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.