· : ·9526I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space.
-Edwin Abbott FlatlandPad and pencil are the traditional tools of the anthropologist, but they are by no means the only tools. The use of camera and film, particularly over the last 5 years, has grown to the point where they might be considered as important as the notebook in any research project. However, taking pictures purely for the sake of taking pictures is next to useless. An anthropologist must understand the potential of the camera as a recording device, and he must have a clear understanding of why he is carrying all that extra weight into the field. This paper is an attempt to outline some of these principles and to explore ways in which film made by the ethnographic team can be used on its return from the field.The value of the camera lies in its ability to do and record what the human eye cannot. Film can stop time, merely slow it, or compress hours into seconds. It can, in this way, view subjects as small, like gestures, facial expressions, and body synchronizations, or as large, like patterns of travel within a village, as the filmmaker desires. The camera will also, with special films, record phenomena beyond the visible spectra and discover patterns of motion or land use that the unaided eye could never see (4).The aim of ethnographic film is to preserve, in the mind of the viewer, the structure of the events it is recording as interpreted by the participants. This is often a very difficult task, and is in many ways determined by the way in which the film is taken and by how it is handled after it is shot. The camera has position in both time and space, and therefore imposes a perspective on any action. Turning a camera on and off is an automatic structuring of events, as determined by the bias of the camera operator. Editing is another selection process and a second restructuring.Skillful editing can lead an audience to almost any desired conclusion. Finally, because each viewer possesses a different background, the significance attached to 'Co-Director of Documentary Educational Resources, Somerville, Massachusetts. 179 Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1973.2:179-187. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org Access provided by Laurentian University on 02/04/15. For personal use only. Quick links to online content Further ANNUAL REVIEWS 180 ASCH. MARSHALL & SPIERany particular segment of a fi lm by one person will be different from that attached by another, restructuring the event for a third time for each viewer. For an ethno graphic filmmaker to be successful he must thoroughly understand his people, and he must do his best to let the indigenous structure guide him in his recording efforts.Traditionally, filmmaking has fallen into three basic methodological categories, as outlined on the opposite page:
Objective RecordingObjective records are characterized by a structure which is imposed by th�: action.The use of fi lm records may be broken down into tw...
