Challenging Convention | Raney Aronson-Rath

Challenging Convention | Raney Aronson-Rath

PART 3: Challenging Convention.

Callenging convetion 1I remember walking into our newsroom on that day and telling our then head of digital Andrew Golis how clear it was to me how the documentary form would be challenged, and we’d need to truly pay attention to not just the digital linear space as we were already doing and FRONTLINE had always done — but to what I believe is a direct challenge to our form. He laughed at me, but looked almost relieved (he was 28) and said “yeah, welcome to my world, this is what keeps me up at night…”

Since then, there are many years, many films, and much internal foundational work we had to do at FRONTLINE. It’s just now that I can see a clearing enough to take time to immerse myself at MIT, even if for just hours a week it is something ­– a step in the right direction.  During the years at FRONTLINE, we’ve experimented in the interactive space some, but not nearly what I consider to be enough. And I certainly wasn’t able to carve out the right amount of time to devote to this space.

I decided simply that for me to be authentic in my desire to understand how this relatively new form will work for me (and thus for FRONTLINE), I had better figure out what I liked, what works, and what I desire to make.

I have been so single minded in my career, and devoted to the narrative non-fiction film. FRONTLINE was my perfect creative and journalist home. But I realized that learning about this new world I had to go outside again. So that’s what this fellowship is about and this is what this tumblr is about. ­ I’ll take you on my own journey, ­ but more important than my personal journey is you’ll hear about what the lecturers have to say about this emerging field.

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