When the documentary is not a film: Tales from launching a web-native collaborative project

Guest post by Jigar Mehta, i-Docs 2012 keynote speaker on Thursday 22 March. On January 25th 2012, the one-year anniversary of the start of the Egyptian revolution, we launched 18DaysinEgypt.com. No red carpet, no world premiere. It was a moment that we had spent many months building towards, but the site was not our final product. The launch was the …

Interactive Media: the first 40 years

A guest post by Brian Winston. People might remember Barbara Kopple’s Oscar winning documentary Harlan County, USA. It was about a bitter strike in the Kentucky coal-fields in 1974. Most memorably, the company goons were so out of control they even started shooting at the film crew. But my memory of Harlan County coverage is a little different. It centres on …

18 Days in Egypt – An interview with Jigar Mehta

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/35368376] “For the first time in history, citizens are recording an actual revolution in real time. Throughout the 18 days of the 2011 uprising—in the year since—and now—Egyptians are filming pivotal events on their cell phones, taking pictures, texting, tweeting and facebooking their extraordinary bid for freedom. Now, “18 Days in Egypt”, the collaborative documentary project, aims to capture the …