Hello there, it's Thursday at noon. I know it is Do you remember our arrangement Thursdays at noon on CFUV Are you ready to get started? What do you have in mind? What I want to do now is called first-person plural You make it sound excessively attractive That's what I have in mind David and Julia Jerry wrote in the Harper Collins dictionary of sociology Quote it is true that sociology is always in one way or another Examining social change. It is also true to say that sociology itself was a child of social change It is not coincidence that sociology emerged as a discipline When theorists attempted to understand the nature of the dramatic social economic and political upheavals Associated with the industrial world evolution of the 18th and 19th centuries in European societies close quote Lisa McIntyre wrote in her introductory sociology text the practical skeptic core concepts in sociology quote As I sit down to write about culture, I feel like an aunt trying to describe an elephant The first thing that must be said about culture is that it's big But my task is more difficult than the ants an Aunt can turn away from the elephant and not see it. I Cannot escape from culture. It surrounds me It's inside of me and I take it wherever I go close quote Steven Duncan wrote in the introduction to cultural resistance reader quote the very word culture is elastic Here I'm referring to culture as a thing There as a set of norms behaviors and ways to make sense of the world and in still other places. I'm describing culture as a process The term cultural resistance is no firmer. I Use it to describe culture that is used consciously or unconsciously effectively or not To resist and or change the dominant political economic and or social structure But cultural resistance too can mean many things and take on many forms close quote During the recent Victoria independent film and video festival the Victoria Film Producers Association Also known as Vithpa Hosted a panel of local documentary filmmakers Representing six films to discuss how documentaries lead to social change Moderated by Don Hill former host of CBC Radio 1's tapestry and a filmmaker in his own right The panel showcased their six films and discussed the roles that documentary played in social activism Vithpa graciously allowed us to tape the session In addition to attending the panel we spoke with Sharon Morgan co-producer co-writer and director of Silence of the Strings a documentary of the story of Victoria young people who have fought to maintain their string orchestra program To help us make sense of what we learned we returned to the interview we did with Diane Searle executive director of media net Interviewing these talented Victorians attending and recording the Vithpa Panel session and indeed going to the Victoria independent film and video festival Let us to think about the role of documentaries and culture This week on first-person plural We ask what a documentary film has to do to lead to social change in an episode we call lights camera social action I Keep thinking about how does culture get produced that Gives a structure or framework to the way that we thought about this panel discussion and Really the way that we thought about the films that we saw and the people that we met during the whole film festival The idea of repetition repetition repetition. I Think that to a certain extent people become comfortable with that which is repeated. I Think it points out that culture and cultural production is often a departure from the rational You shouldn't have to say something more than once if reason holds sway but more often than not People remember things they hear more than once and forget things. They don't hear more than once That's not true to the exclusion of all other principles But it's a strong tendency. I see I regard culture is a fantastic Invention and I think of it as an invention even though we're born into it We don't actually get to invent it from scratch But in a sense it's handed to us and in a sense we repeat it and replicate it and change it and Reinvent it constantly and because of that We don't have to rethink things every day of our lives that repetition that comfortable level of Knowing what to expect is a nice invention from the point of view of Not having to start from scratch every single day of your life If you had to do that then you couldn't ever Walk into a classroom or go to a place of business or drive down the street I mean we'd all be paralyzed because we wouldn't know what to do in each situation that we encounter so in one sense Having cultural expectations is an incredible saving in time and effort It's an extremely efficient model in a lot of ways As long as it's not overdone and that's the problem when culture starts getting stagnant when This repetition is never reflected upon thought about fixed or Monkeyed with I think that it becomes stale and it becomes Terranical maybe that's the best word So let's explain our little format our idea for this week show before we go to the first clip sure We attended the Victoria independent film and video festival and specifically the changing image forum Which was put on by the Victoria film producers Association there were a number of filmmakers on hand and there were excerpts from six of their films These were all local Victoria filmmakers. That's right It was a sort of combination panel discussion and preview extravaganza Therefore met was to alternate previews and panel discussion previews and panel discussion. They very generously Allowed us to tape the entire event and we did a reasonably good job of it, too Considering that it was in a small theater with absolutely no PA system It was all right We'll be playing a number of clips from that and from an interview we did with one of the participants later on by telephone Yes, we interviewed share Morgan who is co-producer co-writer and director yes of silence of the strings and she very Sweetly talked to us by phone a couple of days after the event and kind of fleshed out some ideas for us And then we also went back and looked at an interview We did a couple of weeks ago With Diane Cyril who is the executive director of media net because she had some things to say and specifically We pulled one clip out that helped us kind of frame a lot of our thinking as We listened in on this panel and began to think about it Sociologically we'll be telling you as we play the clips who said what so you don't need to learn to recognize the voices So let's play the first clip which is actually from the phone interview with share Morgan And I think that that's how some of the best stories that are made began their Universal stories, but they have a very human face or a very personal face or interpretation. I Think that one of the ways in which documentaries work is that they do tell stories We think of stories as being narratives of fiction But in fact, I think documentaries go out and find Information about you real human beings and in some ways tell stories that kind of touches Maybe even more than a good fiction would one of the principles behind narrative analysis is that there's no Opriory distinction between fiction and nonfiction and if there were we wouldn't recognize it. It's all just Text it's all just made up stories Of course you can ground your story in quote reality close quote to whatever extent you want But from the reader standpoint, he doesn't know how accurate it is and how many liberties you're taking but with a film There are certain Coatings that say this is real and that doesn't mean that I mean everybody who's ever seen spinal tap knows that you can Make a fake documentary that looks real But that's the idea you're supposed to recognize that movie in particular as being a satire of that sort of movie and satire depends upon that Recognition of the modality and sarcasm depends on recognition of modality. So how do you see human stories as being part of Producing culture. I think a story necessarily Puts in certain things leaves out certain things We all with our perceptions know what we find relevant and dismiss what we find irrelevant and a story is a way of well can be a way of Indicating to someone else what we find relevant about a particular situation We can't know The story of a human being without knowing the culture in other words when somebody tells a story in a language I don't understand Of a human being there are going to be things that I recognize in the story because I'm human and they're human That I can pick up on But I won't pick up on everything. I mean remember when we Were watching a brother. We're out there Remember that movie sure and we saw it in Winnipeg and we were the only Americans and the only people from the southeast United states which is where the movie is set and the entire theater well We don't know that but we suspected it strongly suspected it and we may have been the only people who also understood The odyssey or at least understood it well enough to see the The irony of using it in a story about the southeast And we were laughing and nobody else laughed. I mean, we were laughing at the jokes in the movie So there are things that you miss culture gives context to the human story And if you don't have that cultural basis when you're telling the human story That sharer is talking about you may not understand the story or understand You know the in other words the filmmakers were lying To a certain extent upon culture in order to be able to tell the story of the person We also have another clip by her in the same phone interview And let's listen it out and then we'll talk about that a bit One of the other powerful things about documentary film, especially ones about social change or social movements Is that as soon as you walk into a public sphere with a camera It becomes an affirmative act to the people that are there That are being filmed or the people who care about that and so they go Oh, yeah, this must matter because somebody's bothering to make a film about it Whether it matters is whether it's Important to the person telling the story or to the person listening to the story and that's what narrative is it takes the Unbelievable complexity of human experience And boils it down the person who does the boiling or the persons who do the boiling Are irretrievably a part of the process It's what they pick out and what they leave behind that makes up the narrative And this can be distortion and it always is But it can also be very convenient You don't have to reinvent the wheel every day when you get up first thing The telling of the story that is the turning on of the camera Changes the story these people are going about their business doing what they're doing And they reflect upon it when the camera is turned on and begin to affirm the fact that what they are doing matters And so she's actually talking about how the telling of the story Changes the story the camera becomes a part of the story at that point and you can't get away from that I mean a lot of people talk about documentary as if it's truthful And as if it is merely this passive thing That's observing the thing that would have happened anyway But the truth of the matter is just by virtue of turning the camera on And putting the camera's gaze on something Makes that thing matter makes that thing change How about if it were hidden video that's becoming popular nowadays? I guess the video would still be contextualized and that's the real issue here That the conditions were such that a camera could be hidden right away contextualizes it Yeah, I would say that affects the angle of the camera Which affects how the story is being told It also and you know where the camera is I mean you've we've all seen 60 minutes and the camera is going in To places and you're basically looking at the feet of people or something like that which Changes the story somewhat But the other thing I would suggest is that once the film is aired it changes culture as well That once somebody knows that the camera have been placed upon him He's going to tell a different story About the event than he would have if he hadn't known about the camera And culture happens in the stories that we tell about the past I mean Foucault talks about that he says that history is always the history of the present And what he means is that we know history through the stories that we tell So even if the camera is hidden It eventually changes the story Because once somebody finds out that the camera is hidden They change their story I think that that makes documentary film making a little more difficult to analyze Because the word documentary implies that it's documenting culture But most of the people that we saw in the film festival who made documentaries and we talked to and And watched their films were about making social change They were about not just producing A documentation of what existed but they were also about Creating new culture That is making changes in the culture You're listening to First Person Plural on CFUV Victoria's Public Radio 101.9 FM 104.3 cable And on the internet CFUV.uvig.ca Giving sociology an edge Let's go ahead and listen to another filmmaker Don Hill was the moderator of the panel And Martin DeVolk is the producer and director of the film A Forgotten Legacy Which took a look at the ways in which natives Produced labor in British Columbia and let's listen and then we'll talk about it I think what it came down to is I came across some information about native labor in DC And when I went to look further there was none. There was actually no book. There's just no material I was there But you're not First Nation, you know, I'm not but I've worked with in the last 10 years. I've done five different films with So with that in mind about there's no information that intrigued me So you were not only intrigued you picked up a camera got together the tools to Have an outcome Not all documentaries claim to be objective or attempt to be objective or succeed in being objective If that's what they're out to do in the first place A lot of times the documentary maker is very much a participant Is very much aware of his influence and in fact tries to increase or direct his influence He told the story because nobody else had That he was interested in a topic and he looked around and he found that nobody had actually documented it And I think that's a very interesting reason for telling a story Yeah, I think it's quintessential field research The quintessential rationale for field research is that if you don't go out and find it No one will have found it And I think that that points out that this style of documentary filmmaking is a type of sociology I think so and I think that it also demonstrates that it's a type of of oral history That what he's saying is that if I don't go out and document this right now While there are still people around that I can go interview and talk to It will get lost. It won't be there anymore And that brings up the question. Why do some stories survive and why do others not and that becomes a question of power And I think that that's very obvious when you're talking about Why do native stories not make it into the discourse into the mainstream discourse? We got there's an element of materialism to it certain cultures Get attritioned out because the people who would support them are Well, if not killed outright then denied access to the means of cultural production At least they are not allowed that access to the extent that certain other people are who would and do Reapers other cultures If you were to talk to most people And ask them, how do they know about the world around them? You know people outside their local circle, they would respond I know because cnn told me or cbc told me or whoever I find that disheartening and a little scary and Very revealing. That was a theme that got hit by don hill quite a bit during the panel discussion Why is this stuff not on television more often? Here are these six wonderful films and there are certainly hundreds more that are being made That are telling important stories about the world And instead we get to hear george w's latest tape loop And which he basically is saying the same thing that he said last week just about this time So that we can all sit and fear a little bit more so that he can you know Work towards whatever it is that he's working towards Invariably the nightly news Has to leave something out. It's only on for 30 minutes a day But one might learn something from noting what gets left out In newspapers, they call it the news hole The news hole is the size of Column inches that are left over after all of the advertising Has been sold out the thing that determines how big your newspaper is is how many ads have been sold And after the advertising is placed in then there are certain things that are put in Every time like the crossword puzzle, you know the advice columns the astrology and the comics and then When all is said and done then they put the news in which is really ironic since the thing is called news paper How much news gets reported is very much determined by what's left over Then you get into well, how do I decide what to put in there and what not And the chances are you're going to decide that on the basis of what will keep all of these people who bought these ads happy I guess this is a good segue because we're talking about advertisers and the newspapers and so forth And part of what's going on in film today has to do with how It is becoming more democratized in terms of being able to afford to make a film the new technologies Are allowing more people access to more equipment to make better quality films Because I can take my little handheld can and camera Everywhere I want to go now including other countries including Just driving around town or whatever and I can take pictures of things That are fairly good quality that could in fact Rival film quality depending upon the conditions under which I film and how confident I am with the little camera It means that if something is important to me It doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be important to anybody else I just have to point my camera at it and I don't have to get a film crew out And I don't have to be intrusive With a large camera and a lot of lights and all of the stuff that you had to do before to do film Let's go ahead and listen to another filmmaker bill weaver who did the film From new age to new edge. He was the producer and director Uh, let's listen to him talk about a little bit about this new Technology, we all have to give a little bit away We're all competitors in a certain way, but we're really Into the same synergy and we help on another a lot. We show up in one another's credits And we help in another film Video tape so that type of a film community a true film community is necessary for the city I think it's interesting one of the things that we discovered during the film festival We're talking a lot about community here Is that the filmmaker community is very strong in victoria among the documentary filmmakers They are in fact working on each other's films Uh, I think sherry mentioned that bill grabbed his camera and came out with her the first Thing that she filmed for her film Which was a meeting that was taking place on a certain day She talked about this not during the the Fifth session, but she talked about this with you In the interview that she did with you a couple of weeks ago and here she was Knowing that this event was going to happen Having no idea whether she was really going to be able to make the documentary that she was getting ready to make And having no funding yet But she knew somebody who had a camera Who could do what she needed to do and she gave him a call and he came out for the day and did it And that's the kind of cooperation that goes on Amongst the filmmakers and they do this formally and informally Bill weaver coined the term Co-operative to describe this sort of environment on one hand. They are competitors They're doing the same thing and if one of them is making a film for money The others may or may not share in the revenue Depending on how that particular filmmaker feels about it in the particular case On the other hand some local cooperation is Inevitable if only from a standpoint of enlightened self-interest if they don't cooperate at all Then localities where the filmmakers do cooperate somewhat May well out compete them and it's unsurprising that a town in which the filmmakers are trying to compete with The established industries in Vancouver and Toronto would want to cooperate on certain economies of scale And create a bit of a haven I mean you're talking about this economically, but I think we're also talking about The emotionality of it the connectedness of it one of the things that makes this area appealing Is that cooperation aspect of it? So it becomes a reasonable thing to do from a marketing point of view And it becomes an emotionally satisfying thing to do As you are working through all of the things that you have to work through in order to be a filmmaker I think that part of what's going on here is that these are people who care about community That's part of what their work is about. That's part of what I mean, they're trying to create social change They're interested in changing the world around them And so I think that it becomes part of their identity To be willing to share with each other. I think that there is a much greater social process going on here than simply greater returns Or another way to put it might be that part of the greater returns is not materials So to be pointless to search for other models while simultaneously reifying the dominant one Exactly. And so it's a way in which they live what they do And I and I was impressed with that During the film festival It seemed that these are activists who are active In the causes that they Document and they made no secret of it Before we get too far into this though. I want us to Consider how the cheaper technology is making this all possible. In other words, if there was this little money And it still cost quite a bit To make a film to start the process of making a film I'm not sure that that cooperation would be as easy to obtain as it is It's an interesting time because I think that the new technologies Are making it possible or at least making it easier to have that sense of community Let's listen as peter cambell talks about the new technology Campbell did the movie sherry kingsley recognizing the person It almost harkens back to the availability of the relatively inexpensive equipment You know, you can just sort of grab a couple of cases and go out and shoot So you've invested a day if nothing happens with it fine But often you find yourself with some gems that you wouldn't in the past have had an opportunity to go and shoot Here you can go out and Take your camera out for a day You can catch some really interesting things that may or may not turn into a film But become part of your stock And it might not become part of a film that you do, but if you're part of this community It might become part of a film that somebody else does And so a lot of things are getting captured that used to not be captured Because it doesn't require you to put together a crew. It doesn't require you to Have huge expensive cameras Around it just requires you to know what's going on in your neighborhood You don't have to make every shot count the way you do when you're filming If you use videotape and the reason is simply cost Cost and storage a mini dv tape doesn't take up a lot of space Sitting on your shelf waiting to be seen by somebody and it certainly takes up some of your hard drive But you know hard drives are getting cheaper too as are other kinds of storage CDs DVDs so forth So the next clip is Diane Searle from her interview with you a couple of weeks ago and she Summs up what we've been talking about very very well It means that anyone basically with Very little financial resources can now come and find a way to join media net or cinevic And have equipment for little or no cost they can pay for their tapes and they can make some things can be made For for very little cost and that wasn't the way that it was at all when it was just film as an option So what it means is work can be made without having to go through the fairly strict and in terms of drama say I you know write a script get funding for a script from You know the certain places that fund scripts and then go out and get funding for the shoot and you know Carry on kind of step by step But needing funding agencies because you just can't make enough money to you know to make the film yourself Any other way and that is now changed so that someone can make a film fairly inexpensively It can also be a more experimentally oriented film because you can do things with video that you can't do Very easily in in film in a lot of ways and certainly not for low cost You can go and get funding after the fact so you might have a way of working that Doesn't sell well on paper But would be incredible visually and you would have an opportunity to actually make that film and try and And try and have it funded after the fact and then transfer it to film for theatrical release So the expense is changing what is being made a much more organic process is possible because many people can own Or have frequent access to their own equip We're going to play two clips now both of them from Sharon Morgan The first one is part of her phone interview And the second one was uh her discussion At the panel the people that come in as your production partners They become part of that affirmative action too. I mean I make a point of Going back to our production partners as soon as there's any good news Because sure there may be bureaucrats in Ottawa that that took a chance on this little tiny story based in victoria So whenever we go out and there's a positive Or any kind of response to it, then I go back to our production partners just to remind them Thank you for making that choice. I think that still makes us a storyteller And I think that part of our drive is tell stories the proximities that it takes you to a subject richness in your life document I'm not sure that I have the right to say Gee, I want to tell a story. So I do We're talking all about this Process and we're talking about it on a local level But sharer has offered another layer to this at some point you do have to get funding At some point you do work your way out Into production and production does start getting expensive Especially when you want to actually distribute what you're producing So you do go out you do find funders and we're not going to get into the complicated funding system That exists in the world of film It would be a whole other episode the community model on the local level and sharers discourse gets Built outward. So if she's relying upon funders in Vancouver or Ottawa She still thinks of them as part of her community And so the concept that she has that as an activist She is including these funders and her activism Shows up in the way that she talks about this The whole reason that I wanted to interview her After the panel was over was because of that last clip And her comment that she didn't feel like she had a right to expect a living From documentary filmmaking that certainly was not the way that the other filmmakers talked about it But she wasn't talking about not being sustainable I think she definitely wants to maintain her lifestyle and she certainly wants to keep her activism going But what she's saying is that it's not like a commercial enterprise And I think that that is reflected In the approach that most of these documentary filmmakers took to their efforts Including the way they thought about the community this next clip is From Arthur Holbrook and hillary jones farrow They were co-producers on the movie to free the slaves And they discussed in the first clip with dawn hill why they decided to make this move Well in particular case with the slavery film. I've been studying the issue for quite a long time. We were an excellent position And if you didn't do it, nobody else worked. Well, actually there's english film I could do a similar film It's about abolitionism not about abolitionism We wanted to focus on the people who were working for film control In the second clip Holbrook talks about the distribution of the film I've just been to say there's one of the other audiences for In the case of our slavery film was through some of the organizations that we worked with In every in each of the examples we used in the film. They were people who These were the abolitionists were pretty secondary to them. They're the people in the front line In one case save the children canada for example took off the film The night of the broadcast on vision. They showed it about 10 locations across the country They've taken that as part of their flavoring and chocolate campaign in molly. So there are other audiences as well So we get some feedback that we're doing something They wanted to make a film about the abolitionists. They wanted to make something positive They weren't just reliant upon it being on a broadcast, which it was it was shown on television But they also were distributing it for the organizations that they filmed about And this becomes a very complicated relationship between the documentary film and the subject of the documentary film They made a film about the organizations That were doing abolitionist work and the organizations in turn Used it to further their work. So the distribution channel Is a complicated social channel and one that the activists can't reasonably ignore So this brings us to distribution and I think that that's where it gets sticky. We're talking about the democratization of Filmmaking and how wonderful it is that it's not expensive anymore We're all capable of doing a film and taking our little video camera out or borrowing a video camera Out for a day and then it hits this big bottleneck Just when you've got control of the means of production you find out that the means of distribution are important too They are almost singularly important in this field this next clip is share morgan talking about How television works And she talks about the box and she doesn't necessarily mean the tv box. So let's listen in Almost every film that's made is in distribution or becomes available someway for people within communities to sit down together and watch it Sometimes when we watch things on television, we're sitting in our own boxes watching a box And we don't end up talking with anybody about what we can do So go ahead and ask the library to order any film that you see And it's probably in distribution and then sit down with other people And watch it together and talk and move it out So we're sitting in a box watching a box and I love that she brings the library in at this point Because the library is a means of distribution that a lot of people don't think about But it's also a place where a lot of obscure films are put a lot of documentary films end up in the library She talks about a little bit later in this session about how she had All of her friends throughout canada call up their local libraries and request her film And I thought that that was absolutely brilliant on her part What better way to get your film distributed? Here's something that doesn't I mean most libraries will respond if you put a request and they have a budget And they go out and they buy the films that you request And so if you get all your friends to do that Then here in every community throughout canada the film is now available and when Someone says to you well, how can I get a hold of your film? You said go to the local library? It's right there. It's available. You can take it and play it for whatever group Or however you want to put it together It surprises me that libraries are as prevalent as they are public libraries and at the same time they are unmarked In public discourse as sources of Media distribution People talk about them But they don't seem to understand How big a factor they still are even in this day and age And they're becoming even bigger because a lot of their stuff is available online And I would love to see I mean one of the ways that I can think of to solve this distribution problem that was discussed Uh pretty fully at the panel would be to create an archive And what better way to create an archive than to supply digital versions of these things to libraries where they can place them online This next clip is bill weaver and He talks about in this clip What he thinks the problems are and we kind of disagree with him We think that he marks the wrong thing in this clip So we'll let you listen in and then we'll talk about it Now what's happening is we have a hundreds of digital channels Splitting the already dwindling viewership as it is who are already burned out on tv and can't find anything on it Licensees are lower And because there are young filmmakers who are willing to do something for practically nothing First peak of your film is great. It's working off of all your enthusiasm And and and then you can get your film into the in the broadcasts are relatively cheaply the broadcasts are love set Now try to make your second one Because there's a whole another line of very enthusiastic people ready to do this for nothing Practically, you know waiting at the door Weaver gives an analysis here that I thought was um fairly typical and part of the problem He's taking a look at The distribution channel as if it cannot change as if it is totally market driven And That there is no politics involved in what gets put on the air and what doesn't and so instead of confronting the question Why is it that there are 157 channels now available on shot and all of them are playing the same thing? He confronts it from the point of view of too much on the market I thought that he was not getting the fact that it's jammed up and not getting the fact that there's a politics To that jamming up. He unmarked the big thing in the room He missed the elephant sitting right in front of him. It did seem strange that he looked at it as a zero-sum game I really don't know why he would do that And I think that in the context of the expanding video distribution channels the new digital channels being only One of these channels pardon me for the linguistic fallacy It seems that that would be just the area in which he would realize that it was not a zero-sum game I think that that's because we all live within culture. And so here's someone who's very active historian and and he sort of ran into the cultural wall In his analysis of the situation What I would suggest is that in fact what needs to be done is to break down that that wall that we need to find some ways to get access to these channels and It's going to be a difficult task because because of the oligopoly because of our favorite topic about media And that's where it's being held up The production is possible But the distribution is not because the means of distribution are controlled by a very few hands Even in canada Person Your source The police state is using its phallocentric organ the corporate media to control ordinary people like you and me The next clip is uh, martin devalk again talking about his relationship with aptn And I think that this is interesting because aptn Funded and Helped him produce his film And yet he still ran into distribution difficulties Has it been a struggle to get this particular film to be broadcast? No, I mean aptn was on board. But beyond that it's hard to get a broadcast. What? I have a good question on maybe if not the Material is just not or it's just not like they'll say it's not a big punch It's great material it's interesting material, but it's not crazy involved or no conspiracy or whatever So this is interesting here aptn Helped him put the film together Helped him produce it gave him a means of distribution But it also marks it as an aboriginal film And it kind of sticks it in a certain distribution channel The problem of distribution becomes Complex at that point it isn't just a matter of finding one broadcaster. It's a matter of where you place it As to whether the message will get out or not It's always a double-edged sword when somebody with a certain amount of power takes interest in what you're doing if you're An activist I've heard about the national film board that they're the same sort of double-edged sword on one hand One is very grateful for their help when one is making a film A number of people with whom we spoke during the festival who'd gotten help from the nfb told us that they Had been saved by the nfb On the other hand to the extent that a film was accepted by the status quo Does that compromise its activist quotient? The last clip that we're going to play I think kind of sums up for us our feelings about the distribution process And this is don hill talking When we look across our broadcast spectrum And our newspapers And media generally we have an illusion of a choice But an epidemic of saints So that said in a nutshell almost that there's this illusion of choice But in the end because of the distribution channels being jammed That choice doesn't quite exist. I mean anybody who's flipped through television lately Feels that and certainly anybody who's read a newspaper in canada feels it There does seem to be a narrowing of scope even as the distribution channels increase in number The spread seems not to have improved that much Yeah, it's very scary when you think about it And I think that this didn't get addressed directly by the panel but I was left Walking away going okay. Here's something that I've identified as a place for social change And it's very frustrating because it's it's one of the hardest places to work for change And it brought me back to this whole idea of the politics of culture It didn't get marked in the session but what I walked away with Is Oh my god culture still Is being controlled Not by these great documentary filmmakers But by The distribution channels of getting these films out and there are lots of ways of subverting it I mean the library idea was great Some of the other ideas that were discussed was using community groups And there are social change festivals Showing up all over the place Where you know these films are produced and a lot of people who are interested in these issues get to go to the festival and watch the films And there's something to be said for preaching to the choir. I mean a lot of one of the recurring themes was It's good to make documentaries that help support And make people feel good about their activism But I don't think that's enough and I had a feeling from these filmmakers that it really wasn't enough for them either That it was comforting and And good, but it wasn't enough So we're we're right up against this frustration and you said something to me the other day that I thought was very interesting and that is I think the remark to which you're referring is quote If the mere action is a threat to the existing power structure one asks why close quote So why are these films not being distributed? And I think it's because the mere act of making them is threatening I can't decide which way to come down on this one on one hand the crtc sees to it that Channels that want to be widely distributed have to have More than a little contribution to the public good And you think with enough specialty channels out there Even the ones that aren't contributing as much the tier two channels are called Would be enough of a niche that they would actually be more conducive to specialty programming On the other hand I have This fear that all cable channels are becoming the same. Yeah, the empirical evidence doesn't seem to support the crtc's Hope and dreams does it? And indeed it seems to be gravitating in the other direction The new digital channels so-called have been around for about two years now, but I really don't see that much of a spread in The discursive realms I see if anything more reification of the status quo. Maybe that's just my particular taste Maybe it's not I think what I see here is this is analogous to all of the people in the world who recycle But very few people in the world buy the recycled goods And you know joanne woodward gets on american tv and talks about completing the circle I think that if documentary filmmaking and especially filmmaking aimed at social change Which we've concentrated on documentary, but that can also include Experimental film and drama film and so forth and certainly comedy. There's a lot of comedy out there that's aimed at social change But for film to produce social change It needs not only a movement towards production But it needs a movement for the demand for consumption It needs people who are willing to say I want to see this kind of programming It's nice if everyone can have his own camcorder, but if everyone only wants to watch The hollywood productions Then it's immaterial if you have your own camcorder nobody's going to watch your film and that could have Serious even terminal implications for the film industry Throughout canada not just in victoria and especially For the film industry that's interested in producing new kinds of culture We'd like to thank the victoria independent film and video festival British columbia office of the national film board of canada And the victoria film producers association For helping us to explore documentary filmmaking for this episode We are especially grateful to the filmmakers who participated in this was the changing image panel discussion on documentary films and social change They are don hill former host of cbc radio ones tapestry and moderator of the panel theater c. Campbell producer of sherry kinsley recognizing the person martin devolk producer director of a forgotten legacy arthur holbrook co-producer of to free the slaves hillary jones farrow co-producer and director of to free the slaves sherry lapage director of from bagdad to peace country and co-producer and co-writer of silence of the strings share morgan director co-producer and co-writer of silence of the strings hill weaver producer director of from new age to new etch Finally, we'd like to thank diane serral executive director of media net for her support If you would like to know more about the organizations or films mentioned on the show Please visit our website fpp.culturalconstructioncompany.com You have been listening to first person plural because how people get along with each other still matters First person plural is a show created for community radio by carl wilkerson and dr. patty thomas to examine social and organizational issues Music for first person plural is performed composed and produced by carl wilkerson except where noted for more information about first person plural dr. patty thomas or carl wilkerson visit our website www.culturalconstructioncompany.com or email us at fpp at culturalconstructioncompany.com