Submitted to: The SAS Encyclopedia of Archaeological Sciences Title: "Archaeological Videography" Author: Colleen Morgan, PhD The University of York
[email protected] Word Count: 1411 words (including references). Abstract: (50-150 words) Archaeological videography visually communicates some aspect of archaeological research and is either authored by archaeologists or through close consultation with archaeologists. Archaeology has been featured on film since the earliest days of cinema, and archaeological videography is now rapidly proliferating through the use of digital media. Early archaeological footage is increasingly available through online archives, and current footage is disseminated through social media platforms. Though the medium is changing, there are several relatively stable genres of archaeological film: expository, direct testimonial, impressionistic, and phenomenological. These genres impact how archaeological storytelling is performed and the reception of archaeological interpretations of the past by the public. The future of archaeological videography is diverse, with several hybrid media formats expanding the use of moving images in archaeology. Though archaeological videography is increasingly popular, preservation strategies remain problematic and both current and archival footage is at risk. Keywords: filmmaking, archaeology, digital media, videography, new media, digital archaeology, public archaeology Main Text: Archaeological videography visually communicates some aspect of archaeological research and is either authored by archaeologists or through close consultation with archaeologists. Archaeologists have been using movies to document, explain and publicize their research since the earliest days of cinema. These early films depicting archaeological research were often made by news agencies, particularly in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries in Western Europe and typically showed archaeological expeditions in far away, “exotic” locations such as Egypt or Palestine. Several online archives including Europeana, Movietone, the British Pathé News Archive, and the Associated Press Archive feature excavation footage dating from the 1920s. This footage is of excavations in both local and foreign locations; the non-local excavations would often contain establishing shots that showed fantastic landscapes, locals in traditional attire acting as field staff on the excavations and site directors framed as authoritative explorers in military-esque garb. Local archaeological excavations were also featured in much the same way, with an authoritative male archaeologist addressing the camera or giving visitors a tour while laborers excavated behind him. These tropes have reappeared throughout the history
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of archaeological videography, and reinforce the understanding of archaeological investigation as searching for treasure with triumphalist, nationalistic undertones. In addition to appearing in front of the camera, archaeologists have long collaborated with documentarians to create film productions about archaeology and the past. Notably, in 1944 the Ministry of Education in the United Kingdom commissioned Jacquetta Hawkes to create a film on British prehistory. The making of this wartime film is documented by Christine Finn (2001) who notes the prevalence of the narrative of invasion in the context of prehistoric Britain. Similarly, in the early 1950s in the United States, the Archaeological Institute of America produced a series of documentaries about the past. Ray Garner, the filmmaker in charge, was particularly concerned with verisimilitude in past violent action and used naturalistic visual metaphors such as thunderclouds sweeping over the mountains to depict ancient battles. Archaeologically themed broadcasting began on television in the 1950s; the programs What in the World? in the United States and Animal Vegetable Mineral? in the United Kingdom had scholar-contestants try to identify various artifacts. Building on the success of these programs, archaeological documentaries became a mainstay of British and American television. By the 1970s there were enough archaeological documentaries to warrant a round of publications regarding useful titles for teaching archaeology, followed by a book of film reviews, Archaeology on Film, published by the Archaeological Institute of America in 1983. At the same time, changes in visual media technology such as the change of 16 mm film to videocassette and the proliferation of videocassette recorders (VCRs) made video production and distribution less expensive, increasing the availability of archaeological films and broadening non-specialist access to production. Though systematic video recording was mentioned in the early 1990s as useful in archaeological excavation for a more complete visual record and its use considerably elaborated on sites such as Çatalhöyük (Tringham, et al., 2012), the time required to sort and edit film made extensive recording impractical. Much of this informal excavation footage is now unavailable as a result of format obsolescence and lack of formal archival strategies. Even as participation in both formal and informal video production increased, there was very little critical examination of archaeological film until Angela Piccini’s (1996) discussion of the construction of Celtic people in documentaries wherein she questions the audience for archaeological films and the construction of a pan-European Celtic warrior aristocracy. The technological shift to the use of digital media for filmmaking in archaeology has had a profound affect on authorship, content, quantity, production and distribution of archaeological knowledge (Morgan 2014). As smart phones have become more popular, capturing relatively high quality archaeological images and video has moved from a specialist role on archaeological projects to a ubiquitous exercise regardless of the position of the participant on site. Paired with the wide distribution available on social media, videos made by students can rapidly eclipse formal publications in terms of the dissemination of information about an archaeological project. Accordingly, the quantity of available online archaeological footage has rapidly increased as distribution of current media is uploaded alongside the growing collection of archival footage. As a result, archaeological movies made by professional documentarians in collaboration with archaeologists can be viewed alongside those made by students with smart phones or even those made to advance pseudoarchaeological claims, with little to distinguish the authority of the author.
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There have been some efforts to collect and distribute authoritative archaeological films on dedicated webpages such as Past Horizons and The Archaeology Channel; the latter also hosts an annual film festival in the United States. There are several other annual and semi-annual archaeology film festivals, such as AGON: International Meeting of Archaeological Film of the Mediterranean Area, Arkhaios Cultural Heritage and Archaeology Film Festival, CINARCHEA: Festival du Film d’Archeologie d’Amiens, FICAB: International Archaeological Film Festival of the Bidasoa, International Festival of Archaeology Films, Nyon; Festival International du Filme d’Acheologie de Besançon, ICRONOS: Festival International du Film Archeologique de Bordeaux, International Archaeology Film Festival in Split, KINEON: International Archaeological Film Festival of Brussels, and Rassegna Internazionale del Cinema Archeologico di Rovereto. In addition to these film festivals, there are often short films shown at archaeological conferences. Though the technology available for making videos has changed over time, genres of filmmaking within archaeology have remained relatively static. Most archaeological videos used to teach archaeology or for public outreach are expository; these hearken back to the old newsreels as they are didactic, with authoritative ‘voice-of-god’ narration, expert ‘talking head’ interviews interspersed with action from ‘on location’ shots that follow narratives of discovery with soundtracks laden with ‘traditional,’ flute or drum-heavy music. While these are the most common and clichéd form of archaeological videography, they remain useful for straightforward storytelling and are accessible to broader audiences. The direct testimonial—sometimes referred to as a ‘video diary’—is an account of current finds and conditions on site. Archaeological video diaries likely derive from the practice of site tours, during which the archaeologist would relay information about the stratigraphy and any interesting finds to a small audience. There are a handful of impressionistic archaeological videos, which explore the space between art and archaeology. These videos celebrate subjectivity and lack the authoritative voice-overs and didactic structure of expository film, but can be frustrating to audiences who expect tidy narratives about the past. Finally, phenomenological films grant the viewer the gaze of an archaeologist by filming at eye level and recording the sensory components of archaeological fieldwork in a single, continuous shot. This genre has increased in popularity in conjunction with smart phone cameras and social media, wherein short videos can be featured alongside static photographs. None of these genres are exclusive; some videos feature aspects of two or more of these genres. While archaeological documentaries are still relatively conservative in content and scope, archaeological videography is an exciting and increasingly porous medium with new formats such as animated GIFs, remixes, machinima made in virtual worlds, head-mounted action cameras, video podcasts, “let’s play” video gaming commentaries, animations, and drone footage shifting and changing how we present our interpretations of the past. These videos can be embedded within other social media platforms and viewing interfaces can stream videos in a sequence, or presented as a non-linear series of choices to jump between topics. Though the future of archaeological videography presents a broad array of creative ways to present archaeological research, it is a threatened format and amounts to so much digital ephemera without an increased attention to archival strategies that incorporate multimedia. Helpful
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guidance for the preservation of digital video can be found at the Archaeological Data Service: http://guides.archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/g2gp/Video_1. References: Finn, C. (2001). Ways of telling: Jacquetta Hawkes as Film-maker. Antiquity, 74(283), 127–130. Morgan, C. (2014). Archaeology and the Moving Image. Public Archaeology, 13(4), 323–344. Piccini, A. (1996). Filming Through the Mists of Time: Celtic Constructions and the Documentary. Current Anthropology, 37(1), S87–S111. Tringham, R., Ashley, M., & Quinlan, J. (2012). Creating and Archiving the Media Database and Documentation of the Excavation. In: R. Tringham and M. Stevanović, eds. House Lives: Building, Inhabiting, Excavating a House at Çatalhöyük, Turkey: Reports from the BACH Area, Çatalhöyük, 1997–2003. Los Angeles, CA: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, pp. 31–48.
Further Reading: Kulik, K. (2006). Archaeology and British Television. Public Archaeology, 5(2): 75–90. Van Dyke, R. M. (2006). Seeing the Past: Visual Media in Archaeology. American Anthropologist, 108(2): 370–75.
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