The Act of Documenting: Documentary Film in the 21st Century

by Brian Winston, Gail Vanstone, Wang Chi

Overview

Documentary has never attracted such audiences, never been produced with such ease from so many corners of the globe, never embraced such variety of expression. The very distinctions between the filmed, the filmer and the spectator are being dissolved. The Act of Documenting addresses what this means for documentary's 21st century position as a genus in the “class” cinema; for its foundations as, primarily, a scientistic, eurocentric and patriarchal discourse; for its future in a world where assumptions of photographic image integrity cannot be sustained. Unpacked are distinctions between performance and performativy and between different levels of interaction, linearity and hypertextuality, engagement and impact, ethics and conditions of reception. Winston, Vanstone and Wang Chi explore and celebrate documentary's potentials in the digital age.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501309182
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	01/26/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Brian Winston is the Lincoln Professor at the University of Lincoln, UK. He has held senior academic posts at universities both in the UK and the USA and is a visiting professor at Beijing Normal University. In 1985, he won an Emmy for documentary script-writing and he is the editor of The Documentary Film Book.

Gail Vanstone is the coordinator of the Culture&Expression program at York University, Canada. She is concerned with the affordances of new technology for the documentary and women's film production. She is the author of D is for Daring, a history of Studio D the feminist film unit at Canada's National Film Board.

Wang Chi is a lecturer at the Communication University of China and a doctoral student at the University of Lincoln, UK. He has published widely on the documentary in Chinese, including the edited volumes (with Brian Winston) Documenting and Methods (2014).
Brian Winston was a leading figure in British media studies. He was Professor of Communications and Lincoln Chair at the University of Lincoln, UK. He held senior academic posts at UK National Film and Television School, New York University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Wales (Cardiff), and Westminster University. He authored and edited over 20 books, including Claiming the Real: The Documentary Film Revisited (British Film Institute, 1995), Technologies of Seeing: Photography, Cinema and Television (British Film Institute, 1996), Fires Were Started- (BFI Film Classics, 1999), and A Right to Offend (Bloomsbury Academic, 2012).
Gail Vanstone is the director of the Culture and Expression program at York University, Canada. She is concerned with the affordances of new technology for the documentary and women's film production. Her history of the women's film unit at Canada's National Film Board, D is for Daring, was published in 2007.
Wang Chi is a doctoral student at the University of Lincoln, UK. He has published widely on the documentary in Chinese including the edited volumes (with Brian Winston) Documenting and Methods (2014).

Table of Contents

AN AGENDA

1. “A Much Hailed Triumph”
2. “The Shakiest of Foundations”
3. The Act of Documenting

PART ONE: DIGITAL POTENTIALS

1. “A Walk in the Woods”
Image:
AUTHENTICITY: Indexing -- Evidence
TRUST: Manipulation -- Judgment
SAVVY: Inferences -- Probability

2. “A breath of fresh air for documentary”
Kit:
CONTRADICTION: Digitization -- Standards
GLOBALIZATIONi: Proliferation-- Resistance

3. “Life as narrativized”
Story:
INTERPASSIVITY: Navigation -- Feedback -- Intervention
HOMO NARRANS: Texts -- Stories
SCRIPTRIX NARRANS: Challenge --Paths

PART TWO: ACTUAL EFFECTS….

…. on THE FILMED

4. “To thine own self be true”
Performing:
APPEARING: Distrust -- Presentational Acting -- Representational Being
BEHAVING: Performativity -- Casting

5. “Giving Voice”
Co-creating:
CONTROL: Engagement -- Empowerment
CHANGE: Facilitating -- Embedding

…. on THE FILMER

6. “To Make Space For The Un-Thought”
Subjectivities:
GENDER: Narcissism -- Auto/Biography
EMANCIPATION: Exclusions -- “Facts”

7. “Nous somme dans le bain”/”We are implicated”
Care:
HARM: Involvement -- Consequences
RIGHTS: Protocols -- Control

…. on THE SPECTATOR

8. "You have to make up your own mind”
Perception:
EXPECTATIONS: Truth -- Omission
ASSUMPTONS: Wow! -- Ostranenie

9. “When the lights go up” -- Reception
OUTCOMES: Impact -- Engagement -- Research
CONDITIONS: Autonomy -- Hazards

MINUTES: THE ACT OF DOCUMENTING
Considerations

Editorial Reviews

The Act of Documentingis a first work of its kind (barring anthologies) that I have come across in the last five years that eclectically distills scholarship in ... [multiple] areas to effectively map and analyze the field of contemporary documentary studies.
Rahul Mukherjee, Film Quarterly

By shifting emphasis from the category of documentary to the diverse practices of documenting, Winston and his co-authors exchange the generic preoccupations of many past approaches for a more open exploration of what is going on audio-visually around 'the real'. Their provocative appraisal takes our understanding of international media culture to new places.
John Corner, Visiting Professor in Communication Studies, University of Leeds, UK

Fiercely argued, urgently rendered, and rigorously researched, The Act ofDocumentingwhacks through the ethical, political, moral, evidentiary, and argumentative acts undergirding documentary production and reception. This gutsy, vital book cuts to the core of documentary: it interrogates the place of documentary in the world and how it engages people and ideas in ways that truly matter. Moving adroitly between the histories of analog documentary and the promising landscapes of digital forms, this substantial, sage book irrefutably shows that ethics, politics, and philosophical inquiry override formats, interfaces, and technologies. Polemical yet lyrical, forceful yet inviting, this book leaves the reader exhilarated with new ways of thinking about and through documentary. The opening chapter précis could be assembled as an intellectual toolkit for all us in the act of documentary-theorists, historians, practitioners, programmers, or offered as a manifesto cracking open the most salient issues demanding our attention and action.
Patricia R. Zimmermann, Professor of Screen Studies, Ithaca College, USA

From the Publisher