Technology In The Wild Assignment

On the afternoon of April 8th of 2016 I ventured out to the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina with one of my fellow classmates. The festival is an annual festival that has been going on for 19 years taking place in historic downtown Durham. Before going to the film festival I had no idea what to expect but it really was an experience unlike any other. Unfortunately because I did not know what to expect, my classmate and I poorly planned our timing of our arrival at the festival because all of the films had already began to play when we got there so we had to wait two hours until the next set of films would start to play. At first we were bummed by this as we had two hours to kill with nothing to do but it allowed us to explore the film festival and downtown Durham which in the end was rewarding as we even stopped to get some ice cream. As the movie theatre and the couch in my living room being the only places I go to watch movies, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival was an exciting and intriguing experience. The festival showed me a whole different type of atmosphere than a traditional movie theatre and it also showed me how much people love and appreciate documentaries. Before this festival I had never really watched a full documentary before because I also believed they were just their typical stereotype of “boring” but Full Frame has made me give documentaries a new found respect for them. Full Frame Documentary Film Festival honors every part of movies and documentaries, from the director, to the cameramen, to the place that they are shooting at and to the editors who piece the films together. Full Frame brings people together to share their appreciation and love of interest in documentaries.

Downtown Durham is a historical place that is home to many film festivals each year. The most well-known and biggest festival is Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, it is internationally known and thousands attend (Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau). Full Frame represents the history of films in a perfect way. Because the festival takes place in the historic part of downtown it makes you feel like you are back in the 50s seeing an old movie. When arriving at the festival I was astonished at the architecture of the building that most of the festival was held in, the Caroline Theatre. The inside of the building was so regal and grand looking. There were bold marquee signs that really made a statement and the red curtains around the actual movie screen added a nice touch of elegance to the room. The Carolina Theatre made you feel connected to the film festival and connected to the documentary you were about to see. While at the film festival I just wanted to take everything all in because there was so much detail and amazing art that I got to experience there.

Interestingly enough, aside from the grand Carolina Theatre where documentaries were played they also played some of them in the Durham Central Park. The Central Park was the place to be at nighttime, it was packed and alive with lots of people. The Central Park was all outside and really a neat place to be. There was a blow up movie screen in the middle of the park where they were to play “(Dis)honesty the Truth About Lies” later in the evening. While waiting for documentary to start I got to explore around Central Park. Lined up along the side of the park were all different types of food trucks like “Chirba Chirba Dumpling” and “Ice Cream 2.” The Central Park made me feel like I was in the movie “Grease” when they went to a drive-in movie but instead I was sitting on the lawn instead of inside a car. I did not realize before I came that so many people would be there, I was honestly amazed at how packed it was. There were so many people there and they all were very prepared, they had blankets to lay on, folding chairs to sit on and coolers filled with plenty of refreshments. I believe the film festival brought everyone back to the way films were originally be meant to seen. I feel like in today’s society everyone just watches Netflix on their own on their laptops and iPhones, I know in my apartment we will all be in our separate bedrooms at times watching different movies all by ourselves. Lynn Spigel discusses in her article “Making Room for TV” how the television was brought into homes to gather the family together and around it just like the film festival gather thousands of people to the even to watch documentaries together (Spigel 238).

One unique thing I realized at the film festival was everyone was so passionate about the films and the festival. Before the documentary I watched while there started “(Dis)honesty the Truth About Lies,” a man gave out to give a little speech about the film and say how proud he was of it. You could truly tell that everyone cared about the films so much. All of the volunteers and employees there were so helpful as well. When first arriving at the festival I probably looked like I was out of place and had no idea what I was doing or where to go because a lady came over to see if I needed any help and gave me a booklet that had everything I needed to know about the festival and more. She and her co-volunteers told me about the festival and what films were going to be playing for the rest of the night. They all had already seen all the films or heard about all of them so they were able to give me a run-down on them so I could try to choose the documentary that I thought I would like best. I believe the helpful volunteers really added to the vibe of the festival and made it such a welcoming place. There were so many people that helped plan this event that it would not have run smoothly without them all. The director of the festival was Deirde Haj along with the director of the documentary studies, Wesley Hogan. There were also employees involved in programming, marketing, production, development, administrative and technical staff. Besides from all of them there were also around 355 volunteers for the festival. Although I was what seemed to be like one of the few without an official lanyard pass around my neck I still felt like I fit in there.

The stage for the modern film industry has been set since 1893 according to Daniel Czitrom when the invention of film first started by a peep hole kinetoscope (Czitrom 161). Today, our film technology has greatly advanced to make 3D movies involving real life looking animations and CGI (Kirby). While watching “(Dis)honesty the Truth About Lies” I could not help but realize how greatly edited the documentary was. A great shift in digital cinema has been, “the new role which computer generated special effects have come to play in Hollywood industry” (Manovich 6). When making a documentary usually a person will just be sitting telling a story or interviewing for maybe hours upon hours explaining everything that happened. Most people forget how there is someone behind the scenes who has to sit through watching that footage of hours and hours editing it to all piece together as one and compile it down so it is not as long. As I have learned while making my video for my final project portfolio for class, it takes a lot of time to edit video the way you want it to be.

Full Film brings people together to watch films, that has always been the purpose of making films. Within the last decade documentaries have “experienced a surge in mainstream popularity” creating more people wanting to watch documentaries (Coffman 62). I remember when “March of the Penguins” came out in 2005 and everyone in my class wanted to see it. Documentaries have become more popular. Documentaries are also starting to be shown now more in classrooms. Teachers are using documentaries to have their students learn how to deal with social issues, “they prefer a straightforward, tell-it-like-it-is approach” (Wilson). Films have grown to be used for just entertaining families in their living room to being used for educational purposes. While watching the documentary I was honestly surprised about how intrigued I was in the film. It surprised me that even though there was no planned out climax or script I still was so engaged in the film even though it was just all raw material pieced together.

Something I found so interesting about the documentaries is that they were real. They were not real how today’s reality TV shows are like “The Bachelor” and “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” they were actually real. What happened in the documentaries was not planned, it was real life situations and problems. While reading “Taking Digital Stories to Another Level: Making Documentaries” one point that stuck with me was, “there are four aspects to a documentary: to uncover, influence, examine, and explain” (Martinez-Alba 743). I found this to be contrary to what most digital films are made to be. People go to the movie theatre to watch a movie for entertainment, people watch Netflix because they want a distraction from having to do their homework, people watch sit-coms on their television because they are funny. Whether a television episode or a movie, people are constantly engaged in watching some type of show. The creation of mobile streaming on devices like our laptops and cellphones have made watching digital media easily accessible at all times with just the touch of a button. Families no longer have to gather around the television in the living room to watch shows. Total cinema has this concept that its purpose is to create a complete illusion of life (Bazin 235).

What I find so interesting is how can documentaries be so successful when the purpose of total cinema is to create illusions? Documentaries show real people in real places doing real things. Documentaries do not create an illusion of life at all, they show exactly what is going on and what is happening, nothing is scripted or planned. I find it so interesting that documentaries are growing and becoming more popular even though they have the concept of total cinema completely backwards. The purpose of the television was to bring families together. Our society today watches TV on their own; mom can be watching a show on her iPad, dad can be watching on his laptop, a child can be watching on their iPhone and the other child can be watching on the actual TV. Everyone might be physically together in the same room doing this but they are not actually engaged and interacting together. The way we watch television shows today is not how the television was intended for use, and just like that, the way documentaries are today is not technically how digital media was intended to be either. Our society has taken our technology above and beyond making us all so connected to it.

The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival brings people together how digital media was created to. Today’s documentaries are improving with the new technological skills being developed to create new editing effects and better film quality. At the festival people enjoy the company of other people and get to engage with them. During these documentaries the people laugh together, they cry together and at the end they always stand up and clap together. Going to Full Frame was something that I never would have gone to on my own or even thought have doing but I am glad that I was able to experience it and I really do believe that it is something everyone should experience at least once in their life. The atmosphere was great and the documentaries were moving.

Sources:

All photos taken by Maria Goudy

(Dis)honesty the Truth About Lies. Dir. Yale Melamede. Perf. Dan Ariely. Salty Features, 2015. Film.

Bazin, A. (1967). The Myth of Total Cinema. In Hugh Grey (trans. and ed.), What is Cinema?: Volume 2. Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press, 23–27.

Coffman, Elizabeth. “Documentary and Collaboration: Placing the Camera in the Community.” University of Illinois Press 61.1 (2009): 62–72. Project Muse. University of Illinois Press, Spring 2009. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.

Czitrom, D. (2011). Early motion pictures. In D. Crowley and P. Heyer (eds.), Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society (6th edition). New York: Routledge, 161–168.

DCVB. “Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.” — Durham, NC. Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau, 2016. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.

Kirby, Thomas. “New Immersive Technology Shaping the 21st Century Documentary?” Fishermen to Architects (2013): n. pag. Fishermen to Architects. Fishermen to Architects, 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.

Manovich, L. (1995). What is Digital Cinema?. Manovich.net. http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/what-is-digital-cinema

Martinez-Alda, Gilda. “Taking Digital Media Stories to Another Level: Making Documentaries.” 21st-Century Language Skills 5.4 (2014): 743. TESOL, Dec. 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.

Spigel, L. (2011). Making room for TV. In D. Crowley and P. Heyer (eds.), Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society (6th edition). New York: Routledge, 237–244.

Wilson, Robert D. “Making Social Issues Relevant with Documentaries.” Video Toolbox (2011): n. pag. Video Toolbox. Video Toolbox, 2011. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.