Renewing Ethnographic Film: Is Digital Video Changing the Genre?

Author(s): David MacDougall

Source: Anthropology Today, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Jun., 2001), pp. 15-21
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2678157
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Renewing ethnographic
Is digital video changing the genre?
DAVID MACDOUGALL Among the filmmakers I know, one of the most frequently
DavidMacDougall wasoneof asked questions these days is: 'What do you think of
theco-founders of theCentre for video?' Soon followed by, 'Has video changed the way
Cross-Cultural Research at the
work?' And it's true that many former filmmakers are
AustralianNationalUniversity, you
wherehe is currently an now videomakers, by choice or by necessity. These ques-
AustralianResearchCouncil tions have particular relevance for visual anthropology,
QueenElizabeth II Fellowand since the making of ethnographic films on film seems to
Convenor of theProgramin
VisualResearch AcrossCultures. have come to a dead end. But with the advent of video, and
A bookof his essays, after a long period of stasis and stagnation, new directions
Transcultural Cinema,was seem to be emerging in ethnographic filmmaking.1 There
publishedbyPrinceton are indications of this at recent film festivals, where many
UniversityPressin 1998.David
MacDougall's firstmajorfilm, of the films, particularly by younger anthropologists,
Tolive withherds,wonthe reveal a greater willingness to experiment with anthropo-
GrandPrixVenezia Gentiat the
VeniceFilmFestivalin 1972. logical ideas and with the medium. Part of this renewal can
Otherfilms,manyco-directed be put down to impatience with the didacticism that has
withJudithMacDougall, include characterized visual anthropology and its aspirations in the
a trilogyontheTurkana of past. It may also be due to shifts in the interests of anthro-
northwestern Kenya.From1975
to 1987he madetwelve pologists, away from descriptions of discrete 'cultures'
ethnographic documentaries with and toward issues of social experience and identity in a
theAustralian Instituteof globalizing and post-colonial world. But, as has happened
Aboriginal Studies.In 1991,with several times in the
JudithMacDougall, he made past - in the 1930s with the coming of
PhotoWallahsaboutlocal sound, in the 1960s with the new synchronous cameras
photographers in northern India. and recorders - the change may also be due to the arrival
In 1992he wentto Sardiniato of a new technology. That this might occur was recently
makeTempusde baristas(1994)
aboutthreegenerations pointed out by Paul Henley, who noted that 'a fortuitous
of
mountain shepherds. Since1997 combination of changing theoretical paradigms within
he hasbeenconducting a study anthropology and recent technological developments is
of TheDoonSchoolin northern finally giving rise to conditions that could result in the
India.Hisemailis
David.MacDougall@anu. edu.au widespread adoption of filmmaking as an important
medium of ethnographic research' (Henley 2000: 209).
For at least three decades, most ethnographic filmmaking
in Britain and North America has been committed to the
agendas of television and education, rather than to opening
up new areas of anthropological research. The exceptions
are cases in which cameras have been used to gather visual
data of rituals, body movements, technological processes
and the like for later analysis, but this hardly amounts to
ethnographic filmmaking as a form of professional dis-
course. There have been few ethnographic films that could
be described as constituting original research in anthro-
pology. To many anthropologists this has perhaps never
even seemed possible, and in such an atmosphere few young
anthropologists have been willing to commit themselves to
such a perilous career path. And yet, many of the areas of
research that have attracted anthropological interest during
this period are those in which ethnographic film arguably
has its greatest potential. It is perhaps uniquely suited to
analysing visible cultural forms, the immediacy of indi-
vidual experience, human relationships with the material
world, and social interactions in all their evolving and mul-
tivalent complexity. If visual anthropology has yet to make
many significant contributions in these areas, the reasons
may lie as much in a lack of opportunity as in the adoption
of inappropriate filmic models from the marketplace.
Video has been with us a long time - the National Film
Board of Canada's 'Challenge for Change' project was
using reel-to-reel black and white video in the 1960s.
Betacam and Beta SP have been widely used in documen-
tary and ethnographic film production since the 1980s. The
difference today is digital video, which has made it pos-
sible to produce high-quality images from very small cam-
eras, some not much larger than a cigarette packet. Coupled
with this is desktop computer editing, which has obviated
ANTHROPOLOGY
TODAYVOL17 NO3, JUNE2001
film
^*&
the need to rely on expensive on-line video studios.
The question: 'What do you think of video?' usually
assumes a prior experience with 16mm filmmaking, and
often with what might be called the industrial model of
documentary film production. Typically, filmmakers have
worked in crews, or at a minimum in pairs, and have had
to rely upon large budgets obtained from television net-
works, philanthropic foundations or government funding
agencies. Now for the first time it has become possible to
make a professional-looking film largely on your own,
shooting it yourself and editing it in your home or office.
Not everyone, obviously, is capable of doing so, but for
those with the talent and tenacity, it can be done. This sig-
nificantly challenges the power of the professional film-
making establishment, with its customary financial
backing, administrators, directors and specialist techni-
cians. It turns the responsibility back upon us, the anthro-
pologists and filmmakers, to accept the challenge to
produce new, exemplary ethnographic films.
The same things were being said (it will be objected)
three decades ago about Super8 film, and a decade ago
about Hi-8 video. Very little in ethnographic film changed
as a result of those technical innovations. Formulas drawn
from television and the educational film continued to dom-
inate the genre. Ethnographic film festivals such as
Cin?ma du R?el increasingly showed films aimed at tele-
vision and based on newsworthy topics or social issues,
often structured primarily around interviews. Yet ironi-
cally, some of the best ethnographic films of the time came
out of television, as a result of filmmakers challenging
establishment television on its own ground.2
The difference now is that digital video offers a realistic
alternative to 16mm and the professional video formats,
whereas Super8 (championed by Ricky Leacock) and Hi-
8 were difficult to edit and technically marginal. They
were both considered substandard for television broadcast,
and few films made in either format were taken up by film
distributors. Professional support for both formats was
minimal and gradually dwindled to nothing. There were
fewer and fewer processing laboratories and studios that
could handle them. The problem was that although these
formats made low-cost production available to film-
makers, post-production became a nightmare. There was
really no equivalent to today's nonlinear desktop editing,
which can take raw footage and carry it through to a video
master complete with titles, effects and mixed soundtrack.
15

MangMang,in thefilmLa Some recent examples
m?moiredurebyRossella A number of films shown at recent ethnographic festivals
Ragazzi.
give promise of the new independence made possible by
digital video. Each exhibits experimentation in its construc-
tion, a special level of intimacy with its subject, and a broad-
ening concept of what a work of visual anthropology can be.
Ingeborg Solvang's Yesterday - a girl, tomorrow - a
woman recently won the student prize at the G?ttingen
International Ethnographic Film Festival. The film contains
unusually intimate observations of women's lives in a
family attempting to maintain its decaying social position in
a provincial Bolivian town. The film, although technically
rough, is rich in detail and irony, especially in the awkward
ceremony in which Ginny, the girl of the title, finally
emerges as a new adult. One feels this film could only have
been made by a single filmmaker, a confidant of the family,
and a student of the complex factors of class, economics and
gender politics underlying the family's situation.
Several other films shown at G?ttingen indicate the
vigour with which ethnographic filmmakers are using the
new technology. Among them was a group of films from
the visual anthropology programme being developed at
Yunnan University in southwest China.3 In Qing, the news-
paperman by Yi Sicheng, the focus is on the instability of
the main subject's social status, but rather than belabouring
this in didactic fashion, the film studies it through a series
of carefully observed scenes ranging from private conver-
sations to a public performance. By contrast, Khalfan and
Zanzibar, by Lina Fruzzetti, Alfred Guzzetti and ?kos
?st?r, makes a virtue of didacticism, using the flexibility of
digital editing to run lines of text across the screen and jux-
Ic?O; The Oiiiarii ?Juiim? inalitj 2m&Jm?im&%
.J ^j?:<
JSZ~.'-&i'.
A scenefromthefilm
KhalfanandZanzibar by
LinaFruzzetti,
Alfred
Guzzettiand?kos?st?rwith
' title.
a 'crawling
tap?se unlikely segments of material.
Another recent film, La m?moire dure by Rossella
Ragazzi, was shown at the 10th Rassegna Internazionale
di Documentari Etnografici in Nuoro, Sardinia. It follows
several children in a special class for ?migr?s who have
recently arrived in Paris. Ibrahim, Alpha, Isaak and Mang
Mang are all castaways in a strange land, struggling to
learn a new culture and language and beset by traumatic
memories from their past. For them memory is 'dure' -
but it also resists, survives, endures. It is what their new
learning requires of them. The film enters gently into
their daily lives and that of their teacher, examining
moments of development in real time, such as the girl
Mang Mang repeatedly attempting to read the word 'hel-
icopter'. Here the qualities of digital filmmaking are not
secondary to the film's meaning but central to the film-
maker's ability to give us access to the experiences and
responses of the children.
These films suggest that digital cameras and editing
have expanded the resources available to ethnographic
filmmakers. To test this you would perhaps have to watch
the filmmakers at work, but their testimonies can tell us a
lot. 'Has video changed the way you work?' My encoun-
ters with other filmmakers, and my own experiences, point
to a number of significant changes, although not always
those one might expect.
Filmmakers predictably mourn the loss of the projected
film image. They also fear that the disciplines they learnt
in using 16mm film are being lost. Video tape is so cheap
that it may encourage filmmakers to shoot first - exces-
sively, in the hope of capturing everything - and think
later. This has not been my experience, nor that of most of
my colleagues. If anything, I shoot more carefully now
than ever before, perhaps because I am less distracted by
technical matters (is the film running out, is the f-stop cor-
rect?) and can give fuller attention to the qualities and con-
tent of the image. Another factor may be that leaving film
behind creates an obstinate desire to preserve filmic
values. As for the film image itself, two considerations
assume importance. First, apart from screenings at a few
film festivals, hardly any 16mm productions will be seen
on anything but a television screen, either broadcast or, in
more degraded form, as VHS vid?ocassettes. Second,
video projection has improved so dramatically that images
produced by small digital cameras now look astonishingly
bright and detailed, even in large theatres. We can expect
that before long high-definition video will look even
better, so that documentary images, for the first time since
the 1930s (when 35mm was the norm), will once again be
technically equivalent to those of feature films. We can
also expect digital video discs (on which feature films are
now widely distributed) to replace VHS cassettes once
documentary distributors start using this format.
Working alone
But these are technical matters. A more important question
is what have been the methodological and intellectual con-
sequences when filmmakers turn to video. One evident
change has been in the number of filmmakers working
alone. One-person filmmaking has always been possible,
but the difficulties of managing both a camera and syn-
chronous sound recorder have discouraged it. Although
recording good sound remains a problem, it has become
more feasible with the new video cameras. This has
brought the ethnographic filmmaker's situation closer to
that of the classical anthropological fieldworker, engaged
in participant-observation. It has also brought ethnographic
filmmaking closer to the ideal of a more personal cinema
envisaged by the 'direct cinema' filmmakers of the 1960s.
The implications of one-person filmmaking are wide-
ranging. A single person tends to be perceived as an indi-
TODAYVOL17 NO 3, JUNE2001
ANTHROPOLOGY

Qing,thesubjectof Qing,
thenewspaperman by Yi
Sicheng.
1.Forconvenience, when
I usethetermsfilmsand
filmmaking, I includealso
videosandvideo-making.
2. Threeexamplesare
MelissaLlewelyn-Davies'
filmThewomen'sOlamal,
BrianMoser's Lastof the
Cuiva,andthetrilogyof
filmson theHamarmadeby
JeanLydallandJoanna
Head.
3. Thisis theprogramme
of theEastAsianInstitute of
VisualAnthropology in
Kunming, co-sponsored by
theIWF(Institut f?rden
Wissenschaftlichen Film)in
Germany andassistedby
stafffromtheGranada
CentreforVisual
Anthropology atManchester
University.
4. Theseappeared in such
seriesas Thespacebetween
words(1972),Decisions
(1975-76),andPolice
(1982).
5. Photowallahs(1991).
6. TheDoonSchool
projectwascarriedoutwith
anAustralian Research
Councilfellowshipatthe
CentreforCross-Cultural
Research, Australian
NationalUniversity.
7. Thefirstfilmfromthe
project,DoonSchool
chronicles,wasreleasedin
2000.Itis distributed in the
UKby theRoyal
Anthropological Institute.
8. Constructing post-
colonialIndia:National
character andtheDoon
School.LondonandNew
York:Routledge,1998.
9. JayRuby(2000:38-39,
266-267)hasalsoarguedfor
ethnographic filmsto
becomelesstiedto narrow
conceptions of whatmakesa
'goodfilm'.AlthoughI am
broadlyin agreement with
him,I wouldarguethatthe
TODAYVOL17 NO3, JUNE2001
ANTHROPOLOGY
t
l\ ?* "S3
vidual, whereas even two people working together consti-
tute a 'team', with all the associations of an institutional-
ized, corporate statement this carries. Furthermore, the
smaller digital cameras are regarded, at least for the
present, as amateur cameras. In public places, they are
associated more with tourism than with film production.
This perception carries over into the private realm, where
someone with a video camera is viewed more as a person
pursuing personal or local interests than wider institutional
ones. As more people use cameras of their own, amateur
cameras increasingly become associated with the idea of
'for us' rather than 'for them'.
These changes inevitably affect the relationship of the
subject to the filmmaker. Anyone can make the filming
process intrusive and awkward, and conversely, a team of
filmmakers can often establish a close and informal rela-
tionship with their subjects. It is nevertheless true that
there is a different tone to a relationship established with
an individual than with a group, even if the group is only
two. I believe this is partly because a film crew, or even a
pair of filmmakers, is seen as having its own internal social
dynamic, from which the subject feels, however gently,
excluded. As a single individual, the filmmaker is seen to
hold less of an advantage and is more exposed and vulner-
able. I have found that it is possible to establish a quite dif-
ferent kind of rapport with my subjects when working
alone - not always more trusting, but more relaxed, more
flexible, more spontaneous and humorous, and sometimes
more confiding.
Another possible consequence is that a filmmaker
working alone may be more willing to take risks, or act
intuitively, or follow up unexpected opportunities. This is
reinforced by the low cost of video tape compared to
16mm film. A degree of experimentation with video will
not place an entire production budget in jeopardy. Perhaps
more important than cost is the sense one has of being fully
responsible for one's actions, or of having no alternative
but to trust one's own instincts. There are no other mem-
bers of a team to confer with, no pressures to avoid upset-
ting the expectations of the group. Filmmaking in the past
has often been conservative out of a misplaced profession-
alism that discourages individuality - unlike the improvi-
sation expected of a jazz musician, who is bound to a
general theme but not necessarily to a particular score.
Working alone may also encourage a different attitude
toward ethnography. The immediate impressions that bear
upon one when one is alone may take on greater anthropo-
logical significance than the more abstract aspects of the
society one is studying. This can sometimes prove to be a
disadvantage in social research, but it can also lead to an
opening-out of one's perception of the nuances of people's
relationships, the qualities of their sensory life and the
finer details of their cultural world. I shall have more to say
about this in relation to a video project I recently con-
ducted in India.
A new media economy
Perhaps in the future we will conclude that the most revolu-
tionary change brought about by the new technology is the
independence it has given filmmakers from the traditional
sources of ethnographic film funding - the television, edu-
cational and arts establishments. Desktop filmmaking may
have some of the same liberating effects as the paperback
revolution, electronic music composition and internet pub-
lishing. These have not meant that better books or music or
public debate will necessarily follow, but it has meant that
more individuals can test their talents without having to pass
through the boomgates of corporate culture.
I am speaking here initially of television, which has
sponsored so much of British ethnographic filmmaking in
the past few decades. It is to the credit of British television
that a substantial number of innovative ethnographic films
have been made, including some of Roger Graef's studies
of British institutions4 as well as more clearly-designated
ethnographic films in the Granada 'Disappearing World'
series and such BBC series as 'Worlds Apart' and 'Under
the Sun'. It is to British television's discredit that this will-
ingness to take chances has steadily waned in recent years,
and that few if any films by such important ethnographic
filmmakers as Jean Rouch, John Marshall, Ian Dunlop,
Timothy Asch, Jorge Preloran and Robert Gardner have
ever been shown on British television.
Partly
parochialism, partly timidity, this is also symptomatic of
the widespread television imperative to try to second-
guess popular interest rather than lead it.
Freed from the need to seek television funding, ethno-
graphic filmmakers are also freed from many of the con-
straints that go with it: very large production budgets,
oversized crews, broadcast deadlines, arbitrary film
lengths (typically 26 or 52 minutes, very occasionally
longer), the ministrations of commissioning editors, sty-
listic conventions (voice-over introductions, glossy series
packaging, interviews, 'signposting', 'cracking the char-
acters', horror vacui) and a general preference for exotic
or controversial topics. These sorts of requirements, taken
together, make innovative ethnographic filmmaking for
television very hard indeed.
Funding from other institutional sources may not grant
much more autonomy. Educational funding - through
philanthropic foundations or government agencies -
imposes its own expectations, which, being based upon
past approaches, tend to want these to be reproduced. The
model of the heavily-scripted American 'educational film'
with its orotund narration has survived many decades and
appears to have gained a further lease of life on the
Discovery Channel and cable television. The sombre gen-
uflexions of the Ken Burns style, or the obligatory inter-
views of 'Disappearing World', have become increasingly
threadbare when copied by other filmmakers.
There is also the expectation that ethnographic films
will be made primarily as teaching aids, offering knowl-
edge in propositional statements and providing illustra-
tions for concepts already well assimilated by the
discipline. Ethnographic films, from this viewpoint, are
meant to provide information rather than other forms of
knowledge. If they do not do this, they are generally rele-
gated to the role of backdrops, to evoke the missing phys-
ical presence of the societies that anthropologists have
written about. In a broader sense, such films are expected
17
cinemahasevolvedformsof
expression andprofessional
skillsthatwe shouldbuild
upon,notabandon. Rather
thanbelievingthat
filmmaking skillis secondary
to producing good
ethnographic films(ashe
believeswritingskillis
secondary to producing good
anthropological writing),I
wouldarguethereverse: that
if anything,
ethnographic
filmmakers needto become
evenmoreskillfuland
inventive.I donotbelieve
qualityof thoughtis finally
separablefromqualityof
expression.
Henley,Paul.2000.
Ethnographic film:
Technology, practiceand
anthropological theory.
VisualAnthropology 13(3):
207-226.
Ruby,Jay.2000.Picturing
culture:Explorations of
filmandanthropology.
ChicagoandLondon:
of Chicago
University
Press.
Sanjay.1998.
Srivastava,
Constructingpost-colonial
India:Nationalcharacter
andtheDoonSchool.
LondonandNewYork:
Routledge.
Vaughan, Dai. 1999.For
documentary. Berkeley,
LosAngelesandLondon:
of California
University
Press.
Left:Thecharacteristicdesk-
lockerscalled'toyes'usedat
DoonSchool,a designthat
originatedat Winchester
Schoolin England.
Right:Students on thewayto
classesat DoonSchool.
r~&&*'*
18
to be demonstrations of what is already known by the pro-
ducers or their academic advisers, rather than explorations
of what is unclear to them, or that may raise new questions.
This is particularly true in the English-speaking world,
where ethnographic filmmaking is regarded primarily as a
method of instruction or popularization rather than a way
of conducting new research.
From time to time, ethnographic filmmakers have been
able to gain access to government arts funding. A film on
which I collaborated in 1989-90 was partially funded in
this way.5 However, the situation was unusual in that we
applied for a documentary film fellowship rather than
funds to make a specified film. We thus avoided the
process by which arts administrators and their advisers
control the sorts of films that get made. This process is
usually heavily prescriptive, for it requires a film to be
substantially conceived in advance, and often even
scripted, rather than be risk-taking and exploratory.
Sometimes the proposals have to go through repeated
assessments and revisions. And generally, because public
money is involved, it means that films must be deemed
socially 'relevant' and be supported by production guaran-
tees or television pr?sales. This is clearly a formula for
safe films likely to appeal to cautious administrators, and
not very different in spirit from the reassurances required
by television producers that every film project promise a
popular success. In this climate, the topic assumes far
more importance than the filmmaker, even though the
topic of many a famous film - a stolen bicycle, a family's
daily life - would probably seem ludicrously inadequate if
put to an arts funding board. Failure is regarded as irre-
sponsible and unprofessional. But as Jean Rouch has
remarked, filmmakers who attempt something difficult
have a right to fail.
Interviews have become a staple of films made with
educational, television and arts funding, since one of the
safest ways to 'pitch' a film for support is to frame it in a
list of potential interviewees. These may be subject-area
specialists, celebrities, representatives of local views, or
witnesses to historical events. The style has inevitably
spilled over into ethnographic film, so that filmmakers
have a marked tendency to ask people to talk about their
experiences rather than film them actually having them. It
is perhaps unfair to ethnographic filmmakers to say that
this is quicker and easier; rather, the style has become
entrenched in the thinking of audiences and filmmakers
alike. Many first-time documentary filmmakers, accus-
tomed to what they see on television, can think of no alter-
native but to sit people down and interview them.
Widening perspectives
Digital video reduces the need for large-scale institutional
funding and offers the freedom to explore a variety of
approaches to visual anthropology. Even for those who
Jii
*,
have been able to go their own way in the past, the experi-
ence of using the new technology can be liberating and
revelatory. Video is not simply a replacement for film but
a medium with its own capabilities and limitations.
I have benefited from the new technology myself, after
an initial reluctance to adopt it. Has it changed the way I
work? In many ways it has, although the lessons I learnt
using film still underpin what I do. But some of the
changes are dramatic. For example, the production budget
of my current project, which I can carry out on a modest
university research grant (and out of which I will produce
five films), is less than one-tenth of my last 16mm budget,
which produced only one film.6 This has largely freed me
from the economic and stylistic constraints of the institu-
tional funding mentioned above.
In 1997 I began a long-term video study of a boys'
boarding school in northern India.7 The idea was suggested
to me by an Indian anthropologist, Sanjay Srivastava, who
had studied the school's relation to post-colonial e?tes and
whose book on the subject appeared in 1998.81 initially
sought television support for the project, with some suc-
cess but also with misgivings. I began to realize that the
proposals I was writing were locking me into a process that
I wanted to be more open-ended and more like the projects
I had undertaken in the past. I eventually opted to work in
digital video. This undoubtedly helped me to modify the
orientation of the project as it evolved. I began with an
interest in the school as a site of diversity, an intersection
of different cultural strands in Indian society. But as time
went on I began to think of it more often as a carefully con-
structed island of cultural homogeneity in the lives of the
diverse students who passed through it. As a result, I began
filming quite different subjects from those I had started
with. I believe this shift would have been more difficult if
I had been committed to a 16mm film.
It is normal, of course, for ethnographic filmmakers to
respond to the realities of situations as they occur, and
often to revise their projects radically in the process.
Indeed, I know of few cases, and certainly none of my
m
:W*?
TODAYVOL17 NO3, JUNE2001
ANTHROPOLOGY

own, in which a film turned out as it was originally envis-
aged. But I believe that working in video allows the
process of transformation and evolution to take more
varied and experimental forms and to result in a wider
variety of work. Ethnographic films in the three decades
from 1960 to 1990, when they were not dominated by a
spoken commentary, tended to be constructed around a
specific event, such as a ritual or a technical process. Or
they followed the course of a conflict or schism and its res-
olution, tracing the outlines of what Victor Turner at about
the same time was calling 'social dramas'. It was an
approach that stressed 'cases' and closure. Sponsors were
partly responsible for inspiring (or imposing) this
approach, but it also stemmed from a broader cinematic
imperative to produce a particular kind of performance or
exemplary product. The technical complexities of film-
Topleft:DoonSchool
studentscrosstheplaying making, and the potentially quite disrupting appearance of
fieldsto breakfast. filmmaking equipment, would have reinforced this adher-
Topright:Reading ence to established methods, encouraging filmmakers
Shakespeare in a classat
either to intervene and direct the people they filmed or
DoonSchool.
Above:Boylatefor classes stand back and try to diminish the effect of their presence
in theDoonSchool'sMain as much as possible. The less cumbersome technology of
Building. video not only reduces the intrusiveness of the filmmaking
process, putting the subjects more at ease, but I believe
also encourages a less institutionalized approach among
those holding the cameras, and a visual anthropology more
flexibly reflective about anthropological ideas and less
insistent about 'covering' events. In this regard, Paul
A groupoffirst-yearboysin
FootHouseat TheDoon Henley's comments (Henley 2000: 217) on the distinction
School. between the anthropological and the ethnographic are sug-
ANTHROPOLOGY
TODAYVOL17 NO 3, JUNE2001
"3SS? i mm
gestive, for the new technology, while it will undoubtedly
simplify making ethnographic accounts of particular
events, may also encourage more visually focused explo-
rations of anthropological ideas, without such a heavy
reliance upon words.
I found that my overall approach to filming differed in
significant ways from my work in the past. Whereas before
it had tended to be marked by a certain anxiety, a sense of
occasion, I found that it was now more thoughtful and
observant. The desire to achieve something was still there,
but it was less narrowly focused on familiar expository and
narrative methods. I felt more open to my surroundings and
more willing to explore my ideas about the school through
the camera. Undoubtedly this was partly because the cir-
cumstances were different - this was a long-term study of
a large institution, rather than a narrower study of a family
group - but the very fact that I had chosen to use video had
already contributed to the different scope of this project. I
felt no obligation to produce a particular kind of result to
satisfy a funding body, academic institution, or even
myself. I wanted to see what could be learnt about the
school through the process of filming it, and what sorts of
films might come about as a consequence. I therefore saw
the project not so much in terms of films per se as an inves-
tigation I could make with a camera rather than (for
example) through a series of articles or a book.
This altered my approach to both content and form. I
was more prepared to explore 'unfilmic' material and
unconventional structures. This might result in a ten-hour
film, to be 'read' in segments like a book, or a loosely-
related group of film segments of different lengths and
styles, each suited to a different aspect of the school. I
began collecting texts from school documents and consid-
ering how these might be used. Although I was following
certain events in the lives of the students, I was also trying
to examine the school as a cultural complex in which aes-
thetic considerations had taken on great importance, often
approaching that of economics, politics and ideology. I
wanted particularly to explore the school through the
details of its physical presence, which impress themselves
more insistently upon the students than they ever could
upon an outsider. I soon found that the video camera
allowed me to make stills as I was filming, and I began
conceiving of stills as an integral part of how the films
would be constructed. I became more open to making
visual links and 'asides' - or rather, this kind of thinking
was occurring more often at an earlier stage, in the filming
rather than the editing. I accepted that many of these
approaches might be wrong for certain kinds of viewers -
impatient film festival audiences, or university teachers
trying to find films to use in their lectures. But I held on to
the hope that students (at the school or elsewhere) and
other viewers interested in schools might respond to them,
19
 4
; ~~~k
43
Left:Measuringa studentat and that the project might add something useful to the
DoonSchool.
at growing anthropological literature on schools.9
Sanskrit
Right:Studying
DoonSchool. Working alone, I felt freer to come and go as I pleased,
Rightbelow:InanEnglish instead of arriving at a place as though to an appointed
classat DoonSchool. task, hi a previous project in Sardinia, I had worked
closely with a Sardinian sound recordist, and because there
were two of us, I was never quite sure whether people were
responding to him or to me. I also felt a tension about what
they expected of us. No doubt they felt this as well. When
I worked as a single filmmaker, these questions didn't
arise. The result was a different kind of rapport. I have
mentioned that those being filmed are quick to sense that
even two people filming them form a closed circle, with its
own internal interactions. This produces a certain social
distance, sometimes permitting the subject a less
demanding relationship than with a single filmmaker,
whom they must engage with more directly and inti-
mately; but what is gained by this separation - more
autonomy for the subject, less self-consciousness - is also
potentially a loss. The subject is often more reserved, less
forthcoming, more inclined to assume a persona for the
sake of the film.
I found I could communicate with people more easily
from behind a video camera than a film camera, partly
because of the fewer technical preoccupations demanded
by video and partly because I was alone. In place of con-
versations, however casual, I could now often simply
coexist with people in a desultory way. This produced both
relaxed silences and unexpected outpourings. In one
instance it led to a completely unplanned film. A 12-year-
old boy began addressing me in long monologues - while
sitting outdoors, or lying on his bed in the dormitory, or
walking across the playing fields. I began recording these
Left:Stainlesssteel encounters experimentally, without the fear (as I would
tableware usedat Doon have had with film) that I was using up precious rawstock.
School.
He spoke of everything under the sun - nature, philosophy,
Right:Theblueandgrey
shirtof theDoonSchool human relationships, history, education, books he had read,
gamesuniform. films he had seen - and although I had thought of him
20
y
simply as one of the group I was filming, I eventually real-
ized that he deserved a film to himself. This kind of unex-
pected by-product - the possibility of going off on a tangent
- is, I think, one of the further benefits of the turn to video.
Filming alone, I also became aware of a subtle change
in the power relations that exist between filmmakers and
film subjects. Although my presence as an individual
may sometimes have made my subjects feel obliged to
engage with me, at other times they felt they could ignore
me completely. I welcomed this informality, which
seemed to attest to a more open relationship. And
although the Indian students I was filming were almost
invariably polite, it was encouraging sometimes to see
their boredom or wish to be elsewhere showing through.
As time went on many of them developed a quite offhand
attitude toward the whole process.
Other effects and concerns
For some years it has been possible to edit 16mm and
35mm film footage on computers through a kind of hybrid
technology, but most filmmakers still worked on flatbed
film editing machines that had changed little in design
over half a century. You worked directly with the pieces of
film, and you could hold them to the light and see the indi-
vidual frames. Editing film in this way could be compared
to a handcraft, like carpentry or tailoring. But digital
editing on computers has now put the editing process at
arm's length, or rather at a much greater distance. You are
not actually handling any physical materials, apart from a
keyboard and mouse. For many people the difference is
comparable to shifting from writing in longhand to using a
typewriter or word processor, with some rather parallel
effects. One's ideas often appear to emerge more effort-
lessly. Nonlinear computer editing has become the
accepted way of editing video material, coming as a great
relief to video editors after years of dubbing scenes from
one tape to another.
There is less clear testimony about this than about the
use of video cameras, but its effect on how films are con-
structed may be even greater. Video editors speak of the
greatly increased speed that computer editing has given
them in finding shots and manipulating them. For me it has
ANTHROPOLOGY
TODAYVOL17 NO 3, JUNE2001

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Thecumbersome technology
of 16mmfilmcompared to a
videocamcorder (seep. 15),
whichrecordsbothimageand
sound.Above:16 mmfilming
in Uganda,1968.Topleft:
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filmingof
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centre:DavidMacDougall
duringfilmingof Tempusde
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right:JudithMacDougall
withNagra,Sennheiser
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EditingGood-byeoldman
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) the necessary growing pains of a more mature and inter-
ANTHROPOLOGY
TODAYVOL17 NO3, JUNE2001
^jPfp^?*-
certainly reduced the frustrations of hunting for material
and has given me much more freedom to try out different
ways of editing it. But this same speed, at least for many
professional editors, has also led to shorter editing sched-
ules and hastier decision-making. The distinguished film
editor Dai Vaughan has said that it was during those
moments of searching in a bin for a shot that he often had
his best ideas. Even the greater volume of material often
generated by video may, paradoxically, dictate a faster
pace by forcing filmmakers to select more quickly and
arbitrarily what they are going to use, excluding the rest.
Computer editing also makes available a bewildering array
of transitions and special effects, which may tempt the
unwary into purely cosmetic excesses. Perhaps of more
concern (or delight, depending on your point of view) is
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the extent to which digital images can be altered. Vaughan
(1999:188) is worried about the gradual erosion of our
belief in the indexical link between film (and by extension,
video) and reality. This is not simply a matter of eviden-
tiary or forensic value. Manipulations in photography have
always occurred, but we may finally reach the day when
'the assumption of a privileged relation between a photo-
graph and its object, an assumption which has held good
for 150 years and on which cin?-actuality is founded, will
have ceased to be operative'.
There is one further effect which I have not heard dis-
cussed but have observed in my own case. The more
unmediated, even disembodied, quality of the video
footage as it appears on the computer screen, perhaps para-
doxically, has created a new ambience of intimacy with my
subjects, unencumbered by the distractions of rotating
sprockets, tangles of film and tape splicers. They seem to
exist in a more rarefied and quintessential form, leading to
a more intense kind of concentration upon them and their
surroundings. But this same transparency produces, in its
turn, a tendency toward more abstract modes of thinking
than when editing film, where one is perhaps more preoc-
cupied with the sheer mechanics of the constructive
process. In my case, I saw my subjects in a larger context
and was more concerned about its power over them. I found
that video editing fostered a more distanced and analytical
approach as well as a sense of intimacy. I should like to
know if other filmmakers have experienced this effect.
New ways of shooting and editing ethnographic films
may result from the technology now becoming available,
but this will be only one of the results. New formats will
be created, and new ways of looking at them. There are
already video disc cameras, CD-ROMs, DVDs and the
internet, with DVD-authoring and production now
becoming feasible on the desktop. Because of the
increased flexibility in postproduction and viewing prac-
tices, we can expect to see some ethnographic films taking
more specialized and unconventional forms. They may not
even be recognizable as films as we have known them, but
more extended studies comparable to monographs or PhD
dissertations. Out of the same raw materials, films can be
made in various versions, with different levels of contex-
tual material and interpretation. And with the lower costs
of video, one need not necessarily make films for large
audiences. I have edited several films from the Indian
school material primarily for the students themselves and
their parents. I also plan to put compilations of material
together for scholars interested in special topics, such as
children's games and pastimes. The result of this new-won
freedom may be that some ethnographic films become
more unwieldy and 'difficult', but this is perhaps one of
esting visual anthropology. $
21