Web documentary

A web documentary, interactive documentary or multimedia documentary is a documentary production that differs from the more traditional forms—video, audio, photographic—by applying a full complement of multimedia tools. The interactive multimedia capability of the Internet provides documentarians with a unique medium to create non-linear productions that combine photography, text, audio, video, animation and infographics.

How web documentaries differ from film documentaries

The web documentary differs from film documentaries through the integration of a combination of multimedia assets (photos, text, audio, animation, graphic design, etc.) and the requirement on the part of the viewer to interact with, or navigate through, the story.

Compared to a linear narrative where the destination of the story is pre-determined by the filmmaker, a web documentary provides a viewer with the experience of moving through the story via clusters of information. The integration of information architecture, graphic design, imagery, titles and sub-titles all play a role in providing visual clues to the viewer as to the sequence through which they should move through the web documentary. But from that point, it becomes the viewer's discretion to poke their heads into the nooks and crannies of the project, exploring the components of the story that interest them the most.

External links

Further reading

• Museums and the Web 2004 — Influences of Concepts and Structure of Documentary Cinema on Documentary Practices in the Internet, Melahat Hosseini and Ron Wakkary

• "Webdocs - Survival Guide for Online Filmmakers" (2011) (Preface by Peter Wintonick + 30 international experts (Cizek, Storm, Brachet, Wolking, Bernstein, Strocchi, Saint-Cyr,...), Not So Crazy! Productions.

College-level Courses

• Web Documentary course information — MFA in Integrated Media Arts Program, Hunter College, New York

Examples of web documentaries

• Journey to the End of Coal — A web documentary that let the user investigate the living conditions of Chinese coal miners.
• Out My Window — a National Film Board of Canada collaborative documentary showing 13 interactive views from highrise apartments.
• Green Unplugged — a Culture Unplugged Studios short form documentary showing worldview on environment and showcased by United Nations Council For Environment.
• Barcode — an ARTE France and National Film Board of Canada documentary about objects and how they reveal the way we live, created with 30 directors and containing 100 videos^[1]
• Welcome to Pine Point — a National Film Board of Canada web documentary exploring the memories of residents from the former community of Pine Point, Northwest Territories.^[2]
• Saving Papa New Guinea’s Forests — Extensive web documentary about forest conservation in times of climate change in Papua New Guinea
• Becoming Human — "Paleoanthropology, Evolution, and Human Origins"
• Gift of a Lifetime — Audio slideshow storytelling complemented by interactive historical timeline and an interactive human body
• Interactive Narratives — A collection of web documentary content from various sources
• Water's Journey: Everglades — This web documentary includes six audio slideshows, and interactive map, an interactive historical timeline and film/animation clips
• Hometown Baghdad — A series chronicling the lives of three Iraqi 20-somethings in Baghdad
• The Iron Curtain Diaries (1989-2009) — web documentary by Matteo Scanni about the fall of the Iron Curtain
• One World Journeys Expeditions — A collection of environment and conservation themed web documentaries created between 2000 and 2002
• Canto do Brazil — web documentary about Brazil by a documentary photographer
• Thanatorama — A journey into the arcane world of the funeral. Between the intimate and the universal, the sacred and the mundane, the religious rite and market rules, Thanatorama played on records and surveys the frontiers. At the heart of the viewer confronted with his own death. To him draw his journey, according to its beliefs, according to his curiosity.
• Prison Valley — Prison Valley is an ARTE web documentary by David Dufresne and Philippe Brault on the prison industry in the recession-hit United States. A journey into what the future might hold.
• New York Minute — An ARTE 6-part miniseries riding through the five boroughs and a web-based, collaborative and multilingual encyclopedia about New York's culture.
• In Situ — In Situ is an ARTE web documentary about urban artists in Europe, by Antoine Viviani.
• WATERLIFE - NFB — The interactive story of the last great supply of fresh drinking water on Earth.
• Where is Gary — An interactive investigation about a real con artist. The documentary maker Jean-Baptiste Dumont challenged himself to find this fascinating guy in ten weeks, with the help of the audience.
• My Tribe Is My Life — an interactive exploration of how young people use the internet and music subcultures to forge identities and relationships.^[3]
• Multimediadocumentary Is the new way to create and distribute multimedia documentary using the new mobile technologies.The projects is open to the contribution of everyone (photographers or movie maker) who have some interesting story to show.
• MMDoc #1 Le cittá di Olivetti by Sandro Pisani First edition of the new Multimedia documentary community network, photografy and interview of people and place inherent the project as iPad application.

Related disciplines

Photojournalism Communication design Copywriting

Information design Typography Desktop publishing

Motion design Interface design Web graphic design

Sources

1. ^ Anderson, Kelly (6 October 2011). "NFB, ARTE France launch ‘Bar Code’". Reelscreen. http://realscreen.com/2011/10/06/nfb-and-arte-france-launch-bar-code/. Retrieved 7 October 2011. 
2. ^ Quenneville, Guy (31 January 2011). "Remembering a lost mining town". Northern News Services. http://nnsl.com/northern-news-services/stories/papers/jan31_11doc-arts.html. Retrieved 1 February 2011. 
3. ^ Scott-Stevenson, Julia (15 March 2011). "My Tribe is My Life". Special Broadcasting Service (Australia). http://www.sbs.com.au/documentary/blogs/view/id/122732/t/My-Tribe-is-My-Life. Retrieved 7 April 2011. 
   • Clé 56 (original site) — A 6 part miniseries about 2 patients of a psychiatric hospital.