No cameras needed : examining documentary filmmaking as the collision site of art and reality in the age of generative artificial intelligence
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As generative AI video challenges fundamental notions of artistic expression and representations of reality, the perspectives of documentary filmmakers are a pressing area of exploration. This study aimed to uncover areas of the technology's implementation and the related significance for the documentary form. Using theoretical frameworks that centered tensions between truth telling and artistry, properties from cinema's unique relationship with time, and the meaning of machine collaboration in reality interpretation, the researcher conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with cutting-edge documentary filmmakers, considering them as active agents in shaping the future of the form. A qualitative analysis revealed three overarching areas of uses and implications: tool-like deployment; expanding the range of expressed perspectives, human and algorithmic; and radical reinterpretations of the nonfiction cinematic form, from narrative modularity to new ways of visualizing reality. The results highlight the breadth of contextual considerations and personal priorities in truth telling that mediate nonfiction filmmakers' attitudes and artistic-journalistic perspectives. Further research should address evolving legal and economic particularities, stigmas in adopting or resisting using the technology, and specific marginalized communities' deployment of alternative epistemologies through generative AI.
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M.A.