Stefano Odorico - Interactive i-docs and film

Odorico speaking at the IRCHSS supported New Cinema: Changing Audiences Conference at University College Cork, defines interactivity as either semi-closed, semi-open, completely open...

He resists a unitary definition of this new emerging genre: web documentary / idoc / new genre... This is a new format that crosses the boundaries of Old Media and the New (if you acknowledge the binary!) cross media ( maps, blogs, etc) and locative digital technology are used frequently in these productions intercut with standard linear video.

Refers to Lev Manovich considering the differences between the Database and the Narrative... I agree that Manovich's work (2001) is foundational in engaging with multivalent forms that resist the linear.

idocs - have gained the status of film... interacting as they do with internet, mobile forms, gps and other emerging forms. Web non fiction finds alternative ways of distribution too.

Examples:

Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War (Ecer and Ahmad,2008)

A Year at War (The NYT, 2010)

Five years later: Hurricane Katrina (USA Today, 2010)

And in particular:

Prison Valley by David Dufresne & Philippe Brault - here a user has to register, before starting, and is given an identity within the platform, this film, this production takes us on a journey (with a motel as a homebase) in a linear video like a classical documentary, but every couple of minutes the user is given options to look at extra material, or to log in to forums... the individual is now no longer a viewer, or a user, but part of the experience... another revolutionary feature involves interaction with the story's subject, we are also encouraged to develop the story on twitter, or on a frequently updated internal blog.

Another example is Homeless Nation... also HIGHRISE is another excellent example of such a project - at highrise.nfb.ca sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada.

Digital Journalism - a view from

This post from is from The Guardian Online by Editor Alan Rusbridger. He is speaking on Digital Journalism. He speaks about the Guardian's position which is that the newspaper is committed to a 'free at the point of desktop' model. He maintains that by having a paywall newspapers would cut themselves out of the conversations being had by writers, scientists, artists and readers worldwide...a way forward may be mutualisation where journalists and readers together produce something better than either on their own. More here.

There is also a link to the full text of his Cudlipp lecture today.