Documentary films have become very popular in recent times and we see more and more documentaries making their way onto the big screen. It was not always common for documentaries to be shown in cinemas, however now we can see quite a few documentaries in cinemas. Films like Fahrenheit 9/11Bowling for Columbine, An Inconvenient Truth and Super Size Me have all been recognised in the professional film industry and have been screened in cinemas worldwide.
The reality that faces any producer; whether it be documentary or otherwise, is that if they want their work to be funded and distributed on network television, DVD’s and in cinemas, the producers must persuade the publishers and distributors that its worth making. The tasks of justifying the viability of their work to the ‘higher powers’ would be much harder for documentary films as the topic of the documentary is basically the essence of the film and that is all they have to really pitch to executives. If the topic is not conducive to the executives or if they believe it’s to confronting or too filled with bias or social activism, then they may not accept the film.
This ‘Red Tape’ that film makers must cross makes it very hard for makers of documentaries to enter their films into mainstream media. So what are the budding documentary makers to do if they can’t get their work published mainstream?
Enter YouTube.....
The absolute explosion in popularity of YouTube has seen an abundance of video footage made available to anybody with an internet connection. YouTube obviously has many strange or silly clips that are not relevant to anything at all, but if you look hard enough you will actually find some videos with some real substance as well as many amateur or semi professional documentaries. Ana Vicente states “the relatively uncommercial aspects of documentaries; throughout history, has forced the genre to the continuous search for its ideal platform”. Well the closest thing to an ideal platform has established itself, this platform undoubtedly is YouTube.
Here you can see an example of an amateur documentary made by an enthusiast and posted on YouTube.
And here you can see example of a semi professional documentary film that perhaps may not have had any air time on mainstream television.
Birchall argues: “Documentary has to be considered in a wider sense than in film and on television: limits on length, amateur production values and emergent aesthetic forms mean many things are found online that would never make their way to a television or cinema screen”. Here, Birchall is basically saying that because of the stringent requirements put on film makers by network television and film; that are primarily focussed on ratings and popularity, would be documentary makers are unable to share their stories through traditional mediums. With the aid of online video sharing, film makers can now post their work online regardless of the subject matter or popularity of their work.
Here is an example of a documentary that would probably never be aired on network television or in a cinema. It is a pointless clip, yet appears when you search ‘Documentary’….
We can see that anyone with a video camera or even mobile phone is now able to make a documentary and then publish it online. This then enables makers of documentaries to bypass the ‘Red Tape’ yet still share their work with millions of people. Although their work may not be shown on television or in cinemas, by posting online, they are still able to spread their work and post documentaries about any subject they feel passionate about, rather than whatever subject will sell the most DVD’s or make the most money at the box office.
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