Documatic: participatory, mobile shooting assistant, pre-editor, and groundwork for semi-automatic filmmaking

Abstract

While digital filmmaking has broadened the accessibility of documentary film and television creation, legacy production practices persist of first gathering information (shooting) and later structuring the audio-video narrative (editing). The open-source app Documatic combines shooting and editing processes via synchronized smartphone-camera annotation systems that automatically generate non-destructive video "rough-cuts" for Adobe Premiere. Harnessing the correct digital affordances can enable small documentary productions to enjoy some of the production efficiency traditionally belonging only to large scale filmmakers, while maintaining the artisanal quality control of a small team. The paper outlines the design, implementation, and example usage of this production and editing assistant, which is aimed at supporting small independent documentary filmmaking teams.