media studio » Video documentary

Great new media ideas this year -> IDFA DocLab 2009

Citt Williams — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:21:32 +0000

This year’s IDFA (International Documentary Festival Amsterdam) is off and racing. For those interested in keeping abreast with documentary’s new media “genre”, check out their rich IDFA Doclab 2009.

Their blog says “IDFA’s Doc Lab investigates the relationship between documentary film-making and new media. The program is open to all media that can be used to tell a documentary story. During the festival, Doc Lab presents films, web documentaries, and installations that innovate the documentary genre.”

From the projects I’ve explored so far, I am impressed with multi-format, interactive “choose you own adventure” story of The Big Issue (although the content is very graphic and confronting). The global film wiki idea behind Man With A Movie Camera: The Global Remake could definitely be applied to other globally themed topics. The beautiful serenade Waterlife, shows us an example of how tone can be achieved in new media. And, for documentary boffins, dig deep into a lively discussion about Capturing reality: the art of documentary.

Delicious Simplicity with a strong message

david — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 07:13:43 +0000

The Story of stuff is an easy to understand documentary about the material economy and consumerism presented in a series of cartoons full of good humor.

It is a very creative and effective movie that really makes you think and reconsider how your daily life affects the environment. The presenter, Annie Leonard, explains that we are living in a linear system, that is rapidly using up our planet’s natural resources.

I really like this movie because it is a powerful example of how you can use the Web as an open channel to present ideas. It is simplicity at its best, no over production here! In my view, this is one of the best documentaries that you can find on the net. Go ahead and watch the video below:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Award for Saving the Ayuquila River

Brendan Barrett — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 06:53:50 +0000

The UNU Media Studio is pleased to announce that the documentary and e-case study entitled “Saving the Ayuquila River” has received the 2007 Award of Excellence in the education division of the Society for New Communications Research Awards programme.
The Society honors innovative individuals, corporations, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions and media outlets for the use of social media, ICT, mobile media, online communities, virtual worlds and collaborative technologies in the areas of media, marketing, public relations, advertising, entertainment, education, politics and social initiatives.
The Saving the Ayuquila River video documentary and e-case study was developed by the UNU Media Studio in collaboration with the University of Guadalajara, Mexico and illustrates how scientists can work in local communities to bring about positive environmental changes.

Initial shooting in Kobe

andreina — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 02:55:58 +0000

The UNU Media Studio team (Luis, David and Andreina) traveled to Kobe recently to scout for characters and attend the HAT (Happy Active Town) Kobe Community Festival. While there, the team interviewed Mr. Kazuo Sakamoto (82), a community leader who has lived in the HAT for the past 10 years.

Sakamoto-san shared his views on community and personal health, reminding us that the secret to remaining active and healthy is very simple: eat well, sleep well and don’t worry about negative things.

This research interview is the start of a long term documentary project that will focus on aging looking at its links to technology and social ties.

Recording session for Chichinautzin documentary

luis — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 04:44:00 +0000

I just came back from Victoria, Canada where audio postproduction activities for the UNU-produced documentary Voices of the Chichinautzin are being done. These include narration recording, sound design and mix, and music composition.
This was done at Digiheadz Studio, with sound designer and mixer Tony Moskal (www.digiheadz.com ). Tony has lots of experience recording and mixing audio for documentaries, including productions for Discovery Channel and National Geographic.
We had selected Canadian actress and voice-over talent Nicole Oliver (www.nicoleoliver.com ) to be our voice. Nicole’s wide experience came handy to deliver the required performance under the guidance of Director Patricia Sims. The narration includes quite a few Spanish and Nahuatl terms, so part of my role was to coach Nicole in the proper pronunciation, which she nailed after a couple of tries. The whole recording process took about 5 hours.
For the Spanish version of the documentary we wanted a neutral Spanish voice, with a subtle Mexican accent. Options for this in the Victoria area in Canada were limited, so we found our voice in Mexico City. Recording had to be done in Mexico, so we got PianiMusic Studios (pianimusic.com) in Mexico City for this purpose. As we wanted to direct the recording session, we connected to PianiMusic using Skype from the Digiheadz Studio, so we could hear and give guidance. Nallely’s experience was not as diverse as that of Nicole, yet she also did a great job and delivered the type of performance we were after.
As the last part of the process, we recorded an English version of brief segments of some of the interviews, which were originally delivered in Spanish. This technique is often used in TV, and the way it works is that when you have an interview sequence, you leave the person speaking for a couple of seconds in his native language, and after that you put on top an audio track where the same things are said in English by a narrator. This requires a bit of acting to match the tone and energy of the person in the interview, so we had four native Spanish speaker actors for this purpose.
It all went well, and the recorded tracks are ready to be mixed, but for that we have to wait until music composition is completed, which will happen very soon.