If you want to watch documentaries, it’s time to turn the television off. Even just for four minutes. All over the world. With the uptake of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), real-time screenings of short documentaries (like those on 4Docs) are possible, as well as the world’s first ever simultaneous screening of a feature documentary which happened on 21 March with the film The Planet. Here are new ways of seeing ‘real’.
FourDocs, an online documentary ‘channel’ for 4-minute documentaries launched by Channel 4 in mid 2005, has built a sizeable platform now for budding film-maker talent to make and screen their own bite-sized pieces of work online. The basic brief is that films must be 4-minutes long, and comply with the technical and legal points associated with online content. Highly rated films on the site prove just how many topics can be touched in 4 minutes, such as What Are You Hugging? about Speaker’s Corner in London. As a resource for film students, 4Docs is a goldmine of knowledge, offering production advice and documented historical evidence of the documentary form. Also, this little piece A Very Simple Doc, is one of many offerings of wisdom on the site making a simple point about the often complex task of documentary making. And if you thought that Romeo and Juliet was a love story, wait till you see She – it very nearly brings a tear. And in less than 4 minutes.
Film-makers whose pieces make it up online have often added their websites and details and can also log on and comment online. This is all a far cry from where British documentary began almost a century ago with Greiersonian voice-of-god commentary pounding out the ‘truth’ to a passive public. The latest invitation to innovate at 4Docs is the 3 Minute wonder series, working around the theme of ‘films that reveal the complexity of everyday life’. Film-maker makes film, uploads it online, 4Docs select winners, online edit polishes film to be screened on Channel 4 television slot. It’s not 15 minutes but for the wannabe film-maker, it is fame.
Meanwhile, outside of TV-land, another variation on the internet-and-documentary combination came out of OxDox, the documentary festival in Oxford, which happened in March. A highlight of the festival’s program was a film called The Planet. You can see parts of it on director Johan Soderberg’s impressive showreel. The film is a visually arousing documentary with a refreshing take on the topic of global climate change and more importantly, the human psyche affecting it. Swedish directors Michael Sternberg, Linus Torrell and the fore-mention Soderberg have created a punchy film, which got people talking, at an interesting moment contrasted with the momentum caused by An Inconvenient Truth, making waves from the States. The screening of the film happened simultaneously around the world on 21 March rather befitting for a film made to be ‘a wake up call to the world whilst we still have time to act’.
This screening wasn’t like your average film screening though. While the initial film happened with a standard DVD and digital projector, an interactive session at the end of the screening happened by way of an Internet Protocol (IPTV) internet conference, which means a broadcast streamed over the Internet. Throughout the screening, a superb soundtrack garnishes some environmentally saucy facts: ‘We use about 20% more than what nature can regenerate? But people say, how is this possible? How? This is not possible! But it is possible. It’s just like, people can spend more money than they earn. For sometime.’ The film’s revelations resonated amongst the audience at Oxford, but it didn’t stop there, as the screening was also happening around other parts of the UK and in fact, and all around the world. Audiences in Sydney and Luxembourg heard simultaneously that ‘If everyone lived like we do in the West, it would take 5 planets to produce for us. Now, that cannot be the goal.’ What is the goal then? This question and many others relating to the planet’s future were raised in the world-wide Q & A session with various scientists at the end of the film (which can be seen or heard online). Apart from the style and the content of the film, this screening was a phenomenon in itself to engage such diverse audiences in real interaction with this subject.
The basic requirement to set up IP broadcasts are surprisingly simple. In the case of the Phoenix Picturehouse in Oxford they had 3 essential things: high-speed broadband, a digital projector and a satellite. Matt Taylor, assistant manager at the independent Picturehouse in Oxford said ‘We already have everything in place for this, the digital projector is a really good one that the Lottery fund helped us out with and the satellite we have in place.’
Is the world really changing in this IPTV reality? Last summer I left my London home on bicycle and cycled to the national Film Theatre under a setting London sun. I went into the cinema and watched the sun continue to set, except on screen it was the same sun but it was setting over Iceland as I watched a live broadcast of Icelandic band Sigur Ros, playing a hometown gig. From the comfort of the cinema chair, as the same sun set in 2 places and we watched a live gig with other audiences all over the world, the realisation hit me: virtual reality is getting a whole lot more real.