Lecture 3: Interactive Documentary

Interactive Documentary is a project that intends to document the ‘real’ and uses digital interactive technology to achieve this.

Interactive documentary uses technology to bring different elements together, such as:

·      Moving image

·      Photography

·      Digital gaming

·      Text

·      Social media

John Grierson first coined the word ‘documentary’. The first documentarists were middle class socialists who wanted to document the struggles of working class people. However, documentaries did exist before the term was coined, e.g. Man with a Movie Camera, by Vertov, 1929, which was a very innovative piece as it was before Hollywood dominated film.

The documentary ‘Primary’ (1960) was a landmark piece as cameras were being made a lot smaller so people could go out to location. This meant documentaries could explore new places, giving us new information that we couldn’t access before.

With new technology such as Oculus Rift (VR), we are not bound by linear restrictions.

In the 1950s, TV was introduced, and therefore more people had access to watching documentaries. Similarly, now more people have access to making documentaries, as you can make one using just a camera phone.

David Dufresne made an interactive documentary, which featured a virtual fictional town called Ford McMoney, where viewers become fictional citizens. It centres on environmental issues, such as oil drilling. However, unfortunately only 1% of users went onto do any action, which raises the question of how effective interactive documentaries actually are.

Brenda Longfellow also created an interactive documentary that focused on environmental issues, such as offshore drilling. In the documentary, the viewer can make decisions on the environmental issues.  As an environmentalist myself, I thought these two interactive documentaries sounded very intriguing, and I was disappointed to hear that only 1% went on to do any action, as I would have thought this type of documentary would have been more persuasive.

Why make interactive documentaries?

Firstly, it can reach and engage new audiences, such as the younger generation, as it is interesting and different. Moreover, it requires the full engagement of the viewer, as they make the decisions, instead of being fed information by the film-maker. However, that could put some viewers off, as they may just want to watch, and not participate.

Interactive Documentaries and their link to Advertising

In my opinion, interactive documentaries could be extremely useful in advertising, as people could explore different dimensions in ads. For example, if people had access to VR, they could enter the advert themselves.  Moreover, as interactive documentaries give the viewer the opportunity to make decisions, an advert could be created using interactive technology, which enables people to make a decision in the advert. E.g. people could choose whether or not to pick a certain brand.