New Technologies and Documentary Storytelling - Essay Example

? New Technologies and Documentary Storytelling Lecturer New Technologies and Documentary Storytelling Documentary storytelling involves a wide range motion nonfictional pictures that are intended to document some reality aspects, majorly for the purposes of maintaining a record of history. Traditionally, documentary films were shot on the only available medium, film stock. However, due to the current advancing new technologies, such as digital camera and video editing software that is used directly in video mode has made documentary storytelling advanced easy to produce. Documentary storytelling has been, due to the new technologies, been described as a practice of filmmaking, a mode of audience reception and a cinematic tradition that emerges continuously with no clear boundaries (Curran, 2010). The new technologies upcoming in the media industry such as video editing and digital camera software, have made documentary filmmaking a product of storyteller’s persistence and vision, the storyteller is normally the director of such documentary. Many viewers have had a stuffy perception of what constitute documentary storytelling; however, the impact of the new technologies on documentary storytelling has changed the perspective on documentary storytelling, which has become a short form of digital media production due to the presence of digital camera software. This has allowed people to across the world share the elements of their life stories. Video editing software has also enabled documentary storytelling to include film techniques that are digital equivalent, animations, motion video with sound, and other kinds of non-physical media (Nichols, 2008). New technologies are changing documentary storytelling very fast in the way they are produced, experienced, and distributed. Many media scholars have come up with numerous digital camera and video editing software that has seen documentary storytelling hit a higher notch. Production and directing has become more effective and efficient. Because of this, many people share their life stories and the natural situation of the world and real circumstances facing the world. Although media industry previously had difficulty applying media techniques to documentary storytelling, the rising technologies has made it much easier for their production. Effective documentary storytelling by storytellers is a result of personal desire to explore real life situations and share nonfictional motion pictures on televisions. The new technologies has changed documentary storytelling through the availability of photography, audio, video, and digital camera software, which has created a shift from passive media users to active media consumers. Due to these new technologies, media consumers are currently playing main roles as agents of interaction that transform media uses. Through the new technologies that acknowledge the present state of documentary storytelling in terms of production, experience, and distribution, documentary storytellers can now shed new lights when developing experiences of non-fiction media (Rony, 2007). Being a documentary filmmaker, storyteller means more than journalism profession in the media industry. This is basically because documentary storytelling involves a wide sort of motion nonfictional pictures that are intended to document some reality aspects majorly for the purposes of maintaining a record of history. This needs utilization of quite a number of media principles and regulations such as fair use of stories involving people and the world. Documentary filmmakers create an easy, clear statement of reasonable and fair approaches to fair use through their professional associations. Fair use, in some circumstances, is the right to quote materials that is copyrighted without paying for or asking authority and permission for it. Being a storyteller demands a understanding of the essential feature of copyright law. This is because copyright is very important in the profession and is applicable to the production of any kind of media production. In some situations, documentary filmmakers invoke the fair use where the value to the general public of what is being presented outweighs the cost to the personal authority to the copyright. This shows that in order to be an effective documentary filmmaker or storyteller, one must choose to whether or not depend on fair use where their media productions include the use of materials that have been copyrighted. Documentary filmmaking involves situations which documentary filmmakers embrace in their profession. The situations although do not exhaust every possible circumstance in which fair use might be applied, they mirror the most likely situations identified by documentary filmmakers at any given point. Therefore being a documentary filmmaker means one is capable of using the technologies in production, experiencing and distributing nonfictional motion pictures, and at the same time respecting the fair use principle in the profession (MacDougall, 2006). The availability of digital cameras and video editing software has additionally change storytelling in documentary films through enhancing literacy in the media arena. Some of the literacy elements that emerge due to the new technologies include: technological literacy which involves the techniques and skills required to adequately use the digital cameras and video editing software in storytelling in documentary films; visual literacy involving the interpretation of cave drawings, comprehending and decoding motion nonfictional pictures; media literacy, which are the necessary skills to evaluate, access, and create messages in oral and written language, nonfictional motion pictures, graphics, and music. Media literacy is very important to a documentary filmmaker due to the required ability to compose graphics, narration, motion pictures, and music that supplement the projects in multimedia. This literacy aids documentary filmmakers appreciate the role of media in the society and therefore important for documentary filmmaking; and information literacy which is the ability to synthesize, evaluate and analyze the discovered information. The emergence of new technologies such as digital cameras and video editing software has enabled the efficiency and effectiveness of documentary filmmaking in terms of quantity, depth, and quality of documentary films (Ginsburg, 2008). In summary, new technologies are changing storytelling in documentary films very fast in the way they are produced, experienced, and distributed. New technologies such as digital camera and video editing software have ensured storytelling in documentary films hit a higher notch. Production and directing has become more effective and efficient because of these new technologies. As mentioned earlier, the new technologies in the media industry such as video editing and digital camera software, have made documentary filmmaking a product of storyteller’s persistence and vision, this has ensured the directing of documentary films effective in terms of creation of nonfictional motion pictures and presenting reality aspects majorly for the purposes of maintaining a record of history (De Brigard, 2005). References Nichols, B. (2008). Representing Reality, New York: Prentice Hall Curran, B. (2010). Documentary Storytelling, New York: SAGE MacDougall, D. (2006). Whose Story Is It? Ethnographic Film Aesthetics and Narrative Traditions, ed. Peter I. Crawford and Jan K. Simonsen. Aarhus, Intervention Press De Brigard, E. (2005). The History of Ethnographic Film, in Principles of Visual Anthropology, ed. Paul Hockings. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Rony, F. (2007). The Third Eye: Race, Cinema and Ethnographic Spectacle. Durham, NC: Duke University Press Ginsburg, F. (2008). Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain. Berkeley, CA: University of California. Read More