A close textual analysis of the films of Basil Wright between 1931 and 1938. This work will give a fresh perspective on the working methods of one of the senior members of the British Documentary Movement. It will also discuss the influence exerted by the leader of this group John Grierson. Seven films will be looked at in detail beginning with The Country Comes to the Town and concluding with Face of Scotland. In these detailed analyses we will discuss how the ideological thinking of the group found expression through Wright The purpose of studying an individual is to judge what measure of freedom individual members of the unit were permitted. In seven chapters we will chart the growth of the movement from Gnerson's Dnfters in 1929 to Wright's Face of Scotland in 1938. During the period the Movement went through changes in direction which had a direct bearing on the style of Wright's work. In order to understand these changes we shall chart Wright's development from cutter in late 1929 to senior member in the late thirties. Each chapter will begin with socio-historical data on the subject Wnght was filming. Also included in this section is material on key personnel and details of shooting. This is followed with a close analysis of the form and meaning of Wright's style. In the conclusions we will discuss Gnerson's reaction to the films in question as well as giving further political and historical data. The purpose of this thesis is to re-evaluate Wright's early work and to judge how much it is a reflection of the middle-opinion group whose ideas on social policy find expression in some of the films.

The work of documentary director Errol Morris can be approached in a variety of ways as it intersects and engages with many of the major themes of film and television scholarship - genre, authorship, and historical representation. But while his films and television episodes expose debates within film and documentary studies, they also call up major elements of postmodern debates within the historical discipline. Morris makes historical documentaries that do not simply render a (hi)story visually; he also attempts to draw viewers' attention to the conventions and construction of both visual media and of history. His work reveals both his keen awareness of postmodern historical debates, and a willingness to play, to confront basic assumptions, question boundaries, and to contribute to those debates. In 'Errol Morris and the Art of History', I argue that Morris is a visual historian; his films and television episodes draw as much from his understanding of historiographical debates as they do from his knowledge and artistic approach to visual media. All of Morris' work challenges the notion of objectivity in both documentary filmmaking and history; he attempts to illuminate the limits and conventions of visual depictions of history; he uses strategies to denaturalise historical and narrative construction, the naturalising tendencies of visual media, and the conventions of documentary practice; and he attempts to promote increased critical reflection. This thesis closely examines Morris' documentary films and television episodes to consider the structure and strategies that characterise his work, and situate it within contemporary film and historical debates. I explore Morris' methods and approach to documentary and history, showing how his work relates to postmodern history debates, to written and visual representations of history, and to documentary history and theory, including more recent factual forms like reality television.

Un groupe d'étudiants rassemblés par des idéaux artistiques se forme à l'Université de Californie San Diego dans la décennie 1970. Fred Lonidier, Martha Rosier, Allan Sekula et Phel Steinmetz, résolument tournés vers la photographie, élaborent une pensée collective sans toutefois former un groupe officiel. Pourtant, le partage d'une émulation propre à la côte Ouest du pays et à l'université où la pensée de figures tutélaires comme D. Antin, H. Marcuse, J. Baldessari, B. Brecht, H. Lefebvre ou H. Haacke stimule collectivement les esprits, confère aux méthodes et démarches des photographes une résonnance de groupe. En plus, Documentary and Corporate Violence, texte rédigé par A Sekula en 1976, utilise le terme de petit groupe pour qualifier les photographes. Ce texte auquel nous attribuons le statut de manifeste, critique la lecture moderniste des photographes documentaires américains traditionnels. Il expose également les attitudes mises au point par le groupe que nous identifions sous le nom de Nouveau Documentaire Social. Parmi celles-ci se distingue une pratique photographique documentaire ouverte à d'autres médium, une forte présence textuelle, des scénographies et circuits d'exposition repensés, des audiences élargies, un intérêt pour des thématiques ancrées dans l'actualité militante, ou encore un regard vers le quotidien et le banal comme témoins des bouleversements des schémas sociétaux. Objet à déconstruire, la photographie moderniste et les institutions qui la célèbrent représentent une tradition documentaire à renouveler. Ce contexte de remise en question collective et les propositions documentaires qui en sont issues constituent l'objet de cette étude. / A group of students gathered around shared artistic ideals comes to life at University of California San Diego in the nineteen-seventies. Fred Lonidier, Martha Rosier, Allan Sekula and Phel Steinmetz, ail firmly focused on photography, elaborate a collective thought albeit never actually founding an official group. However, a shared emulation endemic to the West Coast and to the university where ideas birthed by leading thinkers such as D. Antin, H. Marcuse, J. Baldessari, B, Brecht, H Lefebvre or H. Haacke collectively stimulates the minds of those around, adds a certain group resonance to the photographers' methods and processes. Furthermore, Documentary and Corporate Violence, a text written by A Sekula in 1976, uses the term small group to refer to the photographers involved This text - to which we give the status of manifesto - criticizes the modernist reading of traditional american documentary photographers. It also exposes the attitudes developed by this group which we coin as New Social Documentary. We will distinguish one of these attitudes from the others : a documentary photographic practice which opens itself to other media, displays a strong textual presence, newly-thought scenography and exhibition paths, widened audiences, an interest in themes strongly anchored in contemporary activism, and which transforms what was so far considered as banal and mundane into testimonies of profound changes in societal structure. Modernist photography, an object to deconstruct, as well as the institutions that celebrate it represent a documentary tradition which needs to be renewed. The new documentary propositions along with the context of collective questioning from which they derive constitute the object of this study.

Orientador: Fernando Cury de Tacca / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-14T19:30:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ruiz_CoraciBartman_M.pdf: 8474327 bytes, checksum: beb9e4e01cfb3c2062731be8dcccd886 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: Esta dissertação investiga as linhas de aproximação entre o conceito de documentário-dispositivo e algumas experiências com vídeo-cartas. Em outras palavras, busca compreender como a troca de mensagens videográficas entre pessoas - transformadas em personagens no e pelo filme, considerando que o documentarista também pode se tornar um deles - pode se configurar como estratégia de realização de documentários. O vídeo "Outra Cidade" é parte da pesquisa, a um só tempo fruto das investigações e objeto de reflexão. Mais do que a obra em si, interessa como matéria de estudo seu processo de realização, que, totalmente imbricado com o percurso do curso de Mestrado em Artes, passou por diversas transformações ao longo de seus dois anos e meio de duração e produção. Estas transformações tornam-se a problemática que une o texto e o vídeo. Os conceitos de dinâmica fabuladora e cinema indireto são as bases para a construção da idéia de um cinema documental que não se relaciona com um real dado nem com identidades estagnadas, que não busca a verdade e que não tem certezas. Este cinema deseja falar de processos e transformações, de encontros e relações. O conceito de documentário-dispositivo trata de um documentário criado a partir de artifícios, jogos, delimitações e brincadeiras, que engendram, para os atores envolvidos (documentarista, equipe, personagens) novas relações, situações inéditas e deslocamentos de posições: uma realidade fílmica que não existe antes do filme e que deixa de existir depois que ele acaba. / Abstract: This dissertation investigates the similarities between the concept of "devicedocumentary" and some experiences with "video-letters"; in other words, it seeks to understand the process in which the exchange of videographic messages between people - transformed into characters by and in the film (considering that the documentarist can become one of them) - may become a strategy to make documentaries. The vídeo "Another City" is part of the research, at one time a result of the investigations and the object for reflection. More than the work itself, the point of interest for study has been the process film making, which, completely entwined with the course of Master Degree in Arts, has gone through several transformations along the two and a half years of this production. These transformations became the problematics that links together text and film. The concepts of "fable dynamic" and "indirect cinema" are the basis for the construction of an idea of a documental cinema that does not relate to the real, neither to frozen identities; a cinema that does not seek the truth and has no certainties. This cinema wants to talk about processes and transformations, encounters and relations. The concept of "device-documentary" is about a documentary that is made from artificials, games, delimitations and plays that give rise to new relations, situations, changing of positions among the actors (documentarist, team, characters). A filmic reality that does not exist before the film, and that ceases to exist once it is finished. / Mestrado / Artes / Mestre em Artes

This work explores the interactive documentary as a hybrid, emergent cultural form that has been shaped by the growth of digital interactive entertainment. Through investigation and analysis of the historical background of documentary, the research discusses the development of documentary film, examining the notions of truth, objectivity and authorship in factual media, and their relationship with existing understandings of interactivity. Critical parameters are then derived to objectify the process of deconstructing interactive and documentary media forms. An inclusive view is taken on the categorisation and classification of interactive documentary, informed by the fundamental constructs of both traditional documentary and interactive media. The constructs and structures of interaction and narrative are highlighted to facilitate the identification and examination of existing examples of factual interactive entertainment– from computer generated documentary games to navigable filmic forms. The thesis proposes a range of characterisation frameworks for the study of interactive documentary and these are applied towards case study analysis of sixteen interactive productions. The final work presented in this thesis proposes a theoretical framework for the analysis and development of immersive, interactive documentary experiences, encompassing the processes of content creation and consumption from the perspectives of both audience and director.

The diploma thesis deals with two documentary payment methods commonly used in international trade transactions - a documentary collection and a documentary letter of credit. These instruments are regarded as an important part of both international trade and banking. Both the instruments are characterized in detail. Their advantages and disadvantages are analyzed in comparison with other instruments with same and similar functions. A part of the thesis is devoted to the importance (position) of documentary payment instruments in international trade, and to current trends in their usage. The last part focuses on the documentary collection and the documentary letter of credit in the Czech Republic - from the point of view of their offer, price, and the demand for them.

Recent political developments in the world show us that different cultures need to know and understand each other better. Even though technological developments like the Internet, satellites, cable television and conglomeration of big media entities have made mass communication more effective and faster, we cannot easily say that these developments help to bring world cultures together. As a result, mass audiences are not very much able to see what few productions do speak to these issues in a constructive manner. The main aim of this documentary film project is to serve as a small step towards helping different cultures to understand each other better. This documentary film conveys the basics of Mevlevism by following the formal gatherings of a Mevlevi den in Istanbul, Turkey. A den or tekke is a place where Islamic people gather and perform their religious activities. During these gatherings they do the sema, they pray, they listen to music, and they discuss spiritual matters. Sema is the entire ritual they perform as part of their ceremonies including listening to music, singing and chanting to attain a state of religious emotion and ecstasy or vecd. The documentary film is structured around a twelve year old girl, Elif, who is learning the basics of Mevlevism. The interviews conducted with regulars from the den explain to the audience why people are attracted to this belief system. Filming the ceremonies at the 550-year-old Mevlevi temple in Galata, Istanbul accentuates the historic background of this belief system. The Night of Reunion is the day in which Mevlevis celebrate the passing of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, the founder of Mevlevism and provides the climax of the film. Elif performs on that night, a very important moment in her spiritual life.

Behind the Scenes of The Steve Taylor Story: A Documentary is the written companion to a 39-minute documentary film entitled, The Steve Taylor Story. The film explores the controversial career of Christian musician Steve Taylor. It also chronicles the ideology of the Christian subculture in America through the hegemony of the dominant Christian culture and Steve's actions in opposition to it.

Singers and songwriters come to Nashville, Tennessee because they consider it the center of the country music universe and the best place to perform their songs as they try and break into the music business. Though few ever experience success in this competitive field, artists continue to arrive in Nashville and many don't have the commercial potential that would allow them the opportunity to perform anywhere but on the city's streets. The film, Street Chords and the Truth: A Street Level View of Country Music, focuses on these interesting performers and their music. Country music has been examined by a handful of ethnomusicologists and is often called the music of everyday life. Many recognize its dependence on ordinary singing styles, common phrasings, southern accents and traditional costuming as central to its identity and critical source of its value as a commodity. While many studies have been conducted focusing commercially popular country music singers and the music industry, few studies been conducted on singers who meet all the critical criteria for country music except commercial viability. This documentary examines country music more as a critical element of cultural identity and less as a commodity.

This thesis project is about a television engineer in the Department of Radio, Television and Film at the University of North Texas. This project records the engineer's activities in the Department and interviews him about his career path. An accompanying written production report describes the pre-production, production and post-production processes of this project.