31 Mar Bostinno.com | With Cell Phones, Everyone’s a Filmmaker

Posted at 00:51h in News by

Lauren Landry of Bostinno.com profiles the MIT OpenDocLab following the 2012 New Arts of Documentary symposium. In “With Cell Phones, Everyone’s a Filmmaker: How MIT’s Open Documentary Lab is Exploring the Changing Landscape,” Landry interviews OpenDocLab Principal Investigator William Uricchio and lab Director Sarah Wolozin.

“I see what’s going on in the field, and how we’re at this great moment of change,” Wolozin says, referring to the access people now have to cell phones and the Internet. “There’s this whole participatory culture […] and it affects the whole filmmaking world.”

Building on what Wolozin calls MIT’s “legacy in media innovation,” and what Uricchio describes as the Institute’s “deep commitment to openness,” the Lab is designed to bring together technologists, storytellers and scholars to advance the new arts of documentary. While they both still see a place for traditional storytelling, they’ve noticed a shift, as artists have begun producing more experimental, non-linear documentaries.