The Routledge International Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video

Phillip Vannini

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781032567471
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429589362
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The Routledge International Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video is a state-of-the-art book which encompasses the breadth and depth of the field of ethnographic film and video-based research. With more and more researchers turning to film and video as a key element of their projects, and as research video production becomes more practical due to technological advances as well as the growing acceptance of video in everyday life, this critical book supports young researchers looking to develop the skills necessary to produce meaningful ethnographic films and videos, and serves as a comprehensive resource for social scientists looking to better understand and appreciate the unique ways in which film and video can serve as ways of knowing and as tools of knowledge mobilization.

Comprised of 31 chapters authored by some of the world's leading experts in their respective fields, the book's contributors synthesize existing literature, introduce the historical and conceptual dimensions of the field, illustrate innovative methodologies and techniques, survey traditional and new technologies, reflect on ethics and moral imperatives, outline ways to work with people, objects, and tools, and shape the future agenda of the field. With a particular focus on making ethnographic film and video, as opposed to analyzing or critiquing it, from a variety of methodological approaches and styles, the Handbook provides both a comprehensive introduction and up-to-date survey of the field for a vast variety of audiovisual researchers, such as scholars and students in sociology, anthropology, geography, communication and media studies, education, cultural studies, film studies, visual arts, and related social science and humanities. As such, it will appeal to a multidisciplinary and international audience, and features a dynamic, forward-thinking, innovative, and contemporary focus oriented toward the very latest developments in the field, as well as future possibilities.

1
Introduction

Phillip Vannini

A casually dressed man walks into a mid-sized university auditorium packed with students. Most of the students are seated behind their small desks while others are standing, chatting with their classmates. The man makes his way to the podium in the front of the auditorium. He switches on a projector. The students’ murmur begins to quiet down. The camera cuts to the man’s face. He is preoccupied with his thoughts. Perhaps he is focused on the day’s lesson plan. The close-up reveals he is of European descent, and likely in his early 40s. We hear the distinctive sound of a VHS tape inserted into a VCR.

The professor quickly walks toward the wall and switches off the room’s lights. The camera cuts to a student’s face staring at the screen. We can see the film’s first images reflected in the student’s spectacles: the film appears to be shot with an old camera shooting in 3×3 format at low resolution, and it is in black and white. The camera turns to the screen. The projected images reveal people in a loincloth, dancing around a fire, with a bush in the background. They seem to be performing some type of a rite. The camera cuts back to the bespectacled student. He appears perplexed. The professor makes a brief eye contact with the student. The scene fades to black.

The black screen cross dissolves to the same man. It is an extreme close-up. He now has an unkempt beard. He appears busy and energized, intrigued by something. A wide shot follows. We can see the man is in a small village set in the foreground of a thickly vegetated forest. He is holding a camera, filming what appears to be a small tribe dancing and singing. The dancers are so focused on the performance that they seem entirely unconcerned with him filming them. A medium shot reveals that not too far from him, holding a microphone boom and wearing headphones is a middle-aged woman of Asian descent. She too is observing the performance closely. As the rite goes on the two anthropologists exchange a few glances, wordlessly. They move around the group of chanting and dancing men a few times, sometimes walking closer, and at times walking back. The scene goes on for a minute, then suddenly the chanting stops. Moments of silence follow as the performers are seen whispering to one another.

The anthropologists exchange a perplexed look. They seem to be wondering whether to continue filming or to stop. Then two of the performers start walking up to the anthropologists. The anthropologists stop recording. The camera cuts to a medium shot of two men approaching them. They utter a few words in a foreign language. Yellow subtitles reveal what they just said.

“So, can you tell us what exactly ethnographic film is?”
The male anthropologist looks flabbergasted.
“Well, that is a very complex question,” says the female anthropologist in the same foreign language, “a lot of our colleagues have been disagreeing for a very long time on what ethnographic film is, exactly.”
“So, you mean to tell me,” one of the Indigenous interlocutors replies, “that you are not exactly sure that you know what you’re doing?”
A close-up of the male anthropologist zooms in on a sweat bead making its way down his forehead. “Well, no, er … we do know,” he stumbles, “but we, huh … it’s a long definition and …”
“We have time,” the interlocutor interrupts him. “Why don’t we stop filming and discuss it over a cup of coffee?” The anthropologists agree.

The anthropologists and their interlocutors walk toward a hut. Coffee is prepared. A close-up shows steaming liquid poured into a mug. A group of people has now formed.

“So, what is the disagreement among your people all about?” An interlocutor asks.
“A number of things,” the female anthropologist begins to speak, “but mostly it is about the subject matter, the style, the identity of the makers, and the intended audience.”
“So, basically you don’t agree over anything at all,” another interlocutor says with a grin.
Awkward silence follows. The anthropologists take prolonged sips from their mugs, as more Indigenous women and children walk toward the group, seemingly interested in joining the ­conversation.
“Well, look, ethnography is basically the study of people’s ways of life. In our language ‘ethno’ stands for people and ‘graphy’ for writing. As filmmakers we don’t necessarily write books, we make films, but they seek to communicate with audiences around the world about people’s ­different ways of life,” the female anthropologist states.
“That’s clear enough. So, what is there to disagree about?”
“Details, really,” the male anthropologist answers, “for example my colleague here, Kristin, is a professional filmmaker, not an academic. And me, I am an ethnomusicologist, not quite an anthropologist, so on the basis of that some people might criticize us and say that what we’re doing is not an ethnographic film.”
“Are your people that obsessed with detail?” asks a young woman who has joined the conversation.
“It’s not that they are obsessive,” replies Kristin, “it’s just that they expect things to be done a certain way.”
“So your people are controlling then?” a woman who was earlier seen preparing coffee observes.
“Hum …, well,” Kristin hesitates, “what would you say about that, Simon?”
“What you may interpret as controlling is actually a form of care,” the male anthropologist explains, “people care for their profession in general so they want to make sure that everybody else in their line of work does things in a specific way. So that everyone is respectful of the canon.”
“Controlling, like I said,” the woman concludes with a smirk as she picks up empty mugs and walks off screen.

“Maybe we are asking you inopportune questions,” an elderly woman remarks. “In our culture instead of disagreeing again and again over what something is, sometimes we get together as a group and ask everyone what else that thing could be.”

“Say that again, please?” Kristin asks.
“Yes, instead of debating over and over about what a thing is, we talk about the possibilities of that thing, what else it could be, or what it could become. So, for example, your ethnographic film, your work, your art, what else could it be?”
The researchers look intrigued by the question.
“It could be something that my students are truly excited about, as excited as they are when they go to the movie theater, or even as excited as I am when I make a film,” Simon says with sudden fervor in his words.
“Viewers aren’t excited to see your work?”
A quick flashback of images in Simon’s mind shows weary-looking students in a ­classroom.
“Not always,” he responds laconically. “I don’t think they get it sometimes.”
“For me,” Kristin intervenes, “ethnographic film could be something that families could watch together in their TV room, something … not necessarily on TV but on some kind of library system, some kind of catalog that people could access on their TVs, on demand.”
“We don’t have this system that you speak of in our country,” a young man remarks.
“Neither do we,” Simon says wistfully, “maybe one day in the future we will.”
“What could make more people excited about your films, people other than university students?” an Elder asks.
“Well, if it were ever possible I’d love to work with sound recorders and cameras that are nearly as good as those of high-end productions. And not just that, but I’d love to have a small portable helicopter so I could film some scenes from above. And small portable cameras that I could stick everywhere or even give to all of you to wear so I could record what you see, as you dance,” Kristin says with a daydreaming look on her face.
“If that were possible,” Simon continues, “it could change what we do dramatically. Instead of us always filming you, you could film yourselves. And together we could make something very unique. This would be very democratic.”
The elderly woman in the corner observes: “That’s all very well, but it sounds like a lot of work. I don’t think I would want to have cameras attached to me. I have more important things to do. I have potatoes to grow and children that need my attention.”
“Does that mean we would be famous movie stars?” a child interjects. People laugh.
“I don’t think so,” answers Kristin, “but if our films could change like that, then their value wouldn’t just be judged in relation to anthropological theory anymore. Ethnographic film could be made for being shared with broader audiences, in many ways. And it might mean that our films could be more useful to you as well. They could be more easily appreciated in your schools and in your villages, they could be used to promote positive change in your communities and your nation, or at the very least they could be shown to your children and grandchildren, and eventually their children.”
“And maybe they wouldn’t even need to be ‘films’ necessarily,” Simon remarks, “if we had an easy tool for individuals to watch them alone, on their own, without the need for costly projection systems, they could even be short stories, short fragments, short testimonials that people could watch as individuals and then share with each other quickly. That way every viewer could almost create their own edit, in a way. These clips would be like multiple windows into people’s lives, short glances that don’t require time-consuming amounts of production or post-production, but require the viewer to be active in watching.”
“Our village will never have a tool like that,” a young woman observes despondently.
“If all of this were possible,” an Elder aks, “would people like you still need to come here to film us?”

Awkward silence follows. The camera cuts to a medium shot of Simon and Kristin exchanging a perplexed look. Fade to black.

***

What our fictitious ethnographers, Simon and Kristin, daydreamed about some 30 years ago has now come true. What was a fantasy back then is now actuality. The definition of ethnographic film, while still contested, has broadened dramatically. Anthropology is no longer the sole proprietor of ethnographic film. Film has become more like video, and video has become film-like. Recording technologies have advanced to the point that even independent ethnographic filmmakers can compete with professional studios. Drones and point-of-view action cameras—cheap, portable, and incredibly easy to use—can take viewers along journeys previously only available to the imagination. Omnipresent phone cameras have given billions of people around the globe the ability to document their own lives and the agency to tell their own stories. This has now confused roles and identities: the lines between the filmmakers and the filmed are now blurred. Moreover, interactive documentaries have enabled viewers to become actively involved in the consumption of ethnographic knowledge, putting them in the writer’s and editor’s seat. Add to that the fact that mobility patterns—of images, people, goods, and ideas—have destabilized borders and rendered obsolete notions of locality, “exotic” lands, audiences, and what constituted “the field” is now more unclear than ever. And then there is something that Kristin and Simon never quite envisioned 30 years ago (though somehow wished for): an “archive” of on-demand content called the Internet. Either in the form of YouTube and Vimeo, Facebook and Instagram, iTunes or Kanopy, the Documentary Channel or Netflix, a colleague’s blog or your favorite peer-reviewed journal’s website, the Internet has revolutionized not only how ethnographic film and videos are accessed, but why they are made and who they are made for.

It is in light of this zeitgeist that this handbook of ethnographic film and video has come to light. This is a handbook for a new world of ethnographic film and video, a collection of original writings intended for a new and remarkably diverse audience spanning across older disciplines and new fields of study, from anthropology, geography, sociology, education, and history to cultural studies, gender studies, environmental studies, media studies, and much more. But more importantly than disciplines or fields this is a handbook primarily intended for an audience who, for the most part, was not even born when the classics of ethnographic film were produced and released. This is an audience who has grown up with the Internet, with HD cameras at their fingertips, and with the ability to travel to no longer so-distant or “exotic” lands with the simple swipe of a credit card or the click of a Skype icon. This is an audience who has become accustomed to living with screens, action cameras, and recorded sound pumped in the earphones for much of their day-to-day life. This is an audience, arguably, who is a lot less interested in diatribes over the value of ethnographic film than it is on actually watching it and enjoying it as much as they enjoyed that sleek doc they just played on Vimeo.

In light of the times, this handbook moves on many past and tired debates and parochial arguments over definitional matters. It moves on past the fetishism of the classics. It moves on beyond old hang-ups over style and expression, what ethnographers must and must not do out of fear of rejection. It moves to the point where video researchers and filmmakers have to defend themselves against the accusation that what they are doing is not serious because it is not done in writing. And it moves on past these issues not so much by attempting to come up with definitive answers and winning arguments, but rather by opening our collective arms to a flourishing variety of diverse art and science forms, diverse authors and makers, diverse subjects and collaborators, diverse tools, diverse goals, diverse audiences, diverse production processes and post-production strategies. It simply moves on by keepi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgments
• List of contributors
• 1 Introduction
• PART 1 Practicing the art and science of ethnographic film and video
• PART 2 Applying and extending approaches and methodologies
• PART 3 Developing genres and styles
• PART 4 Working with others
• PART 5 Working with tools and techniques
• PART 6 Distributing and circulating
• Conclusion
• Index