Amateur Documentary-making: A wake-up Call

Most of you may not care but I really need to let this out. I do not have television at home. “Phew, that felt good.” It’s not that we don’t a have television set, we do, but it’s just that we can’t watch anything from it. It’s frustrating for me, especially because I’m studying media but what good is a media student with no medium to get the latest news from? The majority of you who knows a little about penguins must have learnt it from the documentary, ‘March of Penguins’. I learned about penguins from watching the animation, ‘Happy Feet’.

So anyways, everytime someone mentions the word ‘documentary’, the first thing that comes to my mind is always ‘National Geographic’ or ‘Discovery Channel’ and even ‘Animal Planet’. Yes, those are the only documentary I know of or come across if I get my once- a- month chance of watching T.V when a friend invites me over for dinner.

The truth is I never really thought much about documentaries although they are one of the more interesting things to watch on television. Come to think of, if ‘Keeping up with The Kardashians’, Paris Hilton’s ‘Simple Life’ or ‘E True Hollywood Stories’ can be considered as documentaries, then it can be said that I watch documentary all the time! That is, back in the days when I could watch T.V at home.

Today, the tradition of targeting television audiences or the more sophisticated audiences is broken when the Internet has become an alternative for distribution. Technology is now allowing amateur documentary making such as the ones we find on YouTube, VoD, and Wake-up Call for Truth Seekers.

The question is, “Does the Internet have any distinct, useful, or unique characteristics that offer anything more than just another means of distribution?” (Birchall, 2008) I would say, “Yes, indeed.”

The 'red tape' required for funding and distribution of documentaries via the professional film industry can work to prevent would be filmmakers, particularly social activists, from creating content that is often critical of the status quo. How relevant do you think online documentary is in ensuring the potential for all voices to be heard, and more importantly, freedom of speech?

In search of some answers, this is one of the documentaries I have found online that is not even posted on YouTube because it keeps getting deleted.

To watch it, you must click on this link

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=155978340240&oid=71787857408

This is just the introduction of a very controversial series of documentaries, where the main topic is about religion, or Muslim, to be more precise. It discusses the coming of ‘Judgment Day’ or more commonly known, as the end of the World, and it is this kind of ‘freedom of speech’ that will never be allowed to broadcast on mainstream media.

One thing I have learned throughout this whole unit is that the Internet itself has given everyone the freedom of speech. Whether through blogs, or through social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter and through YouTube, Wikipedia, and podcasting. Whichever medium suits them best. As Paul Levinson wrote in his book, “People have a diversity of talent, not equally distributed. An unclear writer will not make a very good blogger. But he may have a perfect voice for podcasting…from the point of view of the creator, the world of new media offers a menu of media avenues.”

In the case of today’s topic, the creator has found that making documentaries is the medium best suited for him to let his opinion be heard even if not through to everyone in the world, but to those who have access to the Internet by the least. In conclusion, the Internet, by offering another means of distribution, has also opened up a more diverse range of opinions, topics, and issues that without the Internet, we will never be aware of.

This is a video for everyone to watch, just for fun, because class is over and I am in a good mood. :)