spatial medium of videos and the online virtual world changes in society will be captured, photographed, and caught through digital technology and more importantly through social media platforms. This all necessitates the power of video in telling stories, capturing news, and disseminating information in an advanced, technological, and digitized world. As a result of this evolution the shift away from print publication is inevitable as the internet with its 24/7 monitoring and always being “open for business” will shatter all limits documenting in the virtual sense the many circumstances, events, news, and realities that occur consistently throughout the world. Documentary filmmakers, investigative journalists, online reporters and other seekers of truth will play a paramount role in documenting and telling such vital stories and realities even as they work in industries that have been greatly downsized due to corporate shifts in business practice and advanced, growing technology.

The jury is still out in the scientific community on evidence of whether people interpret, learn, dissect, communicate and acquire information and knowledge more effectively and accurately through a visual-spatial means as opposed through print publication. It may depend on an individual basis whether a person learns and communicates better in reading given material or visually interacting to given material or other approaches to learning and knowing. Even educational institutions have begun to look into and talk about a paradigm shift to educating students in this new digital landscape. Until then if such an inquiry is worthy for a scientific study journalists will be forced to operate and work in the digital re-evolution. This will mean to incorporate news as Tweets, Facebook posts, and other feeds through the system of social networking. A new approach to literacy will also occur which does not necessarily mean the elimination of literacy itself. It will just mean 140-character-and-less post feeds serving as intros to video links and online blogs, photos with a small caption or description to them and online streaming videos with close captioning and transcripts viewable on the web.

In the 21st century world where Associated Press, CNN, local newspapers, and other media outlets are using Twitter to put out late-breaking news, where dentist clinics to furniture stores are taking the same approaches to video production like advertising and marketing companies are, and where lectures led by teachers and professors are taking to YouTube for teaching classroom curriculum the world has totally immersed itself fully in the digital revolution. The digital revolution does not infer violence or upheaval of any kind. In fact, its better to title it as “The Digital Re-evolution” so the emphasis can be made on the transformation and evolved aspect of diverse populations all over the world in communicating, learning, channeling, reporting, and interpreting new information and current events in a whole new way than past generations. The digital revolution will even the playing field for what is possible for the underdog or those part of the underground to operate in. People in the lower class or third-party media outlets will finally have a seat at the table in communicating and interacting in policy changes, public sentiments, and social movements. Voices from all racial/ethnic backgrounds, social classes, cultural heritages, educational levels, and geography will all be able to chime in to report the facts, provide necessary feedback, and give important perspective on current events. The digital revolution will provide access for anyone bent on progressive change.

Clearly, entertainment has moved securely in the digital revolution. Video-on-demand and file-sharing has moved in the place of the movie-going experience to theaters even though it has not entirely replaced it. Listening and buying music has also became digitized as well with mp3 downloads and music podcasts. Radio segments from talk radio to sports radio with the advent of internet radio has marked a digital trend. Today, television watchers of their favorite shows resort to digital video recorders (DVR) and IPTV to consume television content. So, as entertainment went down the once narrow road of digital media several years ago so will journalism and news-gathering tread down the now-expanded road of digital media.

All is not utopian in the digital revolution, however. Systems, institutions, and hierarchies will all be challenged as information gets passed around through social media circles and established media outlets. People will be displaced, industries will shift if not transform, new laws and policies will be passed, and newfound transparency will expose the worse in governments and businesses. The “Twitter Revolution” is a great example of the impact of the digital re-evolution when different protests and revolutions throughout the world were coordinated via Twitter specifically in Arab Spring. Up-to-the-minute, inside look and one-the-ground reporting and eye-witness accounts will be made readily available to anyone with access to the internet from anywhere in the world. This will allow for a different engagement by neighbors and concerned, socially conscious people to take part in civic action if not social protest. Although consuming products and services and the creation of propaganda from government and corporate hierarchies will have even more means to their disposal in spreading lies, misinformation, and illusions the digital revolution for younger and younger people in protest will make the landscape far too uncomfortable for the rich, educated, and privileged populace to remain comfortable and in total control. The digital revolution will continue to make its presence felt in areas of geography, public health, the environment, sociology, healthcare, human rights, politics, and the economy–nationally and internationally–with no need to stop or slow down. Feel free to call it a “silent” revolution, a “quiet” revolution, a “virtual” revolution, a “social media” revolution, a “nonviolent” revolution, or an “all-encompassing” revolution.

No Rules in Indie Filmmaking

Malik Bendjelloul, the director and producer for the 2012 Academy Award-winning film for Best Documentary Feature, Searching for Sugarman initially began production using 8 mm film to record some scarce, stylized shots for his brilliant documentary but ended up running out of money in production for more film to record the final few shots. He resorted to filming the remaining stylized shots on his smart phone using an iPhone app called “8mm Vintage Camera” to complete the film. The result in using the $1.99 app was video footage that looks indistinguishable from the scenes recorded on expensive 8mm film. Other than winning the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature the film also won in the Best Documentary category at the 2013 BAFTA awards, and the Special Jury Prize and the Audience Award for best international documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, amongst other accolades.

Dubbed the “mad scientist” of documentary film by the New York Times, award-winning filmmaker Brett Morgen directed the ESPN-produced TV documentary, June 17, 1994, with just him, his editor, and hundreds of hours of archival footage material. The film captures the various U.S. sporting events on the day in question and the emotions they generated, including but not limited to the opening of the World Cup soccer tournament, the Knicks/Rockets battle in the NBA Finals, Arnold Palmer’s last round in the U.S. Open, and the New York Rangers’ celebration of their Stanley Cup victory—all of which are overshadowed by O. J. Simpson’s run from the police. Completed in 2010 as part of ESPN’s “30 For 30” series the film received two Emmy nominations as well as a series Peabody Award.

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Errol Morris introduced reenactments in his classic 1988 film, The Thin Blue Line. Historians of documentary films, documentary film experts, and documentarians alike reacted in displeasure to the film because of it. In fact The Thin Blue Line was marketed as “nonfiction” at the Oscars rather than as a documentary, which disqualified it from being considered in that category for an Academy Award. The documentary contained re-enactment scenes built carefully from witnesses’ statements, which became common in later documentaries. Although the film recreates several versions of the a Dallas police-involved shooting, it does not recreate one in which the known suspect shoots the officer, the interpretation which it argues is true. The final scene, in which Errol Morris and the deemed suspect are only heard, while shots of a tape recorder appear from various angles, was not originally planned. Morris’s camera broke down on the day of the interview, forcing Morris to use a tape recorder to document the dialogue.

These are three of many examples in how filmmakers—specifically documentary filmmakers—do not oblige to prescribed rules in completing independent films. Far from big money budgets and under the auspices and control of major film production companies independent films and their dedicated directors and producers find multiple routes in completing high-quality and award-winning movies. The title of this blog should really be expanded from “No rules in Indie Filmmaking” to “No rules in Making Art” because essentially the artist—as he or she endeavors in their craft do so with the impulse of creativity and the moxie to deliver. Rules on protocol, structure from a “professional” team, and procedure advised by experts do no justice for the artist to create freely and lucidly.

Negating rules in independent filmmaking does not mean in any way forgoing basic concepts and approaches to filmmaking. Shaky camera work does not replace smooth, still shots filmed on a tripod, jump cuts does not replace fluid, crisp editing, and the failure to storyboard scenes for the approach of impromptu (“create as you go”) style of shooting scenes hinders the quality and even the substance of a film. Rules meant to be broken if they surprisingly stood the test of time is rules of convention prescribed by a yesteryear, generational thinking that has no place in modern filmmaking. The new and continuously evolving digital landscape has unapologetically broken the seal of old (or older) models of traditional filmmaking that come with “rules” and “protocol”.

People all over the world have already entered the era of advanced technological societies where new methods and tools to filmmaking have cut time, endurance, and strategy for creating films in all genres. High definition video has transmorphed the scale at filmmaking from shooting on celluloid film reels to high-resolution video. Nonlinear editing systems on the computer have greatly evolved the industry from linear editing of actually cutting and pasting film reel materials together. And, the growing platforms for distribution (particularly digital, online video streaming) and the lower cost of prosumer film equipment (cameras, lens, computer software, etc.) have shifted the film production business where any small-town filmmaker can compete with elite Hollywood directors. In short, the game has changed. And, thus the rules of a past generation must be thrown out but not necessarily replaced by new ones. YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, and the like has changed the film viewer, their approach to indie filmmaking, and the expectations of what and how they are going to watch movies. This in turn results in changes for indie film directors and producers in creating independent films.

A corporate structure that institutionalizes creative tasks in filmmaking to regulated job functions, procedures through employment responsibilities of a company’s guidelines and goals, and the adherence to administrative protocol for permission and approval stifles the film artist to all degrees. Today, independent filmmakers have combined talents to telling stories in movies at various aspects beyond directing and producing. A filmmaker may be a solid editor, an exceptional writer, and an efficient cameraperson, and even a great fundraiser and promoter. These talents used intricately due to lack of sufficient funds, downsizing in the film industry, and technology that coerces the average person to be indispensable and versatile simultaneously all propel the independent filmmaker and his or her team to be more innovative and loose in their approach to filmmaking in today’s reality.

It becomes paramount now than ever for independent film productions to refrain from prescribed, textbook rules when it comes to creating film art. Indie filmmakers should let go of the bounds that are imposed by a corporate, institutional structure and let free the many ways film art can tell a story and convey a profound message. Independent film directors, producers, and production teams should stray away from those who sell them on industry standards of how to go about filmmaking in the traditional sense–which in itself is unbounded and unlimited in its endeavor. The message is clear: create rebelliously through the freedom of independent filmmaking in the digital revolution.

Welcome to my brand new website. We’ve spent several months pulling all the resources together, and now we are finally here!