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Jamaican Gang Culture And South African Drug Culture – Unreported World

Byrichard

As I write this I am happy that I have been to watch quite a few interesting documentaries at the Frontline Club. The two most recent were made for Channel 4’s Unreported World. This is channel four’s “acclaimed foreign affairs series” and covers a number of topics. The two documentaries I watched were South Africa: Children of the Lost Generation and  Jamaica: Guns votes and money.


Both are investigative observational documentaries showing the progress made by the journalists as they try to uncover the stories that other documentary channels cover. The South African documentary gave an insight into the drug Tik and how, although it is mainly affecting those in the slums is also coming to the wealthier white areas as well. It is well shot and there are a few interesting interviews that give us a good insight into the problem.


When it comes to the Jamaican documentary it is interesting because of the way it has covered the gang and gun culture found in certain areas. The documentary maker and his crew were fortunate to find people that would allow them to come into this gang culture and learn more about the daily lives of these people.


During the Questions and answers session we learned more about the process, how they did some forms of pre-production before arriving, how they had difficulties speaking with Police but how the gang members welcomed them in. When asked how they were allowed to film the gangs they couldn’t really explain it. They did express disappointment, especially for the Jamaica story, on how they had been unable to cover the police point of view, and how the documentary would have gone in another direction.


Watching documentaries is a passion of mine so getting to listen to and meet the people who create these documentaries is great. Hearing the questions that people ask is also interesting because of the little details you learn through the in-depth knowledge certain of these individuals have.

A crude Awakening, the oil crash

Byrichard

What makes a good documentary is the quality of the interviews and how they are put together to inform and educate us on the topic they are tackling. A Crude Awakening – The Oil Crash is a perfect example of this. Using a great wealth of interviews and archive material it illustrates why the current consumption of oil is unsustainable. It is well constructed and has a strong message.


Basil Gelpke, born in 1962, in Basel, Switzerland has had an interesting career. He studied anthropology, economics, and the production of scientific films. He went from working in advertising to 24hr news with the European Business channel during which he got promoted to become the channel’s Paris correspondent. On assignment in South East Asia he was one of the first journalists to venture into Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. He would later help setup N-TV, a 24hr news channel in Berlin. He did some work on the Swiss Survivor series and “Expedition Robinson” programs. In 2002 he read a paper from the Sydney based Hedge Fund on the topic of decreasing oil reserves and spent many years researching the documentary before finishing this documentary for a screening at SXSW2006.


Look out for this documentary, it’s an interesting piece of documentary making.

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Life on earth – as told by David Attenborough

Byrichard

Natural history is an interesting topic to study although whatching the documentaries can be quite challenging. Today I decided to buy a piece of documentary result and as a result I have struggled to stay awake for over two hours.

It is not that I do not like these documentaries and it is not that I have not slept enough but simply that by their very nature early documentaries make staying awake a challenge. We’re all familiar with that feeling. As children we would be trapped listening to people for up to 8hrs a day five days a week for weeks on end. It meant that we would have to find any method possible to stay awake.

That is not what I have learned from watching these two life on earth documentaries. What I have learned and what I have thought about is the nature of the documentary genre and how it has evolved over the past three decades.

When Cousteau and David Attenborough were making their documentaries they were exploring a new world in a new age of discovery. Technological innovation had made the move from exploration of land into the exploration of the sea. Cousteau spent hundreds of hours underwater learning about the marine world and David Attenborough created his documentaries over a decade later.

Cousteau spent hours and hours telling us about how his team were working and exploring the new frontier, showing how exciting it was. David Attenborough came along fifteen years later and spoke of a 24 year old Darwin who came to the Galapagos Islands to begin his studies which would lead to his theory of evolution many years later.

Documentary production, like all art forms has a natural progression with cross pollination between disciplines and nations. The dissertation I’m working on will explore this much further.

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Dziga Vertov, the Kino Glaz and Web 2.0

Byrichard

How many of you have a digital photo camera and how many of you have uploaded pictures you’ve taken to the web? How many of you have browsed through thousand of stranger’s photographs?

I was in a lecture a few days ago and we were discussing jennycam and how it was something new, something that would lead to BigBrother. Apparently she was creating something new, something that had never thought of before.

That is only partially true and here’s the reason why.

Dziga Vertov lived in Russia at the beginning of the last century and at the time he worked in radio. His name, Dziga Vertov translated means spinning top. He began his work as a revolutionary when Lenin was still around. He was known for the programs he created. Within a short of time, he progressed onto the Agit trains and into film. The Agit trains were developed to carry information around the Soviet Union, in order to make sure that people all around this vast country would have a sense of belonging.

He developed a theory which was based around the Kino Glaz, the all-seeing eye, Kino is cinema, glaz, is glass. In other words the cinema glass. The idea which he developed, the vision he had was to get the video cameras everywhere and capture life unawares as he called them. In other words, he wanted to film ordinary people going about their ordinary lives without them acting for the camera.

This was a revolutionary concept that got him labeled by Sergei Eisenstein as a”film hooligan”. Keep in time Eisenstein’s famous sequences. Massive shadows on walls, vast skies, and highly staged video sequences. He created the theorie du montage(theory of construction – my translation) after all. In other words, he believed everything was staged.

If you’ve heard of “The Man With the Movie Camera” then you have seen “an experiment in six reels”. What Dziga Vertov did pre 1929 was do what Jean Rouch would do with André Coutant’s handheld cameras almost half a decade later.

What Dziga Vertov did first showed the theatre room, the seats animated to go down, the arc light to be set to produce a bright spark, and for the film to begin. He then proceeded to show the city waking up and continued from there. He juxtaposed the shots of the eyelids fluttering and the shutters, he got a person waking up from a bench and the city to start it’ daily activities. He was in effect not using narration in any strict sense of the term. It was nothing more than a collection of shots.

Aside from the shots, he showed his wife editing frame. It begins with nothing more than one frame, then a strip, then a person looking at one shot, another and we see it being assembled into a sequence. We see the camera move into a glass, move of its own accord, and more.

He was playing and he was setting the stage for something that would become increasingly important over time. Leni Riefenstahl in Triumph of the Will uses hundreds of cameras given to the audience to document the events (and spent three years editing the material) whilst the European Broadcasting Union had the first International broadcast in 1956. It was a moment in life seen from various capital cities in Europe. Each national audience could see that of many other countries. Vertov’s vision has just expanded.

As the technology evolved so people began to film everyday life, 16mm, VHS, Hi8, DV, and digital. They’re all mediums that allow for the capturing of life unawares. It’s the all-seeing eye. In the past five years, there’s been an explosion. Everyone has a digital camera, whether a crappy phone camera or a 12megapixel single-lens reflex. People are uploading these images to Flickr, to Zoomr, to Facebook. Everywhere. As a result of The kino glaz, all-seeing eye Vertov talked about is now mature.

The most recent event though has to be justin.tv, a San Franciscan who has decided to document his everyday life with a camera strapped to his head. No longer is the apartment enough. Now the world is seeing the daily life of a San Franciscan. Remember timecode? It’s like that but one person and live. There is no editing, no staging. I must admit there are some pranksters.

I listened to an interview he did for television where he spoke of people calling in a bust on his apartment, ordering pizza for him, and more. Quite amusing, far better than big brother.

To conclude I think that we’ve come to the All-seeing eye that Dziga Vertov was talking about almost a century ago and I find that it’s great. I love the idea that every aspect of life is being documented extensively.

Swimming Birds

Byrichard

The Planet Earth and Blue Planet documentaries have some amazing footage and some great sights. One of those greats sights is that which starts with birds sitting in the middle of the ocean because the wind is too weak for them to glide. You see the superpod of dolphins and a cluster of those dolphins leave to hunt.

The wind picks up and the birds begin to fly. As they fly we see the dolphins get closer to their quarry. A school of fish. The dolphins bring the fish up to the surface, within diving range of the birds. The birds can go as far down as fifteen meters to get their prey.

You see the dolphins who help the birds get their lunch. Without the dolphins, the birds would have little food.

The dolphins have left and the tuna arrive. They create an artificial seafloor and the birds keep munching and diving for fish.

It’s an amazing sight. There are hundreds of fish and hundreds of birds underwater at the same time. It’s amusing to see how they flap their wings to get down and grab their prey, then point upwards and float back to the surface.

It’s only within the past two months that I learned that birds can swim underwater.

Ducks do it to get to their algae in ice ponds but only whilst the current is not too strong to drown them.

The birds described above do it to get their prey.

Yet another species of birds dive bombs and leaves trails of bubbles behind them.

Ahhh, the things one must watch for dissertation research.

Henry Dunant and IDHR

Byrichard

Whilst doing my work last week in Geneva I was told that I had to include footage from the Film “Henry Dunant – Du Rouge sur la croix”. I didn’t get to watch the film until today but I enjoyed it. it’s an interesting film for anyone who has been brought up in Geneva to watch.

There are two cities in the World that have the United Nations, New York in the US and Geneva in Switzerland. Both these locations are important but Geneva is seen by some as the capital of Human rights.

Henry Dunant is an important figure in the history of International Human Rights (DIH) because when in Solferino after seeing the ravages of war he wanted to help anyone affected by conflict, no matter the nationality, religion or ethnic background. In effect for him they were “brothers in arms” to quote the film.

The film itself is well shot, has a good rythm and a good pacing. It tells the story without getting bogged down in details and serves as a taster for those who would like to do more research on the subject. The acting is good and it’s amusing to see the old town of Geneva in a film, especially since those are the streets around which I have spent many hours on a number of weekend evenings.

I love the international aspect of Geneva. I’ve done work for the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Labour Organisation, I’ve been accredited to the United Nations on three seperate occasions, each one for over a month and I’ve done work for the World Health Organisation.

I have been through Two International Labour Conferences, the first ever General Staff meeting of UNAIDS and on the lighter side I’ve been to two Student League of Nations as a precursor.

This is part of the reason for which I see Globalisation not as a form of corportage agrandisement but rather as a coming together of the world’s population, living according to specic rules and guidelines which means that we are compassionate about ethnic diversity and co-habitation.

Where are you from is not to find out what village or town you’re from but what country. This is because we follow world news and international politics. We are aware of every continent and aspects of many cultures. That’s why we watch BBC World when we have the chance and read the international newspapers.

If you have the opportunity of seeing Henry Dunant then do so, it’s worth it.

On Al Gore winning the Oscar for best documentary

Byrichard

I am greartly pained and sadened to see that Al Gore won the oscar for best documentary for “An Inconvenient truth”. I find that this is absolute lunacy and there is reasoning behind this statement.

In the United Kingdom you’ve got the British Broadcasting Corporation working on some beautiful documentary. Just look at Deep Blue, The Blue Planet and more recently the Planet Earth Series. Those are beautiful documentaries showing the world in such a good light. Those documentaries were produced over a period of three years or more using the world as a backdrop. The cinematography is amazing and they had 6 million people watching when they were first aired. They are beautiful peices of work.

Al Gore’s documentary is awful in comparison. For the voice over and script they did nothing more than film him giving a speech whilst throwing in the occasional related shot. I tried watching that piece of crap and got bored.

Why are so many people making such a fuss about something that’s been mentioned in hundreds of documentaries before this one. If you turn on any of the discovery channels there’s a good chance that you’ll find some beautifully produced documentary with higher production values exploring the subject in a far more esthetic and effective manner.

Is it getting an oscar simply because it’s by Al Gore? If that’s the case then all the negative comments that people have made about the oscars are justified. That’s not a documentary. It’s someone giving a speech which have a few shots inserted to give the illusion of the documentary tradition.

Where are the interviews? Where are the experts?

If the Oscar’s judges consider that oscar worthy then I will think twice about watching oscar awarded documentaries mockumentaries.

Previous Best Documentary award winner so I suppose it’s not that bad overall

Much clearer

Byrichard

I went for a meeting today and the documentary idea is far clearer now than before. Thanks to the help of the tutor I’ve got a far more focused way of looking at the question I wanted to ask. I still need to write a third draft of the proposal and get it approved.

In the meantime I can already start writing the introduction to the dissertation explaining the context and setting the scene for the remainder of the document.

Going to be fun from now on.

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Deep blue

Byrichard

It’s fun to watch documentaries when you know that they spent at least two to three years in the making. I like the documentary because it’s an opera rather than a documentary. There is a minimum of comment and a maximum of shots. There are some sequences where you see things happening in front of the camera and it switches to a second camera. That’s because for sequences like the penguins jumping out of the water they filmed it with one film camera and one pole.

Doesn’t that make you wish you were studying a media BA. where part of your studies is television. Every field of studies has it’s advantages.

One person I know is studying James Bond films, another is doing Disney cartoons. I’m doing underwater documentaries between France and England. Another is doing something related to social elements and zombies. One is doing special effects

It’s a broad range and that should make it more interesting to those that have to read through all this content.

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On dissapointment

Byrichard

Student unions are one of the best places to meet people and make new contacts. It’s a place where drinks are cheap and normal rules no longer apply.

At least that’s what they’d have you believe. The undercroft is one of the worst student bars in the United Kingdom for a number of reasons, firstly the prices, highest in the UK, secondly the location, a basement with rats scurrying about. thirdly poor management, the reason for which many of the staff quit the job.

For over two months now I’ve been unable to go due to the management, not the staff, taking a dislike to me.

I went in today, not planning to get anything to drink because a friend wanted to drop down. The manager took a minute or two before he asked me to leave. I had not had the time to do anything of any sort.

I’m disappointed because tonight is the first night that everyone is back from holiday and I can’t go to be with those I’ve studied and had fun with for two years. I enjoyed the convenience of that bar being so close. After tonight the bar is so empty there is no reason to go anyway but tonight could have been different.

On the positive side, I’ve just started my six-day weekend and one friend in the same year is wondering what to do to occupy all our free time. Shall we find work, shall we live at home and commute only for the lessons? Shall we spend three or four days a week on dissertation work? I think so.

I need to find work. I need to carry out phase two of the research, interviews, and discussion groups before starting phase three, the first draft, and subsequent copies.

Last night I watched the Nile DVD and it’s interesting to see how different it is. It’s an anthropological documentary, taking time to speak first about the geography of the place, secondly about the people and thirdly about how they’re affecting the environment. It’s an interesting documentary that lasts about 100 minutes, 50 minutes per part. Already I’ve written notes about it and I’m getting closer to seeing how it’ll fit in as one of the case examples for what I’m talking about.

I still need to read through the two dissertations I have. It’s going to be interesting to have so much time to work on one project. A documentary about the differences and similarities between the two documentary genre.

Hours of fun as long as I organise my time so well as not to feel any pressure.