Documentary Films and Video

On November 4th, Shane and Amy Bugbee hit the road for a full year of adventures. Get better acquainted with the couple before they hit the road in their new short film 'SHUNNED'.

'SHUNNED' documents the couple, their wacky relationship with their families and each other, their roots in Chicago, and their "work". Part documentary, part comedy of errors, 'SHUNNED' explains what finally drove them to pack it up and travel the country.

'SHUNNED' is a rare look inside the lives of two gonzo journalists before they embark on a major venture to explore America and cover the Election.

This is pretty wild and crazy. Sort of a poetic documentary. "Knives in My Throat: The Year I Survived While My Mind Tried to Kill Me" follows a turbulent year in the life of 25-year-old hip-hop poet Taqiyya as she tries to "make it" in New York's Hollywood. This collage-style experimental movie blends intimate video diaries, startling interviews, dramatic verite, animation and compelling performance. Great editing and cinematography.

So Human A Zoo - Watch tour developers Brett and Omar Melzer venture to Putao, in the northern region of Myanmar. Their quest to set up a river running tour is tempered by respect for the communities they encounter. This twenty minute documentary outlines some of the issues facing westerners as they visit parts of the world not yet affected by Western tourism and culture. Produced by John Cassils.

Grand Prize Winner - DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL (DOC) AND VMIX ‘DO IT YOURSELF’ DOCUMENTARY CONTEST

“A Grassroots Analysis of the 'N' Word” by Thomas Patrick Huston is a very interesting documentary featuring a grassroots analysis of the N word's past, present, and future in the English language.

Here are the other two top winners -

Second Prize Winner - “Loosen My Tie” - By Director Michael A. Hagan - A snapshot of a band trying to make music their lives. The film follows the band on tour and in the studio as they try to gain more recognition.

Third Prize Winner - “Get That Camera!” - By Director Flux Rostrum - A photographer’s startling personal encounter with the war on journalism, both abroad and at home.

Archaeology is shedding new light on the special role played by the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia in the early development of American industry. You can explore this topic through Red Salt & Reynolds, the latest video feature on the nonprofit streaming-media Web site, The Archaeology Channel (http://www.archaeologychannel.org/).

This film interprets the historical archaeology at the Marmet Lock Replacement Project in Kanawha County, West Virginia. The excavations uncovered four salt furnaces, John Reynolds' mansion, the cabin occupied by his slaves, and the cemetery where he and several family members were buried. The film uses historical and industrial archaeology, bioanthropology and historic documents to detail the rise and fall of the Reynolds family and the local salt industry, which helped spark the Industrial Revolution in America.

Have you ever wondered what is really going on in Iraq? How is the war impacting the average Iraqi? Check out "Hometown Baghdad" It tells the true stories of three young guys in Iraq. According to the producers, "Our crew in Baghdad risked their lives to make these videos and we want the world to hear their stories."

Sand Castle Explosions - Sand Blasters Music Video

Here we go again! For the second year in a row, Sand Blasters: The Extreme Sand Sculpting Championship brings a one-of-a-kind competition to Travel Channel.

Paired off into teams of two, 16 of the best sand sculptors from across America dig in to picturesque Pacific Beach in San Diego, California, for the chance to win their share of $15,000 in prize money. But there's one obstacle standing in their way¦ Explosions! Over the course of this intense two-day competition, five of the eight sculptures are randomly selected for complete destruction by a Hollywood pyrotechnics crew. The ill-fated blast victims then have the remaining time to create another world-class work of art in order to contend for the title of Sand Blasters 2007 Extreme Sand Sculpting Champions.

Shopping, art and the world of anti-consumerism. This is a great 8 minute documentary. Popaganda: The Art and Subversion of Ron English. Ron English's billboards force the man on the street to look twice...or maybe three times. Ron English first gained fame in 1982 by surreptitiously reworking billboards to critique American society, risking arrest in the process. His career has had a wide trajectory, incorporating neo-surrealist paintings, staged photographs, street art, and music and he has become one of the most famed culture jammers in the world. Culture jamming or subvertising is the practice of altering advertising images to challenge and criticize corporations and media

Do you dig archeologists or do you find them a little too dusty? Check out this Radical Archaeology Television Parody. Brad Garrett and Adam Fish do a number on Josh Bernstein of the History Channel's very popular series, "Digging for the Truth." Brad and Adam, both archaeologists, are absolutely amazed that Josh, in just one hour and through his amazing stunts and in a very stylish fashion, gets to the truth that archaeologists in 100 years of research have struggled to achieve. You have to see this to believe it. More cool videos can be found at the Archeology Channel

This is a great looking video that documents the competition and the excitement surrounding the National Veteran's Wheelchair Games. Excellent editing - good content. Check it out

GOOD STUFF: The story of a man, a dream and a whole lotta kites" was the winner of the Budweiser Filmmaker Discovery Award for the second season at TriggerStreet (2005). This short 9 minute film documentary is very inspirational and quite well made. Go to the the TriggerStreet site (sign up if you are not already a member) and then go to Short Films - Season 2 - Overall Winner. By the way, if you are a filmmaker, they are looking for submissions for the next season.

Women (and men), what do you collect? Shoes, purses, make-up, power tools? Check out this short and very artsy semi documentary of Rose sharing her panty collection. Great concept, wonderful photography and understated production. By Russell Hunt

2004 was a big year - elections, disasters, and Brittney Spears got married. However, we also lost some wonderful people. Check out this short 2004 video that honors the famous that passed on during 2004.

If you are into UFOs and aliens and visitors from other planets, you should make s short visit to Out of the Blue, a web site and documentary movie dedicated to a serious exploration of unexplained occurrences, visions and visitors. Lots of video clips, narrated by Peter Coyote.

WOMAN by WOMAN: New Hope for the Villages of India documents the story of progressive change for woman in some of the least developed rural villages of India. Vivid images portray the humanity of the people, the beauty of the countryside, as well as the poignant toll of centuries of poverty. more

BBC's Video Nation

has an incredible variety of films and videos, documentaries and short features covering a cornucopia of subjects ranging from age, animals and arts to teenagers, work and values. In addition, the site includes features about holidays, celebrations and news. Of course, if you want to soak up some England flavor, there are a variety of locally produced programs to choose from as well. They even have a section that teaches you how to shoot your own videos, Video Nation style.

Check out the best short films from "The World's Smallest Film Festival" produced by BigDigit, Inc. You can choose from comedies, animations, dramas, experimental, music videos etc. They are all pretty entertaining...According to the promoters, this is the first competitive showcase of digital video content for the new generation of mobile phones, PDAs, and other mobile devices. They bring together top film innovators with leaders in wireless, mobile technology, multimedia software developers, content providers, and end users to develop the full potential of creative multimedia content for the mobile world. more

If you like the slightly off-beat and different, check out www.RoadshipAmerica.com. It features eight very different documentary - comedy - social commentary channels. .. You can watch Beavers and Muskrats cohabitating on the WebCam channel; on the Weird Science channel, you can participate in the chase for Sasquatch, You can learn all about the cool things you can do with duct tape - you get the idea. Neat stuff.

P.O.V.'s Borders is a new Web-only series on PBS Online. The series will be a showcase for interactive storytelling. P.O.V. has teamed up with award-winning Web designer Vivian Selbo of cavil.com to create an online environment that will feature commissioned and acquired content that explores the borders in our lives. The first episode in the series will run for ten weeks concentrating on 'migration' as an overall theme.
The core element of the series, "Leaving Elsa," is a ten-week interactive drama following the lives of three teenagers from the US-Mexico border, produced for the series by filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz. Ruiz is working closely with the students of the Llano Grande Center in Elsa, Texas to create intimate portraits of their lives as they face the biggest transition of their lives — leaving home for college. The students have been given digital cameras and during the course of the 10 weeks will document their lives in their own words and images. Entries will be posted weekly and site users can follow and respond to the three young people's experiences during the first 10 weeks of the semester. The Border Journey section of the site is devoted to digital glimpses of migrant life and education. Following the success of La Boda, filmmaker Hannah Weyer created Escuela, a portrait of Liliana Luis — a teenaged member of the Luis family who is working to complete high school. The original scenes commissioned for P.O.V.'s Borders are adapted from Escuela (recently featured on P.O.V.) and follow the Luis family through a year's cycle of migration. This feature has quizzes, background and questions accompanying the episodes, and targets educational use.

Check out http://www.dvdocumentaries.com to view some very interesting documentaries created by Nathan Bramble. I found the "Ghost Hunters" and the "EverQuest Players LFG" documentaries to be absorbing. Once they started rolling, I was stuck to my computer monitor. In addition to Nathan's documentaries, he also includes links to other films as well as equipment reviews, how to guides, etc. Nathan shoots these professional looking documentaries with a "consumer" Sony DCR - TRV 8 Mini-DV camera and a single camera mounted shotgun mike. He edits using Adobe Premiere. Impressive!!!!

This is a bit different. Video Cameras that are stuck inside a pill and take a trip through your body. Check out this streaming video news story at RCOM.TV. Pretty interesting. I can't wait until we get one of these videos to show at Internet Video Magazine. Hint, hint, hint.... Check the "Behind the Scenes" section at RCOM.TV. FYI - there's a bunch of other cool shows at watch. Click on View More Shows.

"Tribute to September 11" is a short 3 minute montage of video clips and photographs honoring the victims of September 11. Accompanied by music and the reading of a poem by E.E. Cummings entitled "Next to of course God America I".

www.undergroundfilm.com, is a great source for cutting edge documentaties. Check out. "Disinformation". This film is for those worried about Internet and computer hackers, or those who SHOULD be worried. It features interviews about the Cult of the Dead Cow and Back Orifice. It is a little dated but still relevant. Check it out.

'Sound is precious. Silence is time.'
This experimental documentary by Julia Dorne deals with the significance of silence and the awareness of passing time in one composer's music.

Julia on the film 'Always having been fascinated by Nima Gousheh's opinions about music I believed he would be an interesting interviewee talking about his experimental, new music.
Inspired by his thought provoking, witty and informative point of view, I intended to create a short documentary that would reflect his composition best.' 5 minutes

Hosted on the French web site, www.avidz.com, Time Scale is a fascinating, animated stream of consciousness, dream vision of the World Trade Center disaster. Check it out. While you are at www.avidz.com, check out some of their other cool movies and animations.

American Memory Film Collections - part of the Library of Congress, this site boasts a very nice selection of historical, educational and documentary videos that can be downloaded or streamed for free. Check out the video page for details.

American Memory is a gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections.

Do you care about the world around you? Are you an activist? Check out the Media That Matters Film Festival presented by MediaRights.org, a not-for-profit media arts and activist organization, was founded in July 2000 to help media makers, educators, nonprofits, and activists use documentaries to encourage action and inspire dialogue on contemporary social issues. The organization's interactive Web site is organized around 15 social issues (racial justice, environmental issues, economic justice, etc.) and contains a collection of over 4,500 social issue documentaries. The site also provides an extensive database of over 850,000 nonprofits in the U.S., a list of funding and other resources, and original articles about successful outreach campaigns. There are several cool and thought provoking videos on this site. Click Here

Join the fight against creeping commercialism and obnoxious advertising. Turn off the TV, hang out with your family, read a book or watch cool Internet movies. Check out out a couple of these anti -commercials from Ad Busters. Don't miss the classic AutoSaurus, a short video that rails against our "use it once, throw it away" society. For additional anti-establishment pleasures, visit their fake ads

Ghosts of the Mountain featured on the Archeology Channel. If you are into history, check out this 15 minute documentary about an archaeological exploration of a five-mile stretch of proposed highway near Meyersdale, Pennsylvania, in the mid-1990s revealed numerous prehistoric archaeological sites dating between 12,000 years ago and A.D. 1400. Learn something new.