Interactive Documentary Reading List

3. 5 Tips for Transmedia Storytelling

4. The Creativity of web documentaries

5. i-Docs and beyond: 5 things to consider

6. Mapping the intersection of two cultures: Interactive documentary and digital journalism.

8. Evaluating Interactive Documentaries: Audience, Impact and Innovation in Public Interest Media.

Evaluating Interactive Documentaries: Audience, Impact and Innovation in Public Interest Media by Sean Flynn.

Introduction to chapter 1.4 “Theories of Change”.

For this reading reflection, I did a backward order by reading the last article that I put on the reading list. The article by Sean Flynn entitled Evaluating Interactive Documentaries: Audience, Impact and Innovation in Public Interest Media (2015) is a scientific paper intended as part of his thesis project in fulfilling a degree of Master of Science in Comparative Media Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I was dragged to read more about this thesis after I read the abstract, which is fascinated me because it tells about the intersection between the changes on several institution investments in documentary media, to engage a new public audience and the attempt to achieve more impact by conducting more accessible stories through digital technologies. This thesis explores three public interest media organizations, such as; the National Film Board of Canada, POV and the New York Times. Using the “theories of change” framework and questioning how to measure the qualitative and quantitative impact of the interactive documentary made by those three institutions opened my eye on how to understand the concept behind the interactive documentary.

The introduction chapter and the first few chapters unexpectedly talk about the birth of an alternative media such as the original term of “documentary” itself. The documentary was born as part of the wide variety of media (Cinema, TV, still image, print, radio, etc.) which socially engaged storytelling. The documentary has been always a hybrid and alternative media formed by a wide range of aesthetic and rhetorical functions. The fluidity of the medium that makes documentary able to adapt in an era defined by rapid changing in the media environment, especially the recent shifts of networked digital media technologies — from the Wen to social media to smartphones. Janet Murray as mentioned in the article described interactive documentary with four key principals; procedural, participatory, spatial and encyclopedic. She predicted that digital media platforms would enable radically different storytelling forms to be invented, though the possibility discussion gearing towards the interactive fiction, it has been the traditions of nonfiction storytelling (documentary and journalism) that confront the narrative potentials of non-linear networked digital media.

What more interesting is the emerging interactive documentary should not be considered as just an extension of linear filmmaking, but rather they represent “the birth of new art form” as told by Tom Perlmutter, former commissioner of NFB Canada. The discussion then lies to the involvement of the audience in the interactive documentary production, which they tend to be more active, more engaged, giving more attention, enhanced learning, and hopefully create more empathy. The main questions of this thesis are seeking some answers in terms of the political economy of interactive documentary and some speculations about how these forces are influencing both the aesthetic and social potentials of the documentary in digital platforms. The perspective of “theories of change” that the author uses to contextualize this thesis described in the first chapter as a story of how alternative media play an important role in the development of general documentary production. It starts with the story of John Grierson and his colleagues Colin Low discuss an experiment filmmaking process to directly affecting social change in Fogo island. And I believe that in this context this is the birth of the participatory approach to filmmaking, which positions the audience as a collaborator of the film production.

Reflecting on what I have been reading so far and looking back to my professional background as a documentary filmmaker, the concept of interactive documentary is not as simple as transferring the story into a different medium. Many other aspects need to be considered when we want to produce an interactive documentary. For instance, the most important thing is the role of the user as a new audience, as well as the based medium of the interactivity which I never expected lies in the production process of web development instead of regular film production.

i-Docs and beyond: 5 things to consider

For this second reading reflection, I continue to read the other articles on my reading list. Throughout the first five articles that I put on the list, I stumbled upon one article from the i-Docs website. i-Docs is a website dedicated to people who involved with or interested in interactive and immersive documentary. This website was built as part of a research project by the Digital Cultures Research Centre at UWE Bristol, UK. By far this website is the most comprehensive resource about the interactive documentary. From their website I discovered many more resources that really useful for developing an interactive documentary project, including the theoretical definition of what it means to be an interactive documentary, I also found many documentations about tools, ways of working in collaboration using the online platform as well as funding resources for making an interactive documentary.

Interactive documentary indeed is not a new term or even a new medium that has just recently emerged, so to understand what it means to create and enjoy an interactive documentary project, these five points are very important to consider;

#1. Definition

This point discusses the theoretical concept behind what has expanded in terms of a traditional documentary (linear film) to the interactive documentaries, including the discussion on the languages and tools of the medium.

#2. Lean forward, lean back (user engagement)

Interactive means user engagement and it also about how to measure user behavior.

#3. Participation

In a documentary film, the ethical question between the producer and the subject has always been present, here in an interactive documentary more participation between them is encouraged in regards to the previous point about user engagement.

#4. Live documentary

There was uncertain meaning about this point in the article, but what I understand is that interactive documentary should be evolving. Since most of the interactive documentary will be published online, it shouldn’t be stopped only in one story. It has to keep growing with more additional story adapting the technological advancement.

#5. Funding

Compare to the traditional documentary, there are limited numbers of funding that support new media/interactive documentary projects. I believe, it will be a lot more in the future, but this is the most important resource that I found from the article.

Reflecting on my current stage of producing my first ever working in collaboration within an interactive documentary project Soul of Athens 2020 project, I would agree with point #4 that interactive documentary should be evolving and never stop. That’s how I understand why the Soul of Athens project has been built differently every year, even it becomes a learning process on the making-process since tools, languages, ways of storytelling are always changing. The last part is on the point #5, I am also on the stage of developing a new interactive/participative platform of animated documentary for my thesis project and I desperately need some resources of funding.

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