Pairing filmmaking with journalism has taken on a whole new life with Laura Poitras at its helm to help direct its course into current film documentaries such as Citizenfour, about Edward Snowden’s journey as a whistleblower, and now with a sharp focus on Julian Assange’s more current events.
The interview, which can be read in its entirety at The Intercept explains the importance behind Intercept co-founder Poitras’ goal with her team, to capture current world events and quickly turn them into a form of visual journalism rarely experienced like this before. Poitras, an Academy Award-winning director, explains the excitement surrounding this new collaboration appropriately named Field of Vision, the concept of commissioned work to expand on visual journalism. With the first episodic series to be released September 27 at the New York Film Festival chronicling events leading to Assange’s asylum in London, the pitch is at a buzz.
“We are interested in intersections between visual storytelling and newsgathering, and how writing and video journalism can work together,” says Poitras in the interview. “I’m interested in a journalism component, a news component, in being responsive. I definitely have a leaning towards that, as opposed to something that’s just purely poetic and visual. I want that news edge, that journalism edge. But I don’t want it to be all that either.”
When asked if Poitras sees this as a new form of journalism she answers with a passionate “absolutely,” with the opportunity to present real news with a relevance instead of perpetuating a typical news cycle. The resonance they want to achieve will be through quick thinking and reliance on skill, but also natural responses to “the world around us.”
And by networking and assigning filmmakers from across the country with writers and journalists, interested in this line of work, Poitras and her team hope to build something exciting and elaborate where this engaging format can flourish.
This Article (Co-Creator Laura Poitras’ Field of Vision) is a free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ.com.
