Documenting ourselves
Subtitle: film, video, and culture
By: Sharon  R. Sherman.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Lexington, Ky
Language: eng
Number of pages: 320
Subjects: Documentary films -- History and criticism; Folklore in motion pictures
Description: What happens when we turn the camera on ourselves? This question has long plagued documentary filmmakers concerned with issues of reflexivity, subject participation, and self-consciousness. Documenting Ourselves includes interviews with filmmakers Les Blank, Pat Ferrero, Jorge Preloran, Bill Ferris, and others, who discuss the ways their own productions and subjects have influenced them.

Sharon Sherman does not limit herself to the problems faced by filmmakers today, however. She examines the history of documentary films, tracing them from their origins as a means of capturing human motion through the emergence of various film styles.

She also discusses current theories and techniques of folklore and fieldwork, concluding that advances in video technology have made the camcorder an essential tool that has already reshaped the ethnographic process and has the potential to redefine the nature of the documentary itself.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [295]-305) and index.
Filmography: p. [277]-283.