Reflections on using film in fieldwork
Description
The history of my early filming and photography on an 8mm film camera, 1968-1987
Filming on video from 1988; the advantages
What should one film? Finding a theme
Filming and editing in the 1990's; the bulk of the film.
Which kinds of film are effective? The unities of time, place and subject
The value of showing films in the village; what interested the villagers
Using film in teaching; the idea of surrogate fieldwork or 'virtual reality day'
Making films about how anthropologists actually do fieldwork
Dilmaya's death and memorial ritual in 1995; a watershed in the filming
Interviews wih Dilmaya; the value of extended narrative
The advantages (and disadvantages) of Hi-8 from 1991 and digital film from 1998
Working with television (1999) and the three-chip camera revolution
The potentials of new film technology; combining roles in film production
Some difficulties in the audience; the limitations of narrow and broadcasting
The difficulty of getting ideas across in films
The development of multi-media (videodisc, DVD,WWW) as a way of combining ideas and images
The archival value of anthropological film
How filming can help observation and analysis in anthropology
Some tips on how to make less than awful films
Various anthropological data gathering methods; interviews, census, note taking...
The ethics of fieldwork, especially film making
Returning materials to the societies where they were originated
A brief list of the kind of film I have taken and made
Abstract
These reflections on filming among the Gurungs were made in the autumn of 2000 A.D. Alan Macfarlane talked into the camera in order to capture some of the types of film he made, the changing technologies, and some tips on how to film in the field. This was filmed on 3-chip digital video. The clips should be viewed over broadband.
Keywords
anthropology, fieldwork, filming, video, Gurung, Nepal
Identifiers
This record's URL: http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/32