Documentary

At the annual University Film and Video Association conference this August, professors from across the country gathered on the well-appointed campus of Champlain College to discuss, among other things, fair use in film education.Read more...

Another victory for common sense and fair use came today from the Librarian of Congress, acting on recommendations from Copyright Office. The latest ruling on exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act greatly expands access to encrypted, copyrighted works for fair use purposes.Read more...

Can the well-crafted social-issue film survive in an increasingly polarized production environment, tending toward the scrappy YouTube video on one end and the IMAX special on the other? I saw several excellent examples this year at the AFI/Discovery Documentary Film Festival-- On Coal River, Waiting for “Superman”, Budrus and The Tillman Story.  Read more...

How do games function as social media? Should documentary film folks pay attention to gaming? I went to the Seventh Annual Games for Change Festival (G4C) in New York City to find out. I quickly discovered what so many people in the audience already knew--that games are an integral part of the social media landscape. Panelists challenged not just game developers but all new media makers to go beyond assembling spectator audiences to establishing concrete action plans for social change.
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