This week’s reading We’re Happy and We Know It: Documentary, Data, Montage explores the significance of data in interactive and web-based documentary.

The classical documentary developed from the development of the revolutionary photochemical image making that allowed individuals to visually document their surroundings. This practice evolved into the idea of traditional documentary acting as an ‘electronic public sphere’. The documentary is thought to ‘to mediate society to itself, to let one part of a society see another, to create a very particular kind of dialogue’ (Dovey, Jon & Rose, 2012).

Documentary in the 20th century evolved into a tool that was considered capable of altering opinions and the world, whilst still observing it. With the increase in internet access, the web is filled with potential documentary content which has allowed the emergence of IDocs. As video is now part part of HTML5 instead of an add on, it allows links to form between video and other online media content.

Access to live social media self-expression information provides the possibility for documentaries to continually emerge as the content is produced moment-by-moment. This can be referred to as ‘living documentary’ (Dovey, Jon & Rose, 2012).

Devices such as smart phones and search engines (browser history) have the ability to record information such as where an individual is going and what they have been doing. This information that is collected through these devices can be used in new and unexpected ways to form engaging content that varies viewer-to-viewer.

‘It is this translation between searchable social media communications, to data (as numbers), to algorithms that predict behaviours and taste, that is the economic driver of Web 2.0’ (Dovey, Jon & Rose, 2012).

There in an endless amount of information that can be collected from ‘…our interactions, searches, likes, uploads, or tweets…’ (Dovey, Jon & Rose, 2012). From this abstracted information ‘…trends, predictions, and recommendations…’ are assumed (Dovey, Jon & Rose, 2012). This economically benefits giant internet companies such as Google, but also benefits culture, the public and education.

Open source tools such as Popcorn Maker utilise links from both pre-existing and emerging media from other sources on the web. Relationships form between the fragments, reinvigorating the media available on the web and transforming it into ‘semantic video’. These films are ‘continually re-contextualised’ as new content it collated into the film (Dovey, Jon & Rose, 2012). These open source tools have been employed for documenting political events as they unfold.

Problems emerge with the huge amount of data that is accessible in a singular film in Popcorn Maker. These problems include the ‘apparent randomness of navigation, with the lack of perspective produced by the excess of millions of documentary video clips, the dominant temporal logic of online communication that tends towards the perpetually unedited present’ (Dovey, Jon & Rose, 2012).

Manovich’s spatial montage as the idea of ‘juxtaposition of images within multiple computer windows’ is particularly relevant to the way in which the open sourced tools are being utilised to create meaning from seemingly random fragments available online.

The combination of images (from Flickr), text (from Twitter), videos (from Youtube) and other accessible media content (from sites such as Creative Commons) evolve into a whole interchanging, unpredictable documentary through taking advantage of meta-tagging and search engines. This technology allow innovative ways to form arguments. There is a need for database documentary montage aesthetics to form, similar to the way in which popular styles developed in traditional cinema.

Utilising the information available on the web allows the formation of ‘relational, contingent, specific and emergent’ films.

This weeks reading Plotting the Database by Will Luers discusses the importance of interface in assisting the users understanding of the content.

The material contained in an interface is significantly designed to present hierarchies and therefore highlight certain information. The audience interpret the plot as a whole through the data structure that allows interaction and understanding in the story time and space. The filmmaker has the power to conceal and reveal certain information at any stage in the plot.

An ideal interface is useful as it permits easy access to information, ability to control material and is well designed. A spatial narrative device is considered to be similar to a map in the way the user controls the time navigation and the way it provides paths that can be abstract and therefore interpreted differently. A plotted interface conceals and reveals the same amount of information, which therefore limits and delays viewer access.

A site may be designed to allow the user numerous entry points at which they decide the next move, giving them a varied outcome. An interface may begin with an randomly generate set of material and options. Luers explains ‘entry points can establish narrative frames, metaphors for navigation, genre motifs, present views of data sets, describe elements of plot, character, setting or theme – or withhold any and all of these’ (2013). It is essential that the interface engages the user to interact. A user is able to exit the site at any stage, it is their choice.

Examples of work are given to show that the interface must aim to preserve the user’s interest as well as ‘intuitively and effortlessly’ communicate…

• Quick and easy navigation
• ‘Depth, scale and structure of the database’ (Luers 2013)
• ‘Level of control over the navigation’ (Luers 2013)

Stories can be arranged and understood through missing parts. Artists may create ‘voices, images, sensations, abstractions…’ that are then transformed into material viewed and interpreted by the user (Luers 2013). Luers explains that ‘plot provides important tags (hero, villain), schemas (goals, obstacles) and navigation instructions (genre), it is ultimately the cognitive and emotional investment of the receiver of plot – the subjective associations, desires, visualizations, decodings and fast searches – that transforms a mere series of selected details into a story network that is always more than the sum of its parts’ (2013).

The interface is similar to the plot in linear narrative in the way the absences are structured. Database fiction is thought to benefit from perplexing categories, decision making and navigating tools.

Attention can be distributed evenly in database fiction, significant plot information can be hidden in details. The plot is present, but the details are less important. The behavioural patterns connecting the fragments are the most significant. Juxtaposition of media including text, links, image, video and audio create separations between the information, but also encourage users to interact with the interface and develop their own individual story.

Patterns within an interface utilise iconic and indexical signs. The design of an interface can be related to mise-en-scene and other cinematic techniques that help guide the user’s attention. The elements on screen can be a collage of numerous significant information or organised into a hierarchy. The Gestalt design principles including ‘contrast, proportion, proximity, isolation and repetition create hierarchies of importance in layout’ and are employed to assist the user to interpret the material (Luers 2013).

Navigation is ‘never natural; it is always the expression of a set of cultural assumptions and controls…’ (Luers 2013). The interface frames the work, orders the material and helps to creates relations between the content. The interface is compared to the structure of a book in the way that its ‘spatial and navigation structure supports the reader’s sense of chronology, causality, suspense and momentum’ (Luers 2013).

‘Abstract and emotional mental process such as reflection, comparison, speculation, projection are here displayed as relational panels, nested frames, radial and linear sequencing, repetitions and isolation’ (Luers 2013).

In narratives the users are encouraged to relate to the story world and have an interest in the outcomes. Database narratives are organised into individual fragments that can be accessed in any order. ‘At this micro-level, familiar temporal structures and plots can help orient a user to story.  But at the macro-level, temporal order is often communicated through graphic devices such as a timelines and timestamps’ (Luers 2013).

Luers describes a loop as ‘a field of temporal and spatial relations that emerges and is produced as narrative in the encounter with a user’ (2013). These loops are developed from time, they stop narrative rhythm, are grasped immediately and they most importantly point to complicated relationships between parts. Loops are utilised as a mode for accessing information in a database.

‘The interface maps the ways we orient our minds and thought processes to the world’ (Luers 2013). Luers explains ‘the narration of the database is through the interface; its design, entry points, absences, spatial complexity and simultaneity’ (2013).

In database logic there need not be climaxes, protagonists and the usual tropes of Hollywood cinema storytelling. There does not have to be a clear conclusion.

This week’s reading is an extract from David Shields’ Reality Hunger: A Manifesto. Shields expresses his fondness for the collage as a mode for conveying an artistic idea. This extract is almost a collage in itself as it contains significant ideas and does not to obviously link to the statements made before or after.

The compelling concept of collage allows an artist to link fragments that do not normally fit together. These numerous parts form in to one meaning for one viewer, but will result in a completely different outcome for another viewer. These bits all contribute to the collage, sometimes referred to as a mosaic. Shields refers to the ‘law of mosaics: how to deal with parts in the absence of wholes’ (2011).

Shields refers to Coleridge who believes the primary imagination is ‘a continuing process… in creative perception… of all human minds’ where as the secondary imagination is a repetition of the creative process that results in mosaic-like products that are composed of existing parts.

The plot driven narrative comprises of the presentation of a problem and a resolution to that problem. This implies that life is the same, that everything happens for a reason and results in a neat conclusion. Shields explains that this mode is a misrepresentation of life as this is not the case at all. This idea should be denied as should the novel ‘the novel is dead. Long live the antinovel, built from scraps’ (Shields, 2011). The collage is to be considered as an ‘evolution beyond narrative’.

Shields encourages the filmmaker to consider the audience as active in drawing meaning from the work. Leaving gaps in the plot allows the viewer space to interpret all of the fragments. The montage with reference to Lev Kuleshov’s experiment is a reminder of an audience’s ability to form meaning from a series of juxtaposed shots (forming relationships) that would not mean the same if shown individually.

Traditional novels are ‘predictable’ in their narrative structure, but uncertain in what they’re alluding to. Renata Adler’s ‘Speed Boat’ is viewed favourably for it’s use of collage that subtly reveals a concept through it’s culmination of parts. A writer should not be concerned about their concept transcending to their audience, but concentrate on what they are interested in as this allows excitement which is far more beneficial for the reader.

Artists should not make art, they should discover it and organise the material in a way that forms a significant meaning. All parts within a collage are important which is similar to shots within a film. Editing is considered a ‘key postmodern artistic instrument’ that selects certain sections and arranges them (2011). This can be applied to collage. The two types of filmmaking are identified through Hitchock, whose films are meticulously planned film and Coppola, whose films develop as they are made.

Shields describes ‘the purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known’ (2011). This relates to a collage artist who connects the audience and the work without the use of time.

This week’s reading by Bettina Frankham explores documentaries that are created with an open form and the ways in which this impacts a users understanding.

In a poetic approach to documentary seen in interactive documentaries, the filmmaker avoids common story form, creating an uncertainty in the user. This style opens up the opportunity for reflection on the work.

The relational aesthetic of a work provides the user to engage with the work and therefore form their initial understanding and so the connections used in a work deeply impact the user’s interpretation. When a user interacts with the work, a unique understanding is formed.

A strategy employed by filmmakers while creating a poetic documentary is the list. The list allows space for the user to engage and reflect, openness for the user to interpret and form unique interpretation of unity among fragments. Works that are structured through lists allow varied understandings to develop through relating the parts. The user has the ability to connect and form a complex meaning when a variety of fragments are engaged with. The users are the activators of the non-linear narrative.

Utilising a list allows the filmmaker to deform the narrative, the user to organise the fragments and form connections between those parts. The list does not provide a solid narrative structure, instead the fragments stimulates thought in relation to association from the users’ own memory, creating a unique interpretation of the material provided. In this method, it acts as a mnemonic device. The user chooses the form of the interactive documentary based on the content they are engaging in.

These films use theme, topic, place or concept to develop their fragments, although the connection between these parts remains ambiguous. As the user has that responsibility to form relations between the fragments, the temporal ordering is not considered significant. Within a poetic documentary ‘the facets are glimpses rather than ideal chronicles’ (Frankham, 2013). Associational form is utilised as the user is likely to create connections between fragments that are juxtaposed through their pictorial qualities and content.  Associational form is seen through the formation of fragments one after another (otherwise known as montage) through the choice of the user allowing a diverse array of combinations to be formed. Montage allows significant features within fragments to be accentuated.

The user is the activator of the fragments and therefore responsible for ‘editing’ the structure of the documentary they engage with. Frankham states ‘…material can be organised for the sake of clarity, to obfuscate, to emphasise power structures, to challenge established views or to create a particular experience’ (2013). Users are more aware and accepting of active spectatorship. The users are capable of understanding different formats for presenting information and dealing with the gaps that may be present in these poetic approaches.

Documentarians such as Philip Rosen view their role as responsible for ‘…transforming raw artefacts of the world…into meaningful constructions’ (Frankham, 2013). The poetic approach allows meaning to form through a non-linear narrative. This interpretation encourages the user to make sense of the relations between the fragments. The wider understanding that is formed excuses any gaps that may be present in the poetic documentary that are usually not present in traditional documentary.

Marks mentions there is also a potential for ‘superficial engagement over a critically engaged experience when the structure of a work permits a quick scanning to grasp its intentions’ (Frankam, 2013).

This weeks reading by Matt Soar provides a highly relevant description of Korsakow as a tool for creating interactive documentaries whilst acknowledging the limitations of all data base documentaries.

The uncomplicated open-source software is ideal for developing non-linear, interactive, web-based documentaries without the requirement of programming knowledge. A large number of films made in Korsakow ‘are documentary-oriented, typically small-­scale, observational, character-­driven, even meditative’ (Soar, 2014).

There are numerous changes occurring to the ways in which individuals develop and engage with media. These include:

• Introduction of HTML 5
• Promotion of alternative media platforms and audiences
• Opportunities for funding and exhibition of new media
• Introduction of rapid computer networks for high quality viewing and distribution of work
• Broader availability to a varied audience
• Development of ‘online read-write culture’
• Low production costs involved in creating this new media

These developments in new media practices such as data base story telling has formed after large experimentation in combining new digital media with cinema.

With easy and affordable internet access filmmakers are presented with a new freedom to delve into specific details of stories that they were never able to due to the restrictions of filmmaking such as time constraints.

This technology is intended for filmmakers rather than highly skilled technologists as it is relatively simple to use, but offers huge opportunities to explore creative concepts.

Some issues that need to be considered when determining the sort of interactive documentary software a filmmaker will use include:

• The Programming language
• The platform
• The operating system
• The plug ins
• The versioning

The new term ‘software salvage’ presents the dilemma of resurrecting new media works after the files are no longer viewable due to the rapid developments in technology, specifically online media. This issue is already problematic for works created on CD-ROM now that many computers or tablets do not provide a component for watching the media in their machines.

Creating a work in Korsakow allows the filmmaker to develop concepts that connect the images to form relationships. The creator can refine the presentation of their clips by determining the number of times they can be viewed and when they can be viewed through the connections made to other clips.

K-Films can be frequently altered and updated, allowing the story to evolve through time. These films require a certain level of time and consideration to fully engage and understand concepts.

There are three components of editing involved in this form of interactive documentary that provide the audience with their interpretation of the work:

• Traditional selecting and cutting clips together (before Korsakow)
• ‘Algorithmic editing’ (within Korsakow)
• Viewer selection (whilst viewing completed Korsakow project)

Soar refers to ‘the process of creating SNUs -­ adding self-­identifying (‘in’) keywords and contextual search terms (‘out’ keywords)’ (2014).

The key words used to connect clips need to be clear, without being too ambiguous. To create an effective K-Film, it is advised to draw the keywords from the meaning behind the clips rather than the obvious visual elements on screen.

This weeks reading The Essay Film: Problems, Definitions, Textual Commitments by Laura Rascaroli presents the complications involved in determining this style and the ways in which a lack of a definition presents filmmakers with opportunities to experiment.

These films are thought to contain two features of reflectivity and subjectivity. They originate from the literary essay, abandon the guidelines of documentary and encourage an audience to emotionally and intellectually interpret the content.

Rascaroli quotes Nora Alter who states “… the essay film produces complex thought that at times is not grounded in reality but can be contradictory, irrational, and fantastic. This new type of film, according to Richter, no longer binds the filmmaker to the rules and parameters of the traditional documentary practice, such as chronological sequencing or the depiction of external phenomena. Rather, it gives free reign to the imagination, with all its artistic potentiality. The term essay is used because it signifies a composition that is in between categories and as such is transgressive, digressive, playful, contradictory, and political”.

The authorial voice presented in a film essay can prompt the viewer to reflect individually, rather than form an understanding based on perceptions from other viewers. This style can also establish issues, without providing a resolution.

This thoughtful and creative form of filmmaking can not be distinguished. Many have tried to categorise it, but the complicated and varied style of these films does not permit them to fit into certain genres.

Marie-Laure Ryan attempts to define and differentiate narrative and story in this reading. The incorrect interpretations of narrative that have formed over time from identity to capitalised history are explained and a guideline to the conditions within narrative are explained extensively.

The variety of mediums available for creating various forms of content offer individuals an opportunity to define their work at some stage in the process. Ryan’s definition aims to assist these individuals in accurately assessing their work by highlighting the importance of ‘semantic features’ and expanding the concept past the traditional verbal forms of narrative. This definition also seeks to relevance across all mediums.

Ryan explains ‘story, like narrative discourse, is a representation, but unlike discourse it is not a representation encoded in material signs. Story is a mental image, a cognitive construct that concerns certain types of entities and relations between these entities’ (2006, p. 7).

The audience has the power to interpret content of any kind and therefore the outcome individuals comprehend may be different to what the creator intended.

Ian Bogost discusses the idea of lists in this reading. The non-narrative format of a list should not be thought of as any less of a device for communicating an idea because it is not thought of as artistically expressive. In facts, the simplicity of lists provide the creator with freedom to focus on the idea/concept rather than abstracting it to form some sort of poetry. This idea of lists as a form of cataloging is relevant to many pieces of work that are considered art.

Bogost claims that lists ‘do not just rebuff the connecting powers of language but rebuff the connecting powers of being itself’ (2012, p. 39).

 

 

The week three reading from Film Art: An Introduction by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson introduces styles of film making.

Narrative

Narrative can be described as a series of events initiated by the association of cause and effect. These events transpire in time and space. Typically there is is one situation presented at the beginning of a narrative. Over time this situation will develop through cause and effect. The changed situation results in the end of the plot.

Plot and Story

Story: A recount of events.

Plot: The explicit events that are displayed on screen.

Diegetic: What the characters in the narrative experience.

Non-diegetic: The elements added to the film that would not be experienced by the characters.

An audience is capable of inferring events that take place, despite not being shown them in the plot. Events that occur can both explicitly and implicitly allow for the story to make sense as a whole. A role of a filmmaker is to select the events that will form the plot. The audience will combine both the plot and the non-diegetic material to form a greater understanding of the film’s meaning.

Cause and Effect

Characters are the common motivation for cause and effect as they initiate and respond to events (intentionally and unintentionally). Characters are given traits that help identify them amongst other characters in the film. These characteristics are presented more obviously then they are in real life. The traits they are given serve the purpose in the film of creating or reacting to events (cause and effect).

Cause and effect can also occur through environmental or natural circumstances. The audience will search for the reason for the event’s occurrence (cause). Significant plot information is often presented in earlier scenes in the film that comes into play later.

An audience becomes curious when a plot conceals information relating to the causes. Similarly, a mystery is created in a plot when integral information relating to the cause is being withheld and suspense is experience by the audience while they are anticipating the effects.

Time

Comprehending the time in which cause and effect events occur helps the audience develop an understanding of the structure of the narrative. A plot does not include unimportant events which do not contribute meaning to the story.

Temporal Order

The order in which the story occurs is referred to as temporal order. The audience will construct an understanding of the story from the plot whether or not it is presented chronologically.

Temporal Duration

A plot is compiled of particular events of significance that span across varied periods of time. Story length could vary from a few days to a life time. The plot duration is developed from the story duration and screen duration comes from the plot duration. Screen duration is established by the film techniques employed in presenting the plot.

Temporal Frequency

Significant events in the story can be repeated numerously in the plot to develop the audience’s understanding of events. The repetition infers the integral causes presented in these events.

Space

The settings in films are essential to developing the audience’s understanding of the narrative. Locations in the story can be left out of the plot, yet still be acknowledged and understood as part of the story.

Openings, Closing and Patterns of Development

The situation presented in the beginning of a film provides the audience with a grounding of what will eventuate in the plot. It creates curiosity, particularly if the plot commences after an important event has already occurred. If this the case, the action the audience did not witness will be exposed through dialogue or other means. Potential cause and effects are presented and expectations are created.

Patterns form during the development of the plot. A character may learn of new knowledge that will impact the end of the film or they may achieved their goal, whether it be an object or situation.

Experimental Film

Experimental film is intentionally unconventional in the way it avoids the content mainstream cinema produce and the style in which they create it. These avant-garde works do not have to contain a narrative, but rather they can be told through a poetic style like the assortment of clips seen in Ballet Mécanique. These works can also be fictional stories that provoke the viewer to draw meaning.

Abstract Form

Abstract film can use footage of everyday objects, both natural and man-made in a way that accentuates their abstract qualities. The abstract organisation of this footage occurs when filmmakers contrast these visuals with other images to emphasise significant physical attributes such as colour, shape, size and movement within the shots. In Ballet Mécanique the audience interpret unity between the movements of the human eye and mechanical objects.

Influential and admirable abstract film Ballet Mécanique uses techniques to emphasise the mechanical quality of ordinary people and objects. Léger and Murphy frame objects and humans closely to hide other aspects that are not as significant. This technique highlights objects’ physical qualities including texture and shape. With a great deal of visual information being displayed rapidly, the audience must search for the associations between the visuals to draw meaning from the motifs. These techniques alter the audiences’ perception of human movement by presenting them as a mechanical movement. The constant pulsation of images forms the mechanical ballet. In the final clip of the film the human movements from the woman seen in the opening now conjure a new meaning based on the interpretation that her gestures appear machine like. This abstract film succeeds in giving the audience an altered understanding of everyday visuals.

Association form

Associational form positions disconnected sounds and images together to give the audience an opportunity to draw the association. The complex links created between multiple mundane images encourage the audience to interpret and therefore the films must have a shorter time frame, as they are demanding of the audience.

This genre of work gives the filmmakers opportunities to edit together a variety of previously recorded footage. This arrangement of images in found footage films place the visuals in a new context and therefore provoke different connotations.

Documentary

Documentary films are usually presented in a narrative form, but can also be non-narrative. These non-narratives include categorical (present information in a simplistic style) and rhetorical form (aim to persuade the audience).

Categorical Form

The filmmaker systematically organises the information into groups to form an order for the documentary. These categories can be based on basic understanding, practicality or personal points of view.

Rhetorical Form

The filmmaker actively presents the information in a way that they believe will convince the audience to agree with the argument. This explicit form also aims to provoke the audience to act on their new understanding of the subject.

This documentary style will state the importance of the issue, present only their point of view on the subject to make it seem accurate, rely on emotions of audience and then finally attempt to convince the audience to take action.

Arguments presented in these documentaries can be identified in three categories.

1. Arguments from the source: Primary and reliable information.

2. Arguments that revolve around the subject: Exploits commonly held opinions and does not provide integral information that may skew the filmmaker’s argument.

3. Arguments that revolve around the subject: Relies on an audience’s emotions and also does not provide integral information that may skew the filmmaker’s argument.

 

 

It is useful to form a basic understanding of film narratives before delving into experimental and documentary styles that are relevant to the K-films that will be created in this subject.

The week two reading by Bjørn Sørenssen analyses the relationship between the predictions stated in an essay published in 1948, written by a French film maker and critic Alexandre Astruc and the developments and practicability of technology in film making available today. The title of the essay ‘Naissance d’une nouvelle avantgarde: La camera-stylo’ translates to ‘The birth of a new avant-garde: the caméra-stylo’.

Sørenssen highlights the foresight Astruc displayed by mentioning that film will progress from entertainment to a significant device for connecting individuals. The essay also presented the assumption that there will be fundamental changes to the medium’s production and distribution. Astruc’s prediction that individuals will own their own projector was accurate with the introduction of DVD players and even more recently, computers, smart phones & tablets. Astruc’s judgement that TV will over power the popularity of cinema as the prime (although aesthetically inferior) audio-visual medium was also proven correct.

Astruc’s three conclusions identified by Sørenssen:

1. An increase in availability of new technological resources will allow the public a new method of expression and connection.

2. This increase will result in an egalitarian use of the medium.

3. Access of this medium to the public will allow for the development of new conventions and forms of audio-visual aesthetics.

Kodak’s introduction of 16mm safety film was a successful response to the dangers and restrictions of producing and distributing 35mm film. With the removal of limitations the medium was no longer restricted to expensive professional productions. With the economic availability of 8mm and Super 8 film, family videos were recorded (although not edited at this stage). The introduction of the internet in the 1990s has transformed traditional modes of distribution. Digital editing software has since become available to the public and mobile phones now provide the public with a variety of equipment including video recording capabilities.

Sørenssen summerises the transformation of user participation into three points:

1. Affordable availability to the public in all areas of the medium including production, editing and distribution.

2. Reduction of equipment size allows for individuals to operate equipment on their own with minimal space requirements.

3. Change in modes of distribution creates possibilities for amateur productions to reach mass media through the use of the internet.

Sørenssen (2008) explains that ‘Gegenöffentlichkeit’ (translated to ‘public sphere’ in English) were “… organized in response and opposition to the dominating public space, or counter publicity as it has been referred to in English”.

Online audio-visual culture has further transformed the idea of the public sphere as “a site of information, discussion, contestation, political struggle, and organization that includes the broadcasting media and new cyberspaces as well as the face-to-face interactions of everyday life” (Kellner 2000).

The internet has closed the gap between the private and public sphere with YouTube providing a platform for free video uploads and sharing capabilities. The introduction of the site has provided the public with a tool for communicating through the medium of film. It has also given amateur content producers millions of views through “digital word-of-mouth” (Sørenssen 2008).

Elderly YouTube user ‘Geriatric 1927’ (otherwise known as Peter) creates vlogs about his life experiences and receives 20-30,000 views per video. Peter is embraced by the YouTube community and has improved his technical skills from the advice provided by his audience . This YouTube user challenges the idea of traditional documentary by the mode in which it is distributed. Peter’s videos are controlled by him and are therefore an accurate form of non-fiction narrative is told.

Astruc’s predictions of a future in which the medium of film is liberated are exemplified in Peter’s online presence.