More (Very Cool) Web Docs

Here are a couple of cool projects...

Type:Rider - Arte Creative

Every Last Drop - Nice & Serious

Bear 71 - Leanne Allison & Jeremy Mendes

Whiteness Project - Whitney Dow

And some even cooler curations of i-docs/web-docs/interactive docs/docu-games/etc...

NFB Interactive

WiredMov

iDocs.org

IDFA DocLab

PBS POV Interactive Shorts

RIDM

Interactive Factual 

Multimedia, Multimodality & Interactivity in Documentary

32 Short Films About Glenn Gould - Niv Fichman, François Girard

Half the Sky - Nicholas Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn

Hollow - Elaine Mcmillion

Balloons of Bhutan - Jonathan Harris

Highrise - Katerina Cizek

The Hour of the Furnaces (1968)

Here's a quote from Fernando Solanas & Octavio Getino's "Towards a Third Cinema"

"The existence of a revolutionary cinema is inconceivable without the constant and methodical exercise of practice, search, and experimentation. It even means committing the new film-maker to take chances on the unknown, to leap into space at times, exposing himself to failure as does the guerrilla who travels along paths that he himself opens up with machete blows. The possibility of discovering and inventing film forms and structures that serve a more profound vision of our reality resides in the ability to place oneself on the outside limits of the familiar, to make one's way amid constant dangers.
Our times is one of hypothesis rather than of thesis, a time of works in progress--unfinished, unordered, violent works made with the camera in one hand and a rock in the other. Such works cannot be assessed according to the traditional theoretical and critical canons. The ideas for our film theory and criticism will come to life through inhibition-removing practice and experimentation. 'Knowledge begins with practice. After acquiring theoretical knowledge through practice, it is necessary to return to practice.' (12)"

And then there's this...

The Essayistic Mode

Here's a quote from Alexandre Astruc's "The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Camera-Stylo," 1948

To come to the point: the cinema is quite simply becoming a means of expression, just as all the other arts have been before it, and in particular painting and the novel. After having been successively a fairground attraction, an amusement analogous to boulevard theatre, or a means of preserving the images of an era, it is gradually becoming a language. By language, I mean a form in which and by which an artist can express his thoughts, however abstract they may be, or translate his obsessions exactly as he does in the contemporary essay or novel. That is why I would like to call this new age of cinema the age of camera-stylo (camera-pen). This metaphor has a very precise sense. By it I mean that the cinema will gradually break free from the tyranny of what is visual, from the image for its own sake, from the immediate and concrete demands of the narrative, to become a means of writing just as flexible and subtle as written language.

And another from Theodor Adorno's Minima Moralia, 1949

Properly written texts are like spiders' webs: tight, concentric, transparent, well-spun and firm. They draw into themselves all the creatures of the air. Metaphors flitting hastily through them become their nourishing prey. Subject matter comes winging toward them. The soundness of a conception can be judged by whether it causes one quotation to summon another. Where thought has opened up one cell of reality, it should, without violence by the subject, penetrate the next. It proves its relation to the object as soon as the other objects crystallize around it. In the light that it casts on its chosen substance, others begin to glow.

Here's a video essay about one of my favorite filmmakers.

The World According to Koreeda Hirokazu from kogonada on Vimeo.

And here's an audio-essay of sorts from This American Life.

Homefun for Autobiographical Mode

Center for Digital Storytelling

personal stories from StoryCorps

Documentary Idea Project

Here is the assignment description for the final project:

Documentary Idea Project (120 pts.):
In place of a final exam, each student will complete a large-ish work of documentary media that utilizes one (or more) of the documentary modes addressed in the course. Like the Doc Mode Activities, works may utilize text, images, audio, video or multimedia and may take the form of a ‘thick description,’ photo essay, journalistic comic, audio doc, short film or interactive web doc. In fact, students may use one or more of the Doc Mode Activities as a starting point and expand upon their previous work(s) in the creation of this project.The works should be posted on or linked to each student’s blog and be accompanied by a 800-1000 word essay that addresses how the work engages with the concept of ‘The Documentary Idea’ (something that we will address weekly in our class discussions and online responses). During the last week of class, students will present their projects (10-15 min.) and briefly discuss how their work relates to their understanding of ‘The Documentary Idea.’

Documentary Idea Project Alternative:
Students who are interested in writing a 12 - 15 page research paper on a topic related to documentary & non-fiction media in place of the project described above may discuss this option with the instructor..

Project Workshop: Mon Dec 8
Final Projects/Presentations: Wed Dec 10

In order to give you some sense of what I'm expecting from you in the completion of this project, I've included a couple examples of past students' work.

Denisse Piedra, "Film Memoirs"

Melissa Lee, "Ripples in a Lake"

Nick Dixon, "Letting Go"

Derek Jarman, 'Blue' (1993)