Ethnographies of ‘On Demand’ Films: Anthropological Explorations of Commissioned Audiovisual Productions

Vailati, Alex; Zamorano Villarreal, Gabriela

Over the last two decades, the advent of cheap, user-friendly video technologies has contributed to a revolution in representational agency. Videos are now made by production units that are at times composed of families, churches, musical groups, community associations or other institutions. Thus, on-demand videos produced and distributed within local and atypical networks profoundly shape contemporary urban imaginaries. This book explores the intertwined relations among infrastructure, technology, and modernity through an ordinary, yet little studied field of "on-demand" audiovisual production, which involves processes of negotiation and interaction between clients and commissioned video makers. On-demand films are considered as a space of collaboration and self-representation, that allows to reflect on the potential of fiction, artifice, and montage to render material desires, aspirations, and ideas of the future.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: 2021-10-01

Format: Hardcover

ISBN-13: 9783030789107

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-78911-4

Dimensions: 210cm x148cm

Pages: 282