DocYOUmentary

I love a good documentary, I’d probably even like one considered bad. Despite their excellence documentary film makers sometimes have a hard time getting their work seen. It has only been in recent times that they have experienced popularity. Many in documentary films in the last couple of year have made it to the big screen such as Fahrenheit 9/11, March of the Penguins, Bowling for Columbine, Super Size Me and Religulous. It is not uncommon now for documentary to also be on television. Just the other night on free to air television the brilliant Louis Theroux, documentary on Law and Disorder in Johannesburg was on.

The raise in Youtube and Google in 2006 saw the creation of the online video boom, Youtube allowing amateurs into the market and Google helped establish the relationship between distributors and studios. According to T.Austin and W.Jong, Rethinking Documentary 2009:297 “Youtube the media environment makes the most of the best of new media”. This think this is evident in the sheer popularity of the video hosting site that has millions of views on an abundance of videos made available to anybody with an internet connection.

T.Austin and W.Jong, argue what differs from documentaries online and documentaries made for channels, is weather the internet has any distinct, useful and unique characteristics that offer documentary anything more than just another form of distribution. According to them there are four characteristic that say they do;

1. Bring people together to online communities that allow them to watch something that interest them but also the opportunity to comment and produce something of their own.

2. New means of creation and distribution for campaigning documentary that seek to change people’s view points. Would their voice have been heard if unable to share their stories through traditional mediums?

3. Increased access to ‘dirty reality’ in the form of footage and events. Raw footage taken by US soldiers in the Iraq War, posting vivid images and videos of war.

4. Via the internet and online documentaries video diaries are possible. We are able to access the lives of other people who are producing their own little documentaries such as the actor Matthew Gray Gubler.

Documentaries have a place, but have to be considered in a wider sense than film and television. The limits on length and amateur production aesthetic forms that would have never made the television screen can flourish on the internet. YouTube has essentially inspired a generation of amateur documentary an outlet to create and distribute their art which is often critical of the status quo. Seen here is an example of an amateur documentary made by an enthusiast and posted on YouTube.

Documentaries reveal the truth, exposing the lies through re-enactment of events so we can better understand events happening all over the world. Bill Maher’s Religulous was an informative and eye opening documentary for me and I’m sure anyone else how has seen it. It was a very powerful piece that actually changed my religious beliefs. However I came across this via DVD. With mediums such as Youtube, the footage from this documentary has the opportunity to flow into online media sphere. With the aid of online video sharing, film makers can now post their work online regardless of the subject matter or popularity of their work.