Pete January 4, 2017

UnMediated Footage

The films of the Lumiere brothers were groundbreaking in their time; they were recording for the first time the daily lives of the people – as we discussed in exercise 3.1 the real actuality films. They consisted of unmediated footage of an event or people going about their daily lives. However, the overriding feeling I get while watching them is the that they are very much “shot from afar” and while they maybe unmediated they are scripted to sense as the Lumiere set out to make these films, cameras in those days were cumbersome and not exactly discreet. They would have spent time setting up in a situation waiting for the right time – as they are silent, we cannot hear what was happen around them. They are not spontaneous. And to watch them people hard to make an effort to go a viewing, in an early cinema, etc.

 

Over the last 120 years, technology has changed and so has how unmediated footage is collected. Documentaries and news reporting can be much more spontaneous that the days of the Lumiere’s; it can also be viewed just as spontaneously as shot. Particularly in the world today where we can shoot, edit, publish and view a piece of footage from the mobile phone most of us carry in our pocket.

Modern camera and mobile devices have lead to the fact that Youtube is full of unmediated footage and it is growing at an exponential rate, compared to the handful of images shot by the Lumiere and even how news footage was gathered less than ten years ago.

Unmediated footage always has an air of believability to it; in my opinion, this is due to how it is produced. In simple terms, our brains assume it is real because it is documenting “real life”. However, we need to look past that initial though and think how the footage was made, and edited. From what point of view it was filmed why was it filmed.

 

Let is luck for example at The Square (2013); this movie is made up of footage shot on mobile phones, individual Egyptian filmmakers and news footage to provide a narrative arc to the Taharia Square revolution in Egypt. The Square an observational documentary and how the footage is used makes you feel you are part of the conversations between the revolutionaries (or at least a close observer). The insertion of news footage at appropriate regular intervals help keep updated in the context of the action leading to greater empathy with the six main activists portrayed.

The Square is very real in its portray of its subject, even more so than for example “Roger & Me” I think mainly this because of the absence of the “Michael Moore” figure driving the film – just develops almost organically in from the viewer.

All documentary is propaganda