Prof. Chris Walley, Anthropology, E53-335U

ext. 8-7908, cwalley@mit.edu

TA: Sasha Goldberg, sashamaryl@gmail.com

Chris Boebel, Filmmaker

ext. 3-3590, cboebel@mit.edu

 DV Lab: Documenting Science Through Video and New Media

(21A.550/STS 064J) Spring 2022, Room E53-354

Class: Wed 1-4; Lab: Friday 1-4

In this class, we will make as well as analyze documentaries, and we will explore different technologies used to make them – from film and video to online documentary formats to virtual reality. This class offers an overview of classic documentary filmmaking styles, as well as the conceptual questions bound up with their making, while also considering how older techniques and questions reappear in relation to newer technological formats. 

Conceptually, this class builds upon the perspectives of anthropology of media and of science & technology studies (STS) by breaking down rigid distinctions between analysis and doing. Just as science studies scholars focus on science as a social process, we will consider documentary filmmaking as a form of social practice in which it is impossible to separate out theory from the making of documentaries. In short, the social conditions in which documentary film and video are made are an intrinsic part of their meaning.  

This class asks a range of questions: What kinds of historically changing ideas about “truth” or reality are encapsulated in documentary film? What kinds of narratives about science and technology have documentary filmmakers employed and why? What newer narratives might be told? How have historic changes in film, video, and digital technologies transformed the kinds of documentaries that are made - and their meanings? What kinds of relationships among documentary makers, subjects, and audiences are at work? How do the forms of representation found in documentary work affect how we think about the larger social worlds in which we live? What effects do attempts to spread documentary disinformation have?
This class includes both graduate and undergraduate students (undergraduates read required reading; graduates also read recommended reading). The class meets twice a week for three hours. In Wednesday’s classes, we will watch clips of classic documentaries, and use class readings to ground discussion and analysis. Friday’s class is a lab that focuses on production techniques. Students will engage in short production exercises that will familiarize them with video & sound equipment as well as editing software, a familiarity that will also help them understand Weds’ more conceptual discussions in a different way. In addition, students will create a longer final project of their own choosing.  

Requirements: Attendance in class is crucial. Class content and particularly production experience cannot be replicated outside of class-time.  If you must miss a class (for health reasons including for COVID-19, personal, personal difficulties, etc), please contact and inform the instructors prior to the class and we’ll try to figure out alternative solutions. Course materials must be read for the assigned day in class. Class assignments include:

1) A 2500 word essay (or 5 double-spaced pages) on Vertov/Flaherty. Papers are due on Mon Feb. 21. Students should discuss class readings and offer in-depth analytical discussion of relevant films in their paper. If you need an extension, please speak with an instructor before the day it is due. (30% grade)

2) Video Homework exercises and Class Participation (30% grade)

3) Final Projects  (40% grade). The final project is a short video on a topic of your choosing. When you propose your topic, you will submit a 3-5 double-spaced page written “treatment” of your final project idea. The treatment should outline the topic you wish to explore, how you plan to explore that topic both analytically and aesthetically, and what ideas or filmmaking techniques explored in class or readings you’ll draw upon in making your video. When submitting your final project, you will also submit a revised version of your treatment, explaining the ways you were able to put those ideas/techniques into practice or the challenges you faced and how you addressed them as well as what you see as the strengths and weaknesses of your final piece.

Books, Films, and Equipment

Class readings can be found on the class canvas site. During class, we’ll be watching clips from various movies. Those films marked with asterisks will be available online in their entirety through the MIT Film Office. You are NOT expected to watch the films outside of class; however, they are available if you’re interested. It is also possible to available to borrow DVDs of particular films from the DV Lab equipment room E53-335x. 

Required Book:

-Barnouw, Eric

1993 Documentary: A History of the Non-fiction Film. New York: Oxford University Press

Instructors: Three people will be leading this class. Chris Walley is an anthropologist who partners with various media artists. Chris Boebel is an award-winning filmmaker who is Media Development Director at MIT’s Office of Digital Learning and also teaches virtual reality classes at MIT. Sasha Goldberg is a professional editor and graphics designer, who is technically the class “TA,” but in reality far more! 

Equipment:

Students will have access to six cameras, six tripods, six audio kits (including lavalier microphones, boom poles, shotgun microphones, and headphones). External hard drives are available upon request. (Equipment is located in the DV Lab Equipment Room in E53-335x. You will need to sign out and return the equipment to Sasha Goldberg. If you encounter any problems with the equipment borrowed, you must make a note of it on the sign-out sheet and alert Sasha (sashamaryl@gmail.com). Camera and audio equipment must be returned within 48 hours (or by Monday if borrowing over the weekend) to the DV Lab Equipment Room and in the condition in which it was received. You will be able to sign out and return equipment at specified times TBA. Please note that MIT insurance on lost or stolen equipment includes a $1000 deductible. In other words, if equipment is lost or damaged through negligence – rather than normal wear and tear - you will be responsible for all costs not covered by MIT insurance. Further procedures for borrowing and caring for equipment will be discussed in class.

Many students now edit on their own computers. If you don’t already own or use editing software, we would suggest using Da Vinci which is a free download. You can also use Premiere Pro, part of the Adobe Creative Suite. If you would like to make an appointment to work with equipment or on editing with Sasha Goldberg or Chris Boebel, please contact them directly or visit during office hours. 

PART ONE  - Introduction

WEEK ONE – 

Class, Wed.  Feb 2 
Introduction: Technology and the Act of Seeing

Screenings:
- Lumiere Shorts*, 1890s 
-Cheese Mites and other early science films, early 20th century
-select films of Jean Painleve 

Required reading (read by Friday): 
Barnouw, Chap 1 from Documentary: A History of Non-Fiction Film

Additional reading for graduate students:
“Microcinematography and the History of Science and Film” by Hannah Landecker, Isis 97(1):121-132; 2006.
Selections from Science is Fiction: The Films of Jean Painleve by Andy Masaki Bellows, Marina McDougall, and Birgette Berg.

LAB: Friday Feb 4
Introduction to the Camera/Camera Exercise

WEEK Two – 

Class, Wed.  Feb 9
Telling Stories with Moving Images: From Nanook of the North to Indigenous Media

Screenings: Excerpts from  *Nanook of the North, dir. Robert Flaherty (1922); Nanook Revisited (1990) 60 min., Starting Fire With Gunpowder (1991) 59 mins; *Atanarjuat (Fast Runner), dir. Zacharias Kunuk, (2001), 172 min.

Required reading:
-Chapter 2 in Barnouw 
-“Screen Memories: Resignifying the Traditional in Indigenous Media” by Faye Ginsburg

Additional reading for graduate students:
-Chapter 3 “The Innocent Eye: Flaherty, Malinowski and the Romantic Quest” in: The Ethnographer’s Eye by Anna Grimshaw.
- Chap 4 “Taxidermy and Romantic Ethnography: Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North” by Fatimah Rony in The Third Eye, 1996


LAB: Friday Feb 11
Screen camera exercises; Introduction to Sound
Homework: short production exercise in which students shoot a scene 

WEEK THREE -

Wed Feb 16

The Act of Seeing Part II: Film, Technology, and Science

Screening excerpts from: *The Man with a Movie Camera, dir. Dziga Vertov (1929)
-Frames of Reference (1960), dir. Richard Leacock
-Powers of Ten (1977), dir. Charles Eames
-Doc Edgerton video clips


Required Reading:
- selections from Kino-Eye: The writings of Dziga Vertov, edited by Annette Michaelson, 1984, U of Cal Press. Pgs. 5-21.
- “The Idea of Montage in Soviet Art and Film” by David Bordwell in Cinema Journal, 1972, 11(2):9-17.


Additional Reading for graduate students:
-Chap 1 “Science, Nature and Filmmaking” by Timothy Boon “Films of Fact”


LAB: Friday Feb 18 –
screen production exercises;
homework – shoot something to edit.

PAPER DUE (on Vertov and Flaherty) Monday Feb 21

WEEK FOUR -

Wed Feb 23

The Art of Listening: From Voiceovers to Improvisational and Reflexive Media

Screening excerpts from:
- Mer Island Ceremonial Dance (1898), 1 min., A.C. Haddon
- Bathing Baby in Three Cultures (1951) 11 min., dirs. Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson
- Under the Men’s Tree (1974) 15 min. by David and Judith MacDougall
- Jaguar (1967) 93 min, dir. Jean Rouch
-*Chronicle of a Summer (1960) 85 min, dirs. Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin


Required Reading:
-“Beyond Observational Cinema” by David MacDougall in Transcultural Cinema
- “A Conversation with Jean Rouch” by Lucien Taylor. In: Visual Anthropology Review. Spring 1991. Vol. 7, No.1. Pgs. 92-102


Additional Reading for graduate students:
-“Themes in the Cinema of Jean Rouch” by Steve Feld. In: Visual Anthropology, Vo. 2, pp. 223-247
-“Meaning and Being” pgs. 1-9 by David MacDougall in The Corporeal Image: Film, Ethnography and the Senses


LAB: Friday Feb 25 –
Introduction to Editing ;
Homework: Edit previously shot scene

WEEK FIVE -

Wed March 2

The Art of Listening II: Exploring Everyday Life through Direct Cinema and its Antithesis the Interview

Screening excerpts from:
-*Primary (1960) 54 min., dirs. Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, Terence McCartney-Filgate and Albert Maysles
- Don’t Look Back, (1967), dir. D.A. Pennebaker
-*High School, dir. Frederick Wiseman (1968), 75 mins. Zipporah Films.
-*Gates of Heaven (1978), dir. Errol Morris
- Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control (1997), dir. Errol Morris
- *Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003), dir. Errol Morris


Required Reading:
-Barnouw, pgs 231-262 from Chapter Five
-“An Independent with the Networks” by Robert Drew in New Challenges for Documentary, edited by Alan Rosenthal. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Pgs.389-401.
- Richard Leacock “For an Uncontrolled Cinema: in Film Culture No. 22/23, 23-25.
-Baker, Maxine, Chap. One “Errol Morris: American Iconoclast” in: Documentary in the Digital Age.


Additional Reading for graduate students:
- Chap 2 “Social Observers: Robert Drew, Albert and David Maysles, Frederick Wiseman,” in Observational Cinema: Anthropology, Film, and the Exploration of Social Life by Anna Grimshaw and Amanda Ravetz, 2009
- Grundmann, Roy and Rockwell, Cynthia “Truth is Not Subjective: An Interview with Errol Morris” In: Cineaste


LAB: Friday March 4
Screen editing exercises; discuss direct cinema exercise ;
Homework: shoot direct cinema exercise

WEEK SIX -

Class, Wed March 9

Screen selections from:
The Personal is Political: Documentary Film, Race, and Gender

- *Lumumba: Death of a Prophet (1990), dir. Raoul Peck
- *A Healthy Baby Girl, (1997), dir. Judith Helfand
- *I Am Not Your Negro (2016), dir. Raoul Peck


Required Reading:
- “The “I” Narrator in Black Diaspora Cinema” by Manthia Diawara
- “He Gave Me the Words: An Interview with Raoul Peck” w/ Leah Mirakhor, 2017
- “Introduction: The Home Movie Movement” in Mining the Home Movie: Excavations in Histories and Memories, eds. Karen Ishizuka and Patricia Zimmerman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.


LAB: Friday March 11
Screen direct cinema exercise; discuss interviewing techniques.
Homework: interview exercise

WEEK SEVEN
Class, March 16

Documentary as Social Experiment

Screening excerpts from:
-*The 7 Up Series (1964 to 2019), dir. Michael Apted
- Question Bridge (2012 to 2016), museum installation and website www.questionbridge.com (2012-16), dir. Chris Johnson et al
- *The Act of Killing (2013), dir. Joshua Oppenheimer


Required Reading:
- “Class Diaries: Reflections on Michael Apted’s Up Series” by Christine Walley in Public Books, 2013
-“Joshua, Stop Your Crying: An Interview with Joshua Oppenheimer” Film Inquiry, 2015 https://www.filminquiry.com/joshua-oppenheimer-the-film-inquiry-interview/
-“Chris Johnson’s Question Bridge Brings Divisions in African-American Culture Into Focus” https://charlestoncitypaper.com/chris-johnsons-question-bridge-brings-divisions-in-african-american-culture-into-focus/


Recommended Reading:
“The Murders of Gonzago: A Review of The Act of Killing” by Errol Morris in Slate, 2013

LAB: March 18

Screen interview exercises; Pitch 3 ideas for your final project

Homework (due April1): Write final project treatment and prepare pitch

SPRING BREAK – NO CLASSES - MARCH 21 - 25

WEEK EIGHT -

Class, Wed March 30

One Place, Multiple Perspectives: A Deep Dive

Screening excerpts from:
- Exit Zero: An Industrial Family Story (2017), dir. Chris Boebel (w/ Chris Walley)
- Southeast Chicago Archive and Storytelling Project (www.sechicagohistory.org) (a collaborative community/academic/artist i-doc project)
- Southeast: A City Within a City, dir. Steven Walsh (in-process; will view fine cut)

GUEST FILMMAKER: Steven Walsh
Bio: “I’m a Mexican-American writer, producer, and director from the Southeast side of Chicago. And I take pride in my climb up from rather humble beginnings, defying stereotypes, and emerging as a Johns Hopkins graduate and two-time Emmy award-winner. I strive to break ground in uncharted creative territory through multi-perspective storytelling, and have made it a mission to shed light on stigmatized neighborhoods like the one I grew up in. I hope to be known as someone that spoke up for the silenced voice, in everything I do and make, and I plan to raise up any talented youth I come across along the journey. And above all, family is the most important thing in the world to me.”

Required Readings:
-Walley, Christine J. “Deindustrializing Chicago: A Daughter’s Story” from The Insecure American, eds. Hugh Gusterson and Catherine Bestemann, (2009), University of California Press.
-“The Interactive Documentary: A Transformative Art Form” by Tom Perlmutter, Policy Options, Nov. 2014

HOMEWORK: - explore Southeast Chicago Archive and Storytelling Project (sechicagohistory.org) paying particular attention to Memorial Day Massacre “storyline”; also check out other interactive online documentaries with Docubase from MIT’s Open Doc Lab: http://docubase.mit.edu;
www.opendoclab.mit.edu

LAB: Friday April 1
Submit 3-5 double-spaced page treatment of your final film project idea and pitch idea to class.
Homework: begin final project production

WEEK NINE-

Class, Wed April 6
Virtual Reality and the MetaVerse

Screening excerpts from:
Qubit Arcade, dir. Louis Zanforlin and Chris Boebel Additional screenings TBA

Required Reading:
from Dawn of the New Everything, by Jaron Lanier
“Are We Already Living in Virtual Reality?” The New Yorker, April 2, 2018

LAB: Friday April 8
LIGHTING LAB
Homework: Continue final project production/editing

WEEK TEN-

Wed April 13
Misinformation, Conspiracy, and Deep Fakes

Screening excerpts from:
Plandemic, dir. Micki Willis (2020)
In Event of Moon Disaster, dirs. Halsey Burgund and Francesca Panetta (2019)
Welcome to Chechnya , dir. David France (2020)

Required Readings:
“How the Plandemic Movie and Its Falsehoods Spread Widely Online” New York Times, May 20, 2020
- selection from Good Sweden, Bad Sweden: The Use and Abuse of Swedish Values in a Post-Truth World, by Paul Rapacioli
-“Sinister Signs: QAnon, Alt-Signaling, and the New Epistemology” in Anthropology Today by Janet McIntosh (2022)XZ Additional reading for Graduate students:
-MIT Open Doc Lab/Co-Creation Studio “Just Joking!: Deep Fakes, Satire, and the Politics of Synthetic Media” https://cocreationstudio.mit.edu/just-joking/

LAB, Friday April 15
Screen footage from final projects


WEEK ELEVEN -

Class, Wed April 20
(Mis)representing Climate Change

Screening excerpts from:
-*An Inconvenient Truth, dir. David Guggenheim (2006), 97 mins.
-Merchants of Doubt, dir. Robert Kenner, (2014), 96 mins.
-Qapirangajuq: Indigenous Knowledge and Climate Change, Dir. Zacharias Kunuk and Dr. Ian Mauro
-“Prager University” video clip w/ Richard Lindzen

Required readings:
Chap 6 from Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway (2010)
- “How Prager University is Propagating Climate Misinformation” by Joseph McCarthy, The Weather Channel
-“Inside the Right Wing Youtube Empire...” by Mark Oppenheimer in Mother Jones (2018)

LAB, Friday April 22
– SHOOT LIVING CLIMATE FUTURES SYMPOSIUM
Homework: Continue final project production/editing


WEEK TWELVE-

Class, Wed April 27

Screen Rough Cuts of Final Projects

Lab, Friday April 29
Individual meetings to discuss final projects


WEEK THIRTEEN -

Class, Wed May 4
continue editing

Lab Friday May 6
SCREEN FINAL PROJECTS; SUBMIT REVISED VERSION OF YOUR WRITTEN FINAL PROJECT TREATMENT