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Project short description

This film is the research of James Dunlop MBE, a documentary filmmaker currently undertaking his PhD in ethnographic documentary filmmaking. Utilising two-cameras while self-shooting, this short pushes the technological and filmmaker boundaries of modern, original documentary filmmaking today.

Project long description

Participatory documentary emerged from the traditions of the 1960s cinéma verité revolution with Jean Rouch, the French filmmaker and anthropologist. The mode showcases the filmmaker playing a dominant role within the documentary, typically ethnographic, with one popular method of the director speaking with contributors while holding the camera, alone, and never seen on screen - the styles of Molly Dineen or Marc Issacs. But what happens if the lone filmmaker, holding the camera, is also on camera for the first time? How does the filmmaker film themselves and what are the implications for the audience as, for the first time, they can jump into a first-person journey in the shoes of the filmmaker?

This film, along with others, is the research of James Dunlop MBE, a documentary filmmaker currently undertaking his PhD specialising in this field under Dr Pete Turner. Utilising two-cameras while self-shooting, this short truly is pushing the technological and filmmaker boundaries of modern, original documentary filmmaking today as it explores an experimental cinematographic format tool for use in documentary. Created and pioneered as the ‘SMARTI Format Tool’ - "simultaneous, multi-angle, behavioural-aesthetic, perspective" - the cinematographic technique explores the filming of multiple camera angles simultaneously, capturing behaviour on camera, from a single perspective.

Designed for ethnographic documentaries that delve into microcultures and communities, the format's aims include to increase the audience’s perceived perception of both ‘truth’ as well as intimacy in documentary.