New technology opens up documentary-making

TECHNOLOGY DOCUMENTARY

Recording devices are always evolving – from 16mm cameras to iPad apps – offering film-makers the chance to innovate

The summer of 1960 heralded a critical period in the history of film and it had to do with the 16mm camera. "Just one thing held documentaries back from being free-form, fluid slices of life until this point," says Mandy Chang, director and producer of The Camera That Changed the World, which airs on BBC4 next month. "The fact that for decades, films were mainly shot on unwieldy, 35mm cameras requiring lots of paraphernalia."

Smaller cameras were available, but film-makers were restricted by their noisy winding mechanisms – forcing them to shoot silent. "This dictated both a certain style and approach in documentary-making, and many were set in studio," explains Chang.

The 16mm, hand-held cameras enabled what came to be known as location-based "direct cinema", pioneered in the US by film-makers such as Richard Leacock and in France by Jean Rouche.

Another step forward was the ability to record sound while filming, says Patrick Russell, senior curator of non-fiction at the BFI (British Film Institute). Despite there being innovative examples that date from as early as the 1935 film Housing Problems, a documentary classic about Britain's slums, which showed the inhabitants relating their experiences in their own homes, it took until the 1960s for this technique to become mainstream. "The birth of TV also had a profound impact on the nature and form of documentary," adds Russell. "Because TV's roots lay in radio as well as cinema, a tendency emerged towards journalistic reporting and on-screen presenters."

From the early 80s, there emerged a succession of increasingly cheaper film stock – from one and two-inch videotape to the DV format to Digicam. "With each technological shift came democratisation of the production process and a lowering of production costs," Russell says.

For film-makers there was a shift in emphasis from the "craft of shooting" – with a wary eye on the amount of costly film stock being used – to the "craft of editing" an ever increasing volume of material.

Documentary film-maker Danfung Dennis, who has been documenting wars for years, including the award-winning film on Afghanistan called Hell and Back, says the arrival of the Canon 5D Mark II in 2008 marked another turning point for film-makers. The digital, single lens reflex camera with a low price tag and a video function of "unprecedented image quality" allowed film-makers to "combine the ethics of photo-journalism with the narrative of documentary-making". Dennis adds: "The end result is all about image quality and the narrative style of feature films rather than the conventional video look of many typical documentaries."

More recently, Dennis is behind Condition ONE, a custom camera system for Apple iPad and other tablets expected to be on the market later this year. The technology will allow the viewer to swipe the tablet in any direction and see the corresponding point of view.

New technologies such as this and digital distribution of content via the internet is fuelling another revolution likely to be as far-reaching in its impact as the advent of the hand-held camera. "The revolution now is all about accessibility," says Chang. "Once, documentary was an elitist thing. Now it's a mass participation activity." This article was produced in association with Crossover Labs and Sheffield Doc/Fest