Asch - Film in Ethnographic Research - 1995

Film in Ethnographic R'esearch

TIMOTHY ASCH, PATSY ASCH

FILM AS A RESEARCH TOOL

Discussion of ethnographic research film 1 has usually focused on the product - either film for an archive or film for commercial distribution -rather than emphasizing the anthropological research process and the place fi[m might have in such a process.

Anthropologists collect information about the lives of specific people. This information, usuaUy recorded in writing or held in memory, is obtained through observation, listening or reading and through inquiry. An unedited, unanalyzed ethnographic film record is also information. In considering the value of any information the question arises: what is the information about? In the case of ethnographic information are fieldnotes, for example, information that is more about the people observed or more

1 Light-weight video equipment is available at reasonable prices that can be used to record in color, even with minimal illumination. However, professional video equipment is still fairly heavy, uses considerable power and requires professional training to use and maintain effectively, particularly in remote locations. Film technology is universal, whereas there are three incompatible international video systems and several different formats. Super-8mm. film, even when transferred to videotape for analysis, has greater resolution than most portable video equipment and 16mm. film is vastly superior. But the gap is narrowing. For most ethnographic research, videotape is preferable because it permits three hours of uninterrupted recording (instead of II minutes per film roll), can be used in most situations without additional lighting, and can be viewed immediately, both to check the quality of the recording and to share with the people filmed. Immediate feedback allows one to become technically proficient fairly quickly and it can involve participants in the research.

336 TIMOTHY ASCH. PATSY ASCII

about the observer? Is film more about the people filmed or more about the filmmaker? How subjective or objective is the specific information? AU ethnographic in~ormation has an element of subjectivity if only because it was selected as significant enough to record. What is important to consider

is how ethnographic film records compare with other kinds of ethnographic

infonnation.

Ethnographic analysis is based on data, data that have been selected

from the collected information2 in relation to specific research questions ..

Texts are one form of data. Film texts could be created by selecting footage

from the film record, transcribing all conversation as one would a linguistic

text made from a sound recording, and annotating the visual images. We refer to unedited footage plus synchronized sound (the information) as

the film record, and fllm that has been documented as the film text or

research film. H is film texts - either their own or texts prepared by

another ethnographer - that anthropologists would find most useful for

research. Analysis of texts highlights the relationship between the particular (what

is observed and recorded in the field) and the general (what is presented or

abstracted from specific events observed in the field). One of the features of anthropology and perhaps of the social sciences generally, as distinct

from the physical sciences, is that data usually remain the personal posses

sion of the recorder and are only shared in highly structured, interpretative

form as part of an argument. What anthropologists collect as information

or examine as data differs from what they present to others. But in film

making the distinction between information or data on the one hand and

presentation or analysis on the other is rarely made clear (perhaps because

some people have mistakenly assumed that film images represent reaHty

and thus are not interpretative). Film texts could provide a means for shar

ing data, but these texts must not be confused with most ethnographic films

in distribution today, which are highly interpretative products.

Ethnographers usually spend considerable time describing events they

have witnessed. Written descriptions are not tied to temporal or spatial re

lationships and do not necessarily follow the chronological order in which

actions occur. All description is highly selecti1ve and interpretative. As BiU

Nichols points out (1981: 264), description is not the same as observation

because it labels and organizes information. Even though ethnographic film

is also selective, it can be closer to observation, in a spatial and, if con-

2 The recognition that theory and data arc 1 i nkcd and that data are only a "construction of reality" may be one reason there has been a growing acceptance of genres such as lite history, ethnographic fiction, texts created by informants, and even ethnographic film.

Film in Ethnographic Research 337

tinuous, temporal sense, than most other forms of recording information. It is this feature of audiovisual recording that makes it of potential value to ethnographers.

Recording instruments, cameras and tape-recorders, differ from human perception on many dimensions. One is particularly significant: the capacity of human beings to ignore most stimuli and to pay attention to specific things of immediate interest, a capacity recording tools do not have. Unlike human beings audiovisual tools are not themselves selective; they · record whatever light rays or sound waves are received within their range. Whereas the human mind can focus on a tiny object, rendering everything else around it out of focus but still part of a peripheral image, when a camera lens focuses on an object all other objects equidistant from the film plane (within the image frame) will also be in focus. For example, an image of a distant tree must either be recorded as a close-up, using a telephoto lens that isolates the tree, or it can be filmed with a normal or wide-angle lens, in which case the tree win be one of many objects in the frame, no sharper in focus than many others. Similarly human beings can listen selectively, isolating certain sounds of interest to the listener, and to some degree disregarding volume or even distance; whereas a microphone and tape-recorder are responsive to all sound directly in relation to frequency and volume.

Film images are often thought of as reflections of physical reality: the image of a house, tree or person reflects its referent on a point-to-point basis. An image is similar to a two-dimensional map in which objects and/or people are iconicaUy represented within the constraints imposed by the equipment used: size of film grain, focal length, range of tonal variation from black to white or color, angle of lens,. distance recorded, etc.

Moving-picture film is simply 24 two-dimensional frames exposed per second that can create the inusion of movement. But it is more fruitful to think of film images as indexical signs rather than reflections of reality because film images, like other indexical signs, imply a cultural system of meaning. Audiovisual records may provide valuable observations but they are not free of the personal and cultural biases of their creator.

Nonetheless, there is an unalterable connection between the image and the event it represents. It cannot be entirely made over to our interpretative purposes. Because there is always more in the image than any interpretation can exhaust, this indexical quality, properly used, prevents having only our translation (Myers 1988).

Sound synchronous film and videotape are unique and do not duplicate other types of information. These technologies provide a way to collect valuable observations, bearing in mind that the images recorded have been

338 TIMOTHY ASCH, PATSY ASCH

isolated from a larger context and may consequently distort what occurred .. It is in the nature of film that each image is contained within a rigid, rectangular frame and that each roll of film runs a set length of time (commonly 11 minutes). If continuous sound is recorded, one has a temporal record against which to synchronize images for research, a temporal dimension lacking in written accounts. Each medium imposes constraints and offers advantages.

It is the filmmaker and sound person who introduce selectivity: angling the camera, choosing the frame, focus, time, placement of microphone, and so on. What the camera describes is in large measure determined by the filmmaker -- but not entirely. One can film things one did not intend to film, particularly when filming spontaneously occurring social interaction. Furthermore, the eye may be focussing on one aspect of an imag~ and not realize that other things are within the frame. The very capacity of human beings to exdude enormous amounts of information in order to concentrate on certain things means filmmakers will not necessarily be attending to the entire image being filmed. Likewise a sound recordist may not realize that other sounds have intruded on his recordings because he was concentrating on one somce, such as a conversation, and was not conscious of other noises. Ethnographers willing to examine film sequences many times will find data they did not know they had recorded. Bear in mind though that the same process of selection occurs when we look at film images. We

read these "signs" through our individual and cultural biases. So far we have emphasized the value of using film as an observational

tool, but it is naive and misleading to assume ethnographic data - be they film, tape-recordings or fieldnotes - are a reflection of reality, rather than the creation of a unique human being, from a particular culture, who collected the data at a specific moment in time and usually collected it to share with members of his or her own culture.

Jay Ruby, drawing on Thomas Kuhn and Clifford Geertz, cogently argues that film does not convey reality.

Employing attributions [e.g. a photograph of an oak tree is ascribed the attributes of an oak tree] to understand an anthropological film leads viewers to meanings antithetical to anthropology for two basic reasons; (I) the use of attributional systems is based on a theory of perception counter to the .idea that culture organizes experience; and (2) the folk models underlying attributions are ethnocentric .... The belief that film can be an unmediated record of the real world is based on the idea that cameras, not people, take pictures and the naive empiricist notion that the world is as it appears to be (Ruby 1982: 124-125).

As Sol Worth said: "Pictures are a way that we structure the world around us. They are not a picture of it" (Worth 1981: 182).


We argue that such skepticism should be applied to an ethnographic data, as would Ruby who has coHected a set of essays in his book on reflexivity that indicates many anthropologists are concerned with trying to convey how their questions and theoretical biases affected the data they collected (Ruby 1982). Not only do our personal, theoretical and cultural biases influence the information we collect, they shape our analysis.

A visual field can be the source for more than one set of empirical statements .... The danger exists of assuming that only one set is obvious and natural and that the visible furnishes absolute proof rather than confirmatory evidence in the form of facts that are themselves constituted by the theory in question. Similarly, the danger exists of thinking that a film transparently discloses the real rather than producing, through a set of discourses, a particular reality (Nichols 1981: 263).

The capacity of film to be shared with participants (a topic we will discuss at length) provides one safeguard against assuming one's analysis is transparently obvious from one's footage.

Since the mid-1960s Colin Young has advocated ethnographic filmmakers adopt an observational approach.3 Young, among others, was reacting to the didactic documentary film tradition in which a scripted story is presented through a montage of images selected to guide the viewer toward the filmmaker's interpretation. As Young describes it, the difference between traditional documentaries and observational film is "The difference between TELLING a story and SHOWING us something" (1975: 69).

What concerned Young was the final release film but stress on observational film inevitably affects how film is exposed.

In the field of documentaries you might think there would be an irresistible urge to do with the camera what only the camera can do ... record actuality in a form which, when replayed, allows a viewer elsewhere to have a sense of experiencing the event. Instead, they play the game of being the artist or the scientist with the camera (Young 1975: 70).

Young has suggested that films be comprised of a series of scenes, filmed and edited to reflect "actuality". For Young meaning or interpretation is created by the order and juxtaposition of the scenes that were selected to comprise a finished film. This could be compared to an ethnographer who describes (one hopes as faithfully as possible) a number of events that he or she selected and juxtaposed to illustrate a particular thesis, a particular interpretation.

3 "Observational Cinema", as Young uses the term, refers to the application of cinema verite techniques. Chronicle of a Summer (Rouch and Morin 1960) is often referr·ed to as the first cinema verite ethnographic film, although Young notes that Les Maitres fous (Rouch 1957) and several of John Marshan's short !Kung films were recorded earlier.

340 TIMOTHY ASCH. PATSY ASCI-I

Ethnographers have rarely been natives of the communities they studied. Their position as outsiders was supposed to ensure their objectivity. ~oday many ethnographers have shifted from the role of detached observer to that of participant observer. Participation is believed to lead to greater acces.s to people's thoughts, behavior, dreams, and behefs because through one's attempts to gain linguistic, social and technical competence one has greater and more varied contact with people and experiences what it feels like to live in a particular social universe. However, when most anthropologists write about their ethnographic experience they remove themse]ves and

their participation from the account. Likewise, in fact to an even greater degree, most ethnographic filmmakers have eliminated from their films any evidence of their own presence or their participation in the scenes filmed.

As David MacDougall noted, many observational filmmakers drew their models from dramatic fiction films because these films were more observational than documentaries: "the images of the fiction film were largely anecdotal. They were the pieces of evidence from which one deduced a story." The audience "learned by observing" ( 1975: 112). But, as MacDougall goes on to write, in fictional films, "the camera observes ... not as a participant but as an invisible presence" ( 1975: I J 3). This invisible, omnipotent presence became the expected perspective of ethnographic film.

Jay Ruby has been a vocal supporter of what is being caHed "reflexivity" in ethnographic filmmaking (Ruby 1977, 1980, 1982). He has stress,ed the importance of presenting visual evidence of the presence of the filmmaker(s) and of the relationship between the filmmaker(s) and those being

filmed. We agree with him in reference to completed, educational films intended for distribution but we have found in our own filming, evidence of our presence and that of our colleague(s) has depended on the particular situation being filmed. Research film may or may not show the observers. When we are filming we try to interact as we would in a similar situation had we not been filming. 4 The only major difference is that the process of filming requires considerable concentration on our part and this detracts from our capacity to interact as spontaneously as we normally would.

Of course, whether one films or not, the presence of observers affects, to varying degrees, the social interactions of the people observed. We agree

4 In Bali. for example, when Linda Connor and Timothy Asch filmed a trance seance, they did so as observers. Had they not been 11lming, they would have sat quiet]y and observed without imeracting with either the medium or the people who had come to contact their ancestors. However, when they were filming a healing session, held in the same courtyard by the same healer, Connor talked frecliy with the participants as she recorded sound. Asch included her in the film frame whenever it was appropriate.


with Ruby that it is important to acknowledge this and to try to reveal the bias of the filmmakers. Young, MacDougall and Ruby are concerned with films for an audience and with the importance of actively engaging that audience whh the people being filmed and with the process of filming. It is even more important to try to assess the effects of filming and of the presence of the observers on one's data when one is examining film for research.

Most ethnographic films have been composed of a montage of images about another, preferably isolated, unacculturated society, a montage that illustrated a particular thesis. As we have turned toward observational filming some filmmakers have tried to film "events".5 John Marshall and Emilie de Brigard refer to events in relation to "sequence" filming:

A sequence may be thought of as a verifiable film record of a small event. Sequence filming replaces the ordinary process of shooting and editing a thematic film, or overview, with the attempt to report the events themselves in as much detail for as long as possible ... Films can follow small events closely, letting them take their own time and produce their own content. The result is a sequence notable for the lack of conceptual and contextual framework which other forms of film attempt to supply (Marshall and de Brigard 1975: 133-134).6

Filming a sequence implies, to us, more-or-less continuous filming of an interaction, ideally from its inception through a natural progression to its conclusion; whereas filming an "event" implies filming something that has socially recognized significance. We might adopt an arbitrary distinction and can an event something that is named by the participants (be it a funeral, football game or cocktail party); and a sequence a continuous interaction, of limited duration, that can be bracketed (i.e. a beginning and ending can be identified) but often is not. We cite two examples to clarify this distinction.

In 1980 we attended a funeral on Flores in eastern Indonesia. The funeral, beginning when people gathered after a man's death and continuing

5 See particularly John Marshall's short films on !Kung and on Pittsburg police, and Timothy Asch's and Napoleon Chagnon's shorter films on Y~nomamo. 6 Marshall and de Brigard are concerned with a method of filming. Their definition of sequence differs from Sol Worth's because he was interested in the way edited fi]ms are constructed: "Sequence is a deliberately employed series used for the purpose of giving meaning rather than order to more than one imag,e-event and having the property of conveying meaning through the sequence :itself as well as through the elements in the sequence. "Man imposes a sequence upon a set of images to imply meaning" (Worth 1968: 18). What we found valuable about Worth's definition is the emphasis he places on meaning. Sequence filming implies, to us, an active search for meaning but meaning within a scene, not just between scenes.

342 TIMOTHY ASCH. PATSY ASCH

until they departed after he was buried, was a named event, a kubur. With minimal variation, most of the people who attended probably agreed on the

spatial, temporal and social boundaries of the funeral. E. Douglas Lewis., with whom we were working, was interested in a particular set of actions

that occurred at the foot of the grave immediately after a body was buried.

He had observed many funera.ls but the actions at the foot of the grave were so quick that he did not understand what was happening. T. Asch

videotaped the burial (itself only a part of the funeral), but we selected the

sequence recorded at the foot of the grave to show to informants in order

to elicit their interpretations. In this case we chose a sequence beginning

when people clustered at the foot of the grave and ending when peopiDe left

the area. Infonnants did not seem to find this an odd selection because they said all the actions recorded at the foot of the grave were related: goods

had to be prepared for the dead, for it was explained, "What is whole to

the living is broken to the dead; and what is whole to the dead is broken

to the living." Everything was reversed: baskets were slashed, pots were

turned upside down and rice poured onto their bottoms, fires were sym

bolically lit after food was cooked, and finally food was thrown beyond

the clearing. By bracketing this short sequence of actions, which we had

videotaped in one continuous shot, and by showing it to participants, we

were able to get closer to understanding the actions and conceptions of the

people being filmed.

Adam Kendon, a well-known ethologist, filmed an American birthday

party - also a named event. Kendon did not try to film the entire party;

what interested him was how people came together and dispersed. He

filmed sequences that began when he thought two people recognized one

another and signalled their intent to meet and ended when they separated.

He bracketed these sequences for his own analytical purposes.

Events are often too long and too dispersed to observe, let alone film

in detail. In filming a major ritual, for example, many sequences of social

interaction will occur, often simultaneously. One cannot film or observe

all of them: one has to select those sequences one hopes wil.l il]ustrate key

aspects of the ritual and the relationships of the people involved.

Subjects in a film may be able to designate a beginning and end of

a particular sequence (or small event), as Marshall and de Brigard claim

(1975: 141), but to assume that this will coincide with the film record made

by an outside observer is unwise. One concern in using film for research

is to try to find ways to get closer to filming events designated by the

subjects. This depends on extensive knowledge about a group prior to the

filming ..


Anthropologists, while themselves bracketing certain sequences for analytical purposes during the analysis and presentation of their data, are also interested in apprehending the boundaries imposed by the people they are studying and in trying to ascertain the degree to which these boundaries are commonly identified. Boundaries, of course, are but one example of the conceptual categories people use that are of interest to anthropologists.

Sol Worth and John Adair made an important contribution toward developing ways to get film that illustrates the perspective of subjects when they gave cameras and film to Navaho who had no cinema training. More and more people now are using videotape to record events in their own lives. In Java as well as in the United States, for example, many people videotape weddings. These kinds of tapes provide important sociological data but could also be used, as were the Navaho films, to contribute to the development of a semiotic of visual communication.

Research filming rarely should begin before the ethnographer is familiar with a community and fluent in the local language because filming has a tendency to distance the filmmaker(s) from the people being filmed. By the time filming is undertaken, the ethnographer should have completed a period of fieldwork in which, among other things, she or he has established a style of interacting with people that includes a style of inquiry. We recommend that this style of interaction continue when filming. If a researcher tends to join activities and to talk with people during events, that interaction should be included in the film. Were the ethnographer suddenly to adopt a new style of interacting, it would encourage the people being filmed also to adopt a new style whenever the camera was brought out, thus contributing to the tendency for a camera to increase formality and self-consciousness.

When an ethnographer is handling the camera it should be used as an extension of his or her own observations. The ethnographer should be able to "sit around" with the camera as she or he sits around with a note pad. In fact, we have found that by setting a video camera on wide angle and guessing at distances, we can videotape by holding the camera at waist height while we go on observing or interacting freely. This is what T. Asch did when he videotaped the funeral in Flores. Many of the participants did not realize he was taping and he was free to observe the whole event and occasionally whisper notes into a tiny tape-recorder in his shirt pocket. We prefer the flexibility of holding the camera rather than using a tripod which is stationary and formal. The main problem is that most ethnographers do not feel comfortable and confident with a camera.


They tend to place themselves in a filming mode, adopting new behaviors that make everyone feel uneasy. 7

There are ways to film that maximize the research value of one's footage. Sequence filming is one such technique. Not only does it seem to provide the most useful footage for ethnographic research, it permits the broadest future use of the footage, even for instruction or television. We outline below the method we try to follow.

We have found that the longer we have spent in the field before begin

ning to film the better our footage. If one is filming with an anthropologi.st

who has spent several years in a community, a minimum of three months is advisable; if not, much longer is required. Once we have identified the

kinds of sequences we want to film, we have found it important to obseiVe

as many examples of them as possible. This helps us to predict how inter

actions will proceed so that we can be in the best position to follow what

occurs. And if we have taken the time to get to know the people involved,

our presence during the filming is less disturbing. It is also important t:or

the film crew, even if it consists only of an anthropologist and a film-· maker, to learn to coordinate their actions so that they can concentrate on

the ethnographic content rather than on co-operation or technology. We try to predict when a group of people are going to ]nteract and to

tum on our camera when the interaction begins and try to film continuously until it ends. We usually try to focus on one or two people throughout the

sequence, or we try to film from the perspective of one of the participants. We treat the camera as an extension of our eye and try to follow the

sequence as though we were observers. We try to move the camera only when the movement is motivated. If we are too far away to make out what

is happening dear1y, we move closer or use a more telephoto focal length. If we want to see how people are reacting to one another,. we move back

or zoom to a wider focall length to include more people in the frame. If our view is obstructed, we walk around the obstacle. But if we can see

dearly, we try to remain stationary because camera movement interrupts

concentration. We always try to get at least one distant shot to show the social and physical context of an interaction.

Later we transfer aH sound to cassette tape and try to get someone

from the community where we filmed to transcribe all dialogue because

7 This is not unlike some of the awkwardness ethnographers experience taking notes. Years ago, when we were in Trinidad, Timothy went to visit one of his students. A family

took him aside to ask about the student's health. It transpired the student had rushed off to the bathroom every time he wanted to jot down a note because it was the only private

place he could find.


that person will recognize the voices of the speakers,. can often understand overlapping comments and background conversations and will be familiar with the local argot. It is far more efficient to work with written transcriptions because it is difficult to locate or compare specific dialogue with only a sound recording.

Our bias is most evident in our choice of sequences to film. We choose on the basis of research needs. Random filming will not eliminate the bias of the observer because the very notion of a "random sample" represents bias. The frequency of an activity in itself says little about its significance because the human construction of meaning is usually based on different criteria.

We have worked closely with anthropologists fluent in the language being spoken, who have lived for several years among the people we will film. They have guided our filming, selecting which events they think wHI be significant. But ethnographers who gain the technical skills and confidence necessary to handle a camera themselves will probably get the best footage for their research because they should be able to predict more accurately and quickly what is about to occur. And they will know what aspects of a sequence should be filmed in order to get the data they want. Ethnographers should certainly be encouraged to become filmmakers themselves, by using small format equipment (portable videotape recorders or super-8mm. cameras).8 16mm. filming is only justified if we envisage footage having multiple uses: research, education, entertainment and preservation in an archive. Only 16mm. and professional video recording require sophisticated technical expertise.

The theories and interests guiding current anthropological research are unlikely to be those of people a decade later or of people who live in a different society. ParadoxicaUy, however, it is not effective to adopt a methodology that tries to randomize one's focus in an attempt to overcome the bias inherent in a given selection nor to adopt a "god's eye view" that takes in the entire social group throughout an event, even if that were really possible.9 We recommend detailed coverage of events of interest to the researcher. This view stems from our experiences: film that is not supplemented by other ethnographic information tends to have minimal value in research. The more background one brings to a viewing, the more

8 Six of our colleagues at the Australian National University used super-8mm. film or videotape in their research. We have found that super-8mm. film transferred to U-matic cass,ettes is excellent for conversational analysis and the analysis of such things as small rituals, court cases and children's play. 9 See Feld and Williams (1975) for a critical evaluation of this approach.

346 TIMOTHY ASCH. PATSY .ASCI-I

one is likely to sec in a fllm. In amassing materials for others to use in research, the value of the work will depend, in part, on the anthropo~ogist's

ability to reveal his or her own bias and to distinguish between observation and interpretation, not in attempting to remove himself, or herself, from

these materials.

Steven Feld and Caroll Williams emphasized the importance of "using film in some way to solve a problem".

Film is neither a research rnetho<.l nor a technique - hut an epistemology; it is a design for how to think about and hence create the working conditions for exp]oring the particular problem involved ... For us. researchable fllm means maximizing the research potentials of a problem, in terms of both its "knowns" and "unknowns'' by using the film observation/translation process as a creative input related to the research film. For a film to be researchable one must be able to look at it; being able to look at it means being able to sec in it what was seen in the event itse]f by the researcher (Feld and Will.iams 1975: 28).

The primacy Feld and Williams place on beginning with a research

problem is precisely what has been lacking both at the stage of filming

and (as we will later argue) in preparing archival film texts.

Ethnographic fieldwork is characterized by inquiry. But the search with

film has rarely been an active search for information. David MacDougall

argues that it is necessary to move beyond observation to exploit the pres

ence of the filmmaker in order to get footage of behavior that would not

have occurred spontaneously: 10

Most anthropological fieldwork involves, in addition to observation, an active search for information among informants. In the laboratory sciences, knowledge comes primarily from events that the scientist hi.mself provokes. Thus the observational filmmaker finds himself cut off from many of the channels that normally characterize human inquiry. He is dependent for his understanding (or for the understanding of his audience) upon the unprovoked ways in which his subjects manifest the patterns of their lives during the moments he is filming them. He is denied access to anything they know but take for granted, anything latent in their culture which events do not bring to the surface (MacDougall 1975: 118).

We agree with MacDougall: there are times when anthropologists and

filmmakers may want to intervene. Interrogation is a classic ethnographic

method and one used frequently in films. Less common are attempts to

influence behavior by such techniques as asking an informant to do some

thing in a future interaction; thereby making an informant a conspirator

10 MacDougall lists several films that he feels go beyond observational cinema; among them Chronicle of a Summer (Rouch an<.! Morin), Ja;.:uar (Rouch), Kenya Baran (MacDougall and Blue), and The Thin;.:s I Cannot Clnm~.:e (Ballantyne).


in the ethnographic filmmaking process. 11 This kind of intervention may produce valuable footage but one must remain critical about the effects of such intervention on one's research data.

]tis in the area of inquiry, though, that film adds a dimension to research that has largely been overlooked: that of feedback. ]t is common for an anthropologist to observe an event and either take notes during the event or make them later from memory. These notes and memories often become the basis of hours of inquiry with informants, aimed at trying to get accurate information about people's actions and ascribed motivations and beliefs and insights into how they think about the event.

Videotape permits immediate viewing of a recording with informants. Bruce Kapferer used a portable videotape recorder to tape rites of exorcism in Sri Lanka (Kapferer 1 983). 12 He used his recordings with informants in order to obtain a score: the sequential order in which informants said actions must occur. After analyzing his material, Kapferer said he arrived at what he thought was the appropriate sequence. When he returned to Sri Lanka several years later, he observed an exorcism in which the order was quite different. This intrigued him because the particular performance was fraught with tension and argument. An interesting thing to examine is the degree of rigidity with which ritual is performed and the consequences of certain variations in different societies. Film or tape would facilitate studies of this kind.

Another of Kapferer' s hypotheses was that the rite acted on all the senses. By using videotape he did not have to reduce the experience to words in order to link informants' comments to ritual actions. A first step in "feedback" with film is often to listen and analyze the spontaneous reactions of the participants as they view the film. The phrases that they use to explicate what is happening can then be used by the ethnographer in forming questions.

11 In the Kenya Boran filming, MacDougall and James Blue apparently asked an informant to raise a particular topic with others; this helped to insure that the conversation they filmed dealt with issues that they wanted to cover. David and Judith MacDougall presumably asked Lorang to tell them about his compound and to show it to them as they filmed Lorang's Way. In both these cases the filmmakers intervened to make something happen that they wanted to film. 12 In a similar way Stephanie Krebs (1975) and Elizabeth Young (1980) used film and videotape to analyze dramatic performances in Thailand and Bali. Each worked with informants in order to gloss both the speech and movement of the performers and to get native interpretations of plots and characterizations. As Krebs notes, motion picture films are an excellent way to "elicit conceptual categories from members of the filmed society" (1975: 283).


Ideas emphasized by informants provide insights into their view of an event. Linda Connor and T. Asch filmed a spirit medium during a trance seance in Bali. Later, we showed a subtitled print to several groups of students and then to the medium. We filmed some of her reactions as she

watched the film and we tape-recorded all her comments. The spontaneous

comments of Australian and American students indicated skepticism about

the faith of the medium, whereas no student questioned the appropriateness

of a poor peasant becoming a medium. The medium's comments as she

watched the film showed no awareness that anyone might question her sin

cerity or whether she really was possessed by ancestral spirits and deities ..

She was concerned with different issues: she spoke repeatedly about ber own ignorance, her status as a commoner. expressing humility at being

chosen as a vehicle by the spirits and deities. Audiences' comments, par

ticularly those of the participants in the film, may indicate aspects of an

interaction that they find problematic ..

However, the spontaneous reactions of viewers, particularly of participants (or subjects in a film) are limited. An interaction is embedded in

a social and historical context. Much is left unsaid that is essential to an

outsider who is trying to understand an interaction. An ethnographer and a

participant in a film may look at the same recording but see qu]te different

things. The things that the participants take for granted are often the very things that would be of interest to anthropologists. The ethnographer must

find ways to bridge personal and cultural difference but ways that minimize

influencing the resulting data. To get at subtle aspects of an interaction, it is important that the ethnographer study the tilm material very carefully

and work out a protocol consisting of lines of inquiry that will build on

participant responses and provide ways to juxtapose the comments of in

formants. It is not sufficient to show footage to participants and wait for

them to respond. 13

Videotape is an excellent mnemonic device. Kapferer's first video

recorder was a poor, amateur machine. The ambiguity inherent in poor

resolution has certain advantages: informants arc forced to draw more on

their own memory and conception of what occurred; they are less in-

13 Lewis carefully studied the videotape of the Flores funeral. The actions at the foot of the grave appeared to be a rite of reversal hut he wanted data on the participants,' interpretation. When he showed the videotape to one of his most articulate informants, the man only made a few superficial comments. It was necessary for Lewis to isolate a set of behaviors and inquire about their relationship hefon: he got any useful information. To his informant it was so ohvious that people were preparing goods for the dead and therefore that actions must be reversed that he apparently had not thought of mentioning it (Lewis 1988).


fluenced by the filmmaker's selection. The recording acts as a stimulus, reminding them of what happened (or should have happened) rather than forcing informants to limit their comments to the video text.

The view that one person has of what was going on in a sequence or event is likely to differ from that of someone else who participated, particularly if their roles differed. Feedback with film could reveal these differences. Feedback immediately following an event may also differ from that derived from the perspective of several years. The immediacy of film images permits one to transform a past sequence into a present experience, albeit a very different experience than the original one, in order to get people to reflect on their lives in an unusual way.

Jean Rouch stated a further value in feedback (or as he calls it "audiovisual reciprocity") when he wrote:

The anthropologist has at his disposal the only tool (the "participating camera") which offers him the extraordinary possibility of direct communication with the group he studies - the film he has made about them ... Film is the only means I have to show someone else how I see him (Rouch 1974: 43).

Few anthropologists work with people with whom they can share their written publications but many of us can share our films. This allows us to get valuable feedback on our interpretation. 14 Feedback is one of the most significant contributions film could make to ethnographic research and yet, to date, few ethnographers have used film in this way.

We have not attempted to identify here the kinds of studies in which film could be employed effectively. Obviously film is appropriate in the anthropology of visual communication, including any micro-analysis of conversation. It is also valuable in studying complex rituals that an ethnographer may observe only once, largely because tUm can be used for feedback with participants to identify specific actions and develop a score, to stimulate interpretation and to compare participant views and the views of people who live in neighboring communities. Ethnographic film is particularly useful in case studies because detailed observations in the form of sequence films can be viewed repeatedly and shared with informants and with colleagues.

]n this first section we have recommended that one begin with a research problem and use film to collect observations on sequences of in-

14 In her discussion of the place of empathy in collecting life histories, Gelya Frank argues that sharing one's view of others with them is one of the most direct ways to refine that view and to test interpretations, as well as strengthen relationships (1985). We certainly found that to be the case on Bali and Flores when we showed people videotapes of themselves.


teraction. and then to use these sequence films to stimulate feedback from participants and other informants native to the community in whkh the

film was recorded. From this film record, one should create texts -·- se

lected footage, transcriptions. lranslati.ons and annotations - and these

texts should become an integral part of the data that one analyzes and

shares with colleagues. In the second section we turn to the prob]ems of

how to make research film texts from existing footage, footage that in all

likelihood was not collected with research in mind.

CREATION OF RESEARCH FILMS FROM EXISTING FOOTAGE

There are three main stages in the creation of research films for archival

preservation and future research:

(I) presen1ation: the location and selection of ethnographic footage that

scho.lars think should be preserved and, as a minimum, placement of

this footage in storage under favorable conditions;

(2) creation of research films, or film texts- film plus documentation

that will increase the research value of archival footage, and

(3) research: encouragement of research that is based on analysis of

film texts, research that is valuable in its own right but also may be

promoted as a way to evaluate film texts in order to develop better

ways to make research films.

Presen~ation

h is difficult to locate and select films that shouid be preserved. Commit

tees, composed of anthropologists, hi:storians and perhaps archivists, should

be established: both regional groups who try to locate material within their

own area and groups who share a common research interest. Even national

centers, such as those affiliated with the International Federation of Film

Archives, could caH on these groups to evaluate and recommend potential

acquisitions. Ideally, all ethnographic film should be stored at low temperatures in a

dry vault, but this is not always feasible. 15 Film that anthropologists select

for preservation should be divided into two groups: the most valuable

15 The Kodak Company discovered lhrough lesti:ng !hat Eastman Color Negative, the most common stock used by 16mm. filmmakers today, dclcriorates markedly in ei.ght years if stored at 70"F. The same stock will l'ast 25 years al 50°F, but if stored just above freezing shows no obvious signs of dclcriorarion in thai period of lime.


footage to be sent to existing archives with cold storage facilities, the remainder stored regionally in whatever locations can be found, even if this means thick-walled warehouses - any cool, dry environment where the temperature does not change rapidly. 16

Central archives should set up criteria for selection that include evaluation procedures using scholars who know the area in which a film was taken and know whether or not footage can be documented. Furthermore, film should be evaluated in relation to other existing materials. The National Museum in Ottawa, for example, has hours of very old footage depicting Indians standing in front of the camera. If it were not for hair blowing in the wind, it would be difficult to distinguish some of these movies from stiB photographs, photographs that may have greater research value because of their clarity and ease of handling. If stiU photographs do exist, perhaps we need store only a sample of this footage. h is films rich in unique ethnographic detail that should be preserved for future generations; however the quality of the image must be clear enough to permit use as data.

Four categories of film are of potential interest to anthropologists and may warrant preservation in an ethnographic film archive:

(I) Fictional films. All films are in some sense anthropologically interesting as cultural products, but certain films, as Bateson demonstrated in his analysis of Hitlerjunge Quex 1933 (1953) are of particular interest. Variation in the perspective of anthropologists will affect what is selected. For example,. we who are Americans would certainly recommend many of Yasujiro Ozu's films, such as Tokyo story and Tokyo in twilight, but Japanese anthropologists might ignore Ozu (who received less recognition in Japan than he did abroad) and choose other Japanese filmmakers. Anthropologists should certainly consider whether there are feature films of potential research value from the country in which they worked that should be preserved in an ethnographic film archive.

(2) Amateur footage. Footage taken by missionaries, travellers or government officials, for example, may prove to have ethnographic value.

(3) Documentary films, particularly ethnographic films that may prove valuable for future research. A]though these films may currently be in distribution and therefore available forcontemporary research, it is

16 Such as the old armory in Cambridge, Massachusetts,. where for years DER has stored over a million feet of film.


important to investigate whether a print is being properly preserved for future generations. It is also important to encourage written doc

umentation to enhance the research value of these edited films. ( 4) Ethnographic footage, both footage taken by anthropologists for theiir

own research and teachimg and the unused footage when a film is

edited for commercial distribution. Many commercial ethnographic

film projects (either to gather footage for entertainment or instruc

tional fi1lm) will take 40,000 to 60,000 feet of film in order to edit

a 2,000 foot film. The remaining footage, often fascinating material, is never used. This footage could be an important source of data for

future research and a valuable heritage for descendants of the peopie

filmed, if it were saved. As we have discussed in the first se,ction,

footage ethnographers record for their own research could be valuable

~or others and also should be preserved.

Research film

As we are using the term, research film refers to footage with accompa

nying documentation. For example, were Napoleon Chagnon to take aU

the data he collected about a YQnomamo shaman performance- a master print of all his footage, a copy of the edited film Magical death, aU the

sound recorded, with his transcriptions, the polaroid pictures and colored

shdes of the performance, and his notes - and place these in an archive,

it would be an extremely valuable resource. It would be more valuable

if it were accompanied by all the footage Asch and Chagnon took of the

Y~nomamo- an additional 30 hours, plus the 39 edited films made from

the footage - and if all this footage were accompanied by relevant field

notes, annotations (which we have), and transcriptions and translations,

along with all Chagnon's publications on the Y<Jnomamo research;. and

add to this the publications of other scholars who have worked in the area

and footage taken by other filmmakers. To document the entire corpus thor

oughly would take several lifetimes, but the more data one can assemble

and the more insights one can provide, the richer the material is likely to

be for future scholars; bearing in mimi that additions, such as translations,

can have the effect of narrowing and shaping future interpretation, some

times to the detriment of revealing the perspective of the people filmed. It is essential that the documentation be of the highest qual:ity poss.ible.

We recommend that all' footage deposited in an archive be annotated,

with certain sequences selected for more thorough documentation, depend

ing on the interests and knowledge of the pcrson(s) providing the annota-


tions. When Richard Sorenson was at the National Anthropological Film Center (Human Studies Film Archives) in Washington, he suggested one model for 16mm. research film which comprises workprint plus synchronized soundtrack recorded in the field, with the addition of two other tracks, also synchronized with the film: a translation track and a track with commentary by the anthropologist and anyone else on the expedition. (The original film is stored in the archive cooler.) Sorenson has demonstrated this is feasible: it does not take an inordinate amount of time to complete., it is not too expensive and it links comments and translation to visual images. But Sorenson's mode] has three main, drawbacks:

(1) Recorded sound is a very cumbersome way to handle information even if it is carefully catalogued. Retrieval is slow - listening takes much longer than reading, particularly when there are gaps between utterances, and it is difficult to juxtapose two passages.

(2) The translations are, at best, rough approximations. There is no way to know exactly which phrase in the translation corresponds to which phrase in the original speech. Overlapping utterances often have to be ignored. There may be no simple equivalent; if a translated passage takes longer to say than the corresponding utterance or image., it must be cut (or blank leader inserted in the film, which Sorenson did not do). Pauses, repetitions, incomplete sentences, may all be attempts to duplicate exactly the original utterance or may be the hesitations of the translator as he or she searches for the appropriate equivalent. 17 Furthermore, it is harder to check the accuracy of one's own translation than if it were written so that one could listen to the original while reading the translation. The most accurate method is to work from a transcription and to translate phrase by phrase or sentence by sentence. Admittedly this is very time-consuming and one may only be able to handle sections of the footage in this detailed way. Whenever possible it is desirable to have dialogue transcribed in the field by native speakers who recognize particular voices and local references. Such transcriptions provide an anthropologist with very rich data and often can be used in the field to discuss both sociological history relevant to making sense of the conversations transcribed, and linguistic categories embedded in naturally occurring speech.

17 Bayatsid Hatsak's translation of the Pashtoon footage we took in Afghanistan is a clear example of these problems. The fault is not Hatsak's but is inherent in Sorenson's

methodology.


(3) Limiting commentary to the exact length of the film causes two major problems. Comments made at the head of a long sequence of rolls, such as identification and relationship of participants, must be repeated with each new shot (or at least roll) or a viewer may miss them or forget- it is hard to nip back through a sound track. Th,e anthropologist may have only a few comments to mak,e about a long shot or several hours of background to provide on a short shot. Once

launched on a particular topic, the commentator may neglect to mention something very important or may jump from subject to subject in

a superficial way . .It seems to us Sorenson's model is a good starting

place, a minimum, but it would be good to explore other models, es

pecially ones involving written documentation linked to film through

footage counts.

Careful transcriptions are extremely valuable. A morpheme-by-mor

pheme gloss of at least parts of the text and a free translation are ideaL Some grammar of the language should be available; if none is published.

a rudimentary grammar should be provided by the ethnographer. At this

juncture in our attempts to create models for ethnographic research film, it seems to us the best strategy is to support a variety of projects, all dedicated to the scholady use of film in ethnographic research, projects limited in scope and which can be evaluated.

Recording feedback with participants in the footage is another important type of documentation that can be included in a research film. In Bali, for

example, when we showed three hours of our footage of a collective ham

let cremation to many different groups who had participated, we recorded

aH their comments. At four showings we also filmed people's reactions to a selected 15-minute segment in order to be able to contrast their inter

pretations of the same sequence. Inclusion of this type of documentation provides other scholars with alternative interpretations of events, not just

the comments of the anthropologist who worked on the film.

E. Douglas Lewis hired a native speaker to transcribe all the conversation we recorded on F]ores,. Indonesia. He has used our recordings and these

transcriptions to compile a dictionary in which words and their definitions

were derived from naturally occurring conversation rather than elicited in

fonnal sessions. Lewis is also working on a grammar of the local language. We took all the footage (on video casseue) back to Flores and Lewis spent

several months recording spontaneous participant reactions and then sys

tematically studying the video recording with informants. He is working on

a monograph that examines a major ritual that was the focus of more than

half our footage. The film and participant feedback have provided essen-


tial data for his research. We envisage the full corpus - film and written documentation - being useful to other scholars as well, if available in an archive.

We do not think the way to get the best results is to sponsor projects whose primary aim is to explore a methodology for making archival research films. Ethnographic filming needs to be guided by someone with extensive fieldwork experience in the area, who is proficient in the local language. When this is done the film becomes part of a larger resource and, as such, can be evaluated. Much ethnographic filming has been predicated on the grounds that we must "capture disappearing cultures". We are convinced that a film record by itself is not sufficient as a resource for research and certainly is too limited a way to "capture a culture", if that is ever possible. "Salvage" film projects are only justifiable if the research is viable on other scholarly grounds.

Research

This brings us to our final topic. A number of archives have been set up both to collect and preserve ethnographic film and to establish a center where scholars can work. The Institute for Scientific Film in Gottingen, Germany, is a perfect example. They have a huge collection of ethnographic film and yet a few years ago we were told that over the past 25 years scarcely any publications have been based on research using their films. How can we evaluate the research films we are creating, if no one

uses them? A center dedicated not only to the preservation of film but also to

its use in research, such as Gottingen, the Human Studies Film Archives at the Smithsonian Institution, or the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, must provide facilities and small grants to support the research use of their films, if only to evaluate their methods for making ethnographic research films. 18 We need to experiment with retrieval systems,. with the use of computers in cross-referencing footage and other kinds of data, with new uses of videotape that will permit rapid, safe handling of footage, synchronizing two soundtracks (three if we use the time-coding track) and compact viewing and editing facilities permitting people to juxtapose two

18 The film collection at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Studies has been used extensively by Aboriginal groups and by other scholars. Unedited as well as edited films and viewing facilities are availabk to anyone with. a legitimate use. However, Aboriginal communities h.ave placed restrictions on wh.o may view certain fi[ms in the collection.

356 TIMOTHY ASCH. PATSY ASCI I

or more shots, using several screens. To experiment, scholars must use the archive. fn other words, archives must derive technology and research procedures from valid research projects rather than from hypothetical ones.

An active research center cannot wait for people to come to h. There are at least three kinds of activities such an archive should be supporting: documentation of old footage; usc of its facilities and fil~ms for res,earcb; and use of its facilities to create instructional materials (which would of course require the permission of the authors of any film used).

An archive must seek qualified people to document old footage. An excellent option is to sponsor projects in which film (in the form of videotape)

is taken back to the community where it was recorded for documentation

by the people filmed and by their descendants, as well as by a contemporary anthropologist if one is working in the area. Martha Macintyre, who

has been doing fieldwork on an i1sland in the Massim region of Papua-New Guinea, took copies to Tubi Tubi of aU the old photographs from the region that she could find. In response to looking at the photographs, information

poured out about the history of the people photographed, their relationship to people alive today and about the history of some of the kula valuables

visible in the photographs. Film would probably have produced a similar

response. When we returned to Bali and showed our film to the petitioners in the

trance seance film, a lively and intimate discussion ensued about events

during the intervening two years. Anthropologist Connor, who knew the medium in the film, had only met the petitioners twice before - at the

seance and two weeks later when she walked to their isolated village .. Since the petitioners enjoyed seeing the film, they welcomed us and talked

openly with Connor about things of immediate concern to her research.

Had we been able to film these reactions, I think they would have been as interesting as film of the medium's comments (Asch, Connor and Asch

1981). In order to promote active use of an archive's fi.lms, it is important to

publicize the coHection, through yearly publications in professional journals and at annual meetings. It is also important to provide small grants

to people whose research would be enhanced by working with the film coHection and to try to encourage publ.ication of their research findings ..

We mention only briefly the importance of sponsoring experimentation

in the use of film in curricula; it warrants a separate paper. New video tech

nology permits inexpensive dubbing of !il.m material. Most ethnographic

films in distribution today are too long and complex to be incorporated in

a one-hour lecture. Furthermore, few ethnographic films were made with anthropological instruction in mind. What teachers need is short excerpts,


often from unedited footage, to illustrate specific points - cross-cultural comparisons, for example. Dubbing of short segments would permit teachers to integrate film with lectures and with assigned readings. Eventually a center could charge fees to cover the costs of this service but initial experimentation should be sponsored by the center, which should also sponsor sessions at the American Anthropological Association meetings, for example, in which these ldnds of material could be presented. Scholars have to learn to use film effectively in teaching and this learning will depend on the opportunity to experiment through access to footage, through sharing materials, and through discussion.

In research, as in teaching, we do not have definitive ways to use ethnographic film. We have enough evidence to know film is a valuable tool but we need to support experimentation, particularly projects with limited goals that can be completed and evaluated. 19

REFERENCES

BATESON, GREGORY

1953 An Analysis of the Nazi Film Hitlerjunge Quex (1933). New York: Museum of Modern Art Film Library. (Mimeographed~ abstracted in The study of culture at a distance. Edited by Margaret Mead and Rhoda Metraux, 302-314. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Expanded version published in 1980 in Studies in Visual Communication 6(3): 20-55.)

BAZIN, ANDRE

1967 What is cinema? Berkeley: University of Cahfornia Press.

CHAGNON, NAPOLEON A.

1974 Studying the Y9nomamo. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1983 Yr;momamo: the fierce people (3rd edition). New York: Holt, Rinehart and

Winston.

CONNOR, LINDA

1979 Corpse Abuse and Trance in Bah: the cultural mediation of aggression. Mankind 12: 104-118.

1982 In Darkness and Light: a Study of Peasant Intellectuals in Bali. Sydney: University of Sydney~ unpublished Ph.D. thesis.

CONNOR, LINDA, PATSY ASCH, TIMOTHY ASCH

1986 Jero Tapakan, Balinese healer: an ethnographic film monograph. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

19 This article was first published in Cinematographic Theory and New Dimensions in Ethnographic Film (Paul Hockings and Yasuhiro Omori, eds.), [Senri Ethnological Studies no. 24: 165-189]; and is reproduced in slightly emended form here by kind permission of the Director of the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka.


FELD, STEVEN, CAROtL WILUAMS

1975 Towards a researchable film language. Srudies m the Anthropology o:f Visual Communication 2( I): 25-32.

FOX, JAMES J.

1975 Han'est of the palm: ecological chmzge in Eastern Indonesia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

FRANK, GELYA

1985 On becoming Other: empathy and biographical interpretation. Biography 8: 189-210.

HEIDER, KARL G.

1972 The Dani of West Irian: an ethrwxraphic companion to the film 'Dead Birds'. Andover, Mass.: Warner Modular Publications.

1976 Ethnographic film. Austin: University of Texas Press. HOCKINGS, PAUL (ED.)

1975 Principles of visual anthropology. First edition. The Hague: Mouton Publishers.

KAPFERER, BRUCE

1983 A celebration of demons: exorcism and the aesthetics of healing in Sri Lanka. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

KENOON, ADAM

1975 Introduction, in Organization of behavior in face-to-face interaction. Edited by Adam Kendon, Richard M. Harris, and Mary Ritchie Key, 1-16. The Hague: Mouton Publishers.

KRJEIBS, STEPHANIE

1975 The film elicitation technique, in Principles of visual anthropology. First edition. Edited by Paul Hockings, 283-30 I. The Hague: Mouton Pub]isher.

LEWIS, E. DOUGLAS

J 988 People of the source: the social and ceremonial order of Tana Wai Brama on Flores. Drdrecht and Provi1dence, R.l: Foris Publications.

MACDOUGALL, IJAV!D

1975 Beyond observational cinema, in Principles of visual anthropology. First edition. Edited by Paul Hockings, 109-124. The Hague: Mouton Publish~ ers. (Reprinted above, pp. 115-132)

MARSHALL, JOHN, EMILIE DE RRIGARIJ

1975 Idea and event in urban film, in Principles of visual anthropology. First edition. Edited by Paul Hockings, 133-145. The Hague: Mouton Publishers. (Reprinted above, pp. 133-145)

MYERS,. FREDERICK R.

1988 From ethnography to metaphor: recent films from David and Judith MacDougall. Cultural Anthropology 3: 205-220.

NICHOLS, BILL (WILLIAM JAMES)

1981 Ideology and the image: social representation in the cinema and other media. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

ROUCH, JEAN

1974 The camera and man. Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication I (I): 37-44. (New translation reprinted above, pp. 79-98)


RUBY, JAY

1977 The image mirrored: reflexivity and documentary film. Journal of the University Film Association 29(9): 5-7.

1980 Exposing yourself: reflexivity, film and anthropology. Semiotica 37(1-Z): 53-79.

1982 A crack in the mirror: reflexive perspectives in anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

SCHEFLEN, ALBERT E.

1975 Models and epistemologies in the study of interaction, in Organization of behavior in face-to-face interaction. Edited by Adam Kendon, Richard M. Harris, and Mary Ritchie Key, 63-91. The Hague: Mouton Publishers.

SORENSON, E. RICHARD

1967 A research film program in the study of changing man: research filmed material as a foundation for continued study of non-recurring human events. Current Anthropology 8: 443-469.

1975 Visual records, human knowledge, and the futme, in Principles of visual anthropology. First edition. Edited by Paul Hockings, 463-476. The Hague: Mouton Publishers. (Reprinted below, pp. 493-506)

SORENSON, E. RICHARD, D. CARLETON GAJDUSEK

1963 Research films for the study of child growth and development and disease patterns in primitive cultures: a catalogue of research films in ethnopediatrics. Bethesda: N.I.H., National Institute for Neurological Diseases and Blindness.

1966 The study of child behavior and development in primitive cultures; a Research Archive for Ethnopedriatic Film Investigations of Styles in the Patterning of the Nervous System. Pediatrics 37 (1) pt. II, Supp.

SORENSON, E. RICHARD, ALLISON JABLONKO

1975 Research filming of naturally occurring phenomena: basic strategies, in Principles of visual anthropology. First edition. Edited by Paul Hockings, I 51- I 63. The Hague: Mouton Publishers. (Reprinted above, pp .... )

WORTH, SOL

1968 Cognitive aspects of sequence in visual communication. Audio Visual Communication Review 16: 1-25.

] 98 I Studying visual communication. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

WORTH, SOL, JOHN ADA]R

I 972 Through Navaho eyes: An exploration of film communication and anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

YOUNG, COLIN

] 975 Observational cinema, in Principles of visual anthropology. First edition. Edited by Paul Hockings, 65-80. The Hague: Mouton Publishers. (Reprinted above, pp. 99-1 1 3)

YOUNG, ELIZABETH

] 979 Topeng in Bali: change and continuity in a traditional drama genre. San Diego: University of California; unpublished Ph. D. Thesis in Anthropology.

360 TIMOTHY ASCH. PATSY ASCH

FILMOGRAPHY

ASCH, TIMOTHY, NAPOU~ON CHAGNON

1969-1975 16mm. films on the Y\lnomamo of Southern Venezuela. W:fllf,eli"'tlii

Documentary Educational Resources: including 1969 The feast. 1974a Dedeheiwa weeds his garden. 1974b A man and his wife weave a hammock. 1974c 1974d 1975

A father washes his children. Dawson Mission. The ax fight.

ASCH, TIMOTHY, AND LINDA CONNOR

1979 A Balinese trcmce seance. Watertown: Documentary sources.

ASCH, TIMOTHY, LINDA CONNOR, PATSY ASCH

1981 Jero on Jero: a Balinese trance seance observed. Watertown: Dc-cu:mC!Ii tary Educational Resources.

BALLANTYNE, TANYA

1967 The things I cannot change. Berkeley: Center for Media and lndlepenrtlbl! Learning. University of California.

CHAGNON, NAPOLEON

19'73 Magical death. Watertown: Documentary Educational Resources. MACDOUGALL, DAVID, JIUDITH MACDOUGALL

19'78 Lorang's way. Berl!celey: Center for Media and Independent LeiEirttllllJI!r, •. , Uni1versity of California.

MACDOUGALL, DAVID, .JIAMES BLUE

19'74 Kenya Boran. Hanover, N.H.: American Universities F~eld Staff. MARSHALL, JOHN

1952-1978 16mm. Films on the !Kung. Watertown, Mass.: Documentary cational Resources; including A curing ceremony. (Filmed in 1957) A joking relation.rhip. (Filmed in 1957) Debe's tantrum. (FHmed in 1957) An argument about a marriage. (Filmed in 1957) N!ai, the .rtory ofa !Kung woman. (Produced in 1980)

ROUCH, JEAN

1956 Jaguar. Watertown, Mass.: Documentary Educational Resources. 1957 Les maftres fous. Watertown, Mass.: Documentary Educational

sources. ROUCH, JEAN, EDGAR MORIN

1960 Chronicle of a .rummer/Chronique d'un ere. New York: Contemporary/ McGraw-Hil.l Films Inc.

Documents

Asch - Film in Ethnographic Research - 1995