trailer trash

Boys from the 'Chosen' documentary

If there’s a defining difference between film and any other medium it’s that the image is constantly moving, constantly updating, constantly intercutting - anything from 24 to 65 frames every second. But in all this ballet of editing and camera movement, I’ve often been struck by the power of the still image, the moment in a narrative which if done wrong can appear contrived, but if done right, can send our minds and perception to another place.

In Song on a Narrow Path, a photographer uses the images he took many years ago to show not only the passage of time, but to show a record of hope, struggle, and the energy that once coursed through his friends’ faces. Seeing those moments frozen, and then seeing the same faces, history having happened in between, is a powerful juxtaposition.

Stills, with a subtle twist of animation, have become a large part of several documentaries – titles like The Kid Stays in the Picture, Riding Giants, In Prison My Whole Life and soon to be seen on joiningthedocs.tv - BAFTA winning Chosen. Here, three dimensionality is created thanks to motion graphic techniques, making a very different kind of still, one that couldn’t exist before the creation of animation software..

A single photograph, especially those of ourselves and our families, are markers in time; who we were, what we were going through, what we hoped for in that millisecond the light hit our faces.

How many memories of films, with their millions of images, can say the same thing?

Editor Ben

So what do you all think? As we mentioned a while ago, joiningthedocs.tv is going through some changes and we’ve begun by re-vamping the site to be cleaner, fresher and easier to navigate. The walls have moved but the furniture has yet to catch up. So please bear with us as we gradually refresh imagery, text, trailers and links to allow us to make all the current and future films on the site shine.

Us Now - a film about democracy, mass collaboration and the internet.

Another significant switch is big and loud on the front page this week. Us Now is our first foray into free content. We think you and new visitors to the site should have open access to a film about how the Internet is changing how we live, how we relate to one another, and how ultimately it may affect the way we govern ourselves. Brought to you by Banyak films, you might be intrigued to know that the film was edited in the old map room of a ship – a calm place for what can often be a pressured post-production period.

Us Now is available from the 11th May, but be quick! It’s only free for a limited period.

In other news, we’re finding more and more documentaries in a range of styles and native languages for you to enjoy that are tough to find in the TV landscape. It’s a wonderful time to be in the documentary word because finally independently minded filmmakers are beginning to get the tools they deserve, both in production and distribution to create visions to an audience who wants something more than the mainstream.

Visit the official film website here.

Thanks for being part of the journey.

Editor Ben