On Friday 20 July we were treated to a Lunchtime Talk by Studio Resident Mandy. Mandy Rose is a Senior Research Fellow at the Digital Cultures Research Centre, University of the West of England. She came to the Studio having spent two decades working on interactive and participatory media projects. She was co-founder of BBC 2’s Video Nation project, and as Editor of New Media at BBC Cymru Wales she oversaw award-winning projects including Capture Wales, Voices and MyScienceFictionLife.

Co-creation, crowd-funding, open rights frameworks and distribution; Mandy’s talk looked at the changing face of documentary in a networked culture. Mandy opened the talk by showing the ways in which media has changed over the last century:
 
Then

Media is scarce - made by professionals, it's expensive to create
Consumption is common

Now

Content is common
Media is social
Interacting is ordinary   
Attention is scarce

Mandy then went on to talk specifically about the changing face of documentaries and the co-creative processes that have emerged in the last decade. She spoke about the opening up in form, funding arrangements, production processes and the platforms used to create content. She illustrated the process by recent examples and productions.   

CROWD FUNDING

Mandy talked about how crowd funding has introduced a new way in which documentaries can be funded. It has enabled documentaries that may have been turned down by broadcaster to raise the vital funds they need for their projects to go ahead.  Producers are able to post information about their projects on the crowd funding sites and offer incentives to raise donations. While not all projects succeed, crowd funding sites have become hugely successful; US based Kickstarter recently announced that in 2012 they’re expecting to raise more money than the National Endowment for the Arts.   

The Age of Stupid
http://www.spannerfilms.net/
The pioneering crowd funding project was Franny Armstrong’s documentary The Age of Stupid. It stars Pete Postlewaite as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, caused by Climate Change. The film’s £450,000 budget was raised from selling shares to over 200 individuals and groups. It allowed the production company to raise vital funds but still retain complete editorial control.


Sound It Out
http://www.sounditoutdoc.com/
Mandy then spoke about Sound It Out; a documentary about the last surviving vinyl record shop in Teesside, North East England, directed by Jeanie Finlay. The project was turned down by broadcasters so Jeanie decided to try and fund the project by crowd funding. Mandy said that she learnt from speaking to Jeanie, that although the money was important, what really encouraged her in the process was the amount of support from the community that formed around the project. Mandy said that from the success of this documentary Jeanie has been offered a commission by a broadcaster for her next project, but she is still exploring the idea of crowd funding again because of the amazing experience she had with Sound It Out. Jeanie has also recently launched a collaborative section to the website where people are able to leave their own memories of record shops around the country. Despite it only being live for around a month there are already quite a few contributions, suggesting the community sprit goes on.

OPEN RIGHTS

Mandy then spoke of one of the most exciting developments in licensing for media which has recently started to be used by documentary makers. The Creative Commons copyright license creates a middle ground between the traditional “all rights reserved” settings and giving up your rights completely. It gives individuals and companies various standardised way to grant copyright permission for their work, allowing possibilities such as distribution, sharing and mixing of content as long as credit is given.

[NO-RES]
http://no-res.cc/en/
Mandy introduced [NO-RES] a documentary that has been made with a Creative Common licence. The project is a portrayal of everyday life in one of the last remaining workers neighbourhood in Barcelona as it faces gentrification. As with Sound It Out broadcasters had turned down the project. When the project gathered a large movement around it the broadcasters eventually came back and agreed to show it even with the creative commons license.
 
Global lives
http://globallives.org/en/
Since 2004 a group of nearly 1000 volunteers have between them created ten, 24hour documentaries that portray life on earth. The subjects of the documentary have all been picked specifically so between them they are accurate representation of people within the world looking at factors such as gender, race, income and religion. The footage they’ve shot around the world has provoked interest from linguists and because of the creative commons licensing they have the freedom to study and use the footage. Mandy spoke of the interesting spin-offs that appear when documentaries use the creative commons licensing.    

“A POLITICS OF CONVENINGS”

Mandy explained that open platforms have begun to encourage producers to use documentaries not simply to reflect an issue but as a way of convening political debate and conversation in the process of production.

Mapping Main Street
http://www.mappingmainstreet.org/
Mapping Main Street is a collaborative documentary media project that creates a new map of the USA based on stories, photos and videos recording on all streets called Main Street. The project evolved because Main Street became a term that politicians and the media used to evoke a certain type of person and place. In actual fact there are over 10,466 streets named Main in the United States; not all of them the idealist view that the politicians wanted to portray. Already 822 Main Streets have been documented, and the number is rising.  

The Waiting Room
http://www.whatruwaitingfor.com/
The Waiting Room is a documentary film and media story telling project led by Peter Nicks. Filmed in the Highland Hospital in California it follows the life of patients, doctors and staff and examines what life is like in an American public hospital caring for a community of largely uninsured patients. The project includes a blog and interactive storytelling booths in hospital waiting rooms. The website will become an archive for the testimonials from people living without health insurance, it aims to throw the spotlight on the American Health care system.    

How to Survive the Future
http://howtosurvivethefuture.org/
How to survive the Future is a documentary by Bristol-based filmmaker and performer Naomi Smyth and her husband Sam. The project was a response to Naomi and their friend's fears of an imminent world disaster caused by; climate change, natural disasters, pollution or nuclear war. They aim to meet people to learn about their opinions on the future and pick up skills along the way to prepare themselves. Naomi recently gave a Lunchtime Talk about the project, you can read the blog here. 

Hamedullah: The Road Home
http://www.hamedullahtheroadhome.com/
Hamedullah: The Road Home is a documentary by Sue Clayton. Sue made the documentary in response to finding out about the deportation of young adult refugees. As children they are protected by the UK Children’s Act but as soon as they reach 18 this protection vanishes and they are often transported back to the war zones they were fleeing. The documentary tells the story of Hamedullah Hassany a young teen that fled to the UK from Afghanistan, only to be taken in a dawn raid at 18 and deported back home. Sue wanted to raise awareness of the issue and gave Hamedullah a camera to record life back home; the documentary is a result of his filming. The film has become a catalyst, and has even been used by barristers representing young refugees in court.

ARE YOU HAPPY?

Mandy then introduced us to her own work-in-progress, “The Are You Happy? Project” a revisited sequence of Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s seminal documentary “Chronique d’un Ete”. Exactly fifty years ago, Marceline Loridan and Nadine Baillot asked people on the streets of Paris, 'Are you happy?' The Are you happy? project is finding out what happens when we ask the same question in the global environment of the web today. Mandy has invited filmmakers around the world to contribute to the project by asking; ‘Are you happy?’ in their own neighbourhoods.The films are made available on http://theareyouhappyproject.org/ where visitors can explore the different content. Mandy is using the open source tool Mozilla Popcorn Maker to integrate social media content with the new footage. By linking up twitter and flicker feeds to the videos she is adding cultural and news context in real time.  


Mandy explained that we are beginning to see documentaries that aren’t fixed, but can be evolved and changed in relation to other content online. The face of documentary is changing and now the field is open...