One of the more powerful aspects of sites like EngageMedia and Witness is the way in which they make filmmaking/mediamaking accessible. Access to training and the tools to produce media are the major barriers when it comes to video production. I think about my own experience of coming to filmmaking. I went to a one minute film festival and I began to feel that this was something I could do because of the brevity and the simplicity of the films. Then I looked to community media outlets that might be affordable for someone who didn’t want to commit to a NY film school. Those resources were available. I also found a space through the emerging Current TV site where I could both view work that felt relevant to what I wanted to produce and exhibit that work. While I was exploring the content and thinking about the context which these sites are situated in it felt very similar.
Many of the mediamakers are just discovering their craft and the powerful ways it can be used thanks to the access afforded through the sites. They now have an outlet for their important messages about social issues where once there wasn’t one. They now have the opportunity to explore filmmaking and change the direction of their life as well as the lives of others. But what is new is that they won’t be doing it through documentary theory that is based on a fixed text with a single maker. As Zimmerman points out, this theory doesn’t connect with the Gaddo Gaddo space in which their work is created. It calls for theory less about a production of images based on cinematic texts and more about a production of activist networks and spaces, structures that produce community for emergent societies. These filmmakers are producing media in a context where for the first time this media is becoming available. This isn’t a space like Current TV that was just a nice addition to the otherwise accessible alternative media outlets in the US.
Zimmerman believes that the pieces produced are able to move beyond the confines of the image and that there are now new open spaces for discussion through EngageMedia and Witness. I believe this to a certain degree. There is definitely the ability to present ideas and have discussions about previously taboo subjects. In one piece on EngageMedia called “Miss or Mrs.?” women talked about the difficulty of going to a gynecologist and getting a basic health checkup because of the stigma of being single. Some women didn’t even know what a gynecologist was! Hopefully creating awareness about this will create a dialogue and destigmatize it so that they girls and women don’t have to deal with yeast infections for as long and often as they do. Still, what kind of change is happening beyond the confines of the frame? This may always be an easy question and critique because it’s not easy to change an entire culture’s perception through one video. Are doctors willing to change the way they treat clients? Are women willing to go to the doctor despite the stares? Another issue that seems basic but had a big impact on my viewing experience was subtitling. It is definitely a big undertaking, but without subtitles it is hard to understand the context of the pieces. Some pieces didn’t necessarily need it. I watched one about some boys that went fishing and learned techniques for fishing while they enjoyed playing in the woods. That was fine without subtitles. On Witness’ Human Rights channel I watched some pieces connect to the current conflict in Syria and had a harder time knowing what I was seeing without knowing what the person was saying. Dead bodies on the side of the road are horrifying, but it felt like a nameless act without some kind of interpretation.
One playlist where the video did amplify the social issue dealt with Brazilians’ reactions to the World Cup and the Olympics and the effects on the favelas. One woman filmed herself talking about why she wouldn’t be going to the World Cup as a result of all of the negative public policy and neighborhood destruction. She received a lot of feedback after the video, so she made another video saying okay you could go to the World Cup, but we should demand that the government agree to do certain things before it happens. Did she have answers that these things would be done? No, she didn’t, but she did create a dialogue.
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