The drive to document

Starting out as a network gamble, I-Witness is now one of Philippine television’s longest running public affairs programs. A vintage genre The very first movies ever made — the ancestors of all TV and cinema — were documentaries, and one of them caused a stampede of terrified theatergoers. Louis Lumiere of France had put his newly invented camera on a tripod at a train station and recorded an arriving train. That was the movie: nothing fancier than a recording of an actual event — just like what we do every day in news and public affairs, albeit without the story lines. But for the first theater audiences in 1895 that had never seen a moving image, it appeared like the train was headed straight out of the big screen to run them over. Hence the stampede. It became the world’s first box-office hit. I suppose one could also call it the first reality show. I like to think I-Witness is a direct descendant of that first moving image of reality — we are a non-fiction format, which came long before Hollywood or Bollywood, anime, telenovelas, comedy shows, and any other fiction format seen on TV or theater screens. Now that many young TV viewers are discovering documentaries for the first time, it’s useful to recall that this is not a new genre, but a vintage one just getting fresh attention. Docu as cinema In cinema’s first three decades, among the most popular films were documentaries, like Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North, a compelling portrait of Eskimo life produced after the filmmaker lived with Eskimos for sixteen months. The ethos of immersion and "time is truth" that docu makers take for granted today were revolutionary at that time, along with Flaherty’s newfangled equipment that took so much effort. After presenting an exotic culture to the rest of the world, cinema soon became a popular means of introducing faraway people to each other. Today, the documentary is part of another media revolution. The declining cost of making films — all you need now is a small dv camera and a laptop — is democratizing access to filmmaking technology and empowering people who have the drive to document. Many more can aspire to become documentary makers. Unlike shooting in film formats where you count every minute because of the expense, video allows documentarists to shoot to their hearts’ content. This spreading power to document has sparked a boom in global interest in documentaries. The genre has regained much of its prestige and has also become a profitable global business. Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 was a box office hit, while making a political impact. The first Filipino winner at Robert Redford’s Sundance festival — the mecca of independent filmmakers — was a documentary, Imelda by Ramona Diaz, which won for its cinematography last year. Ditsi Carolino’s documentary, Riles, will soon be broadcast on BBC after screenings and awards at festivals around the world. Docus in the bedroom In 1999, I-Witness became the country’s first full-length documentary program, showing 45 minutes of non-fiction story-telling on a single topic. From its previous confinement in the Philippines to select movie theaters and universities, the docu format moved to salas and bedrooms anywhere there was a television. This was several years before the documentary’s current international heyday. Back then, it was a gamble by the network and a test of the viewing audience’s patience and concentration. Today the show that wasn’t expected to last is one of the longest running public affairs shows on Philippine television, a consistent rater, and often a critical hit as well. Submitting two I-Witness episodes and another from Brigada Siete, GMA7 won the country’s first Peabody Award, one of the world’s most prestigious honors for broadcast media. I-Witness was just ahead of its time. With the documentary’s growing popularity today, the competition is getting better and more numerous. Even some high school students are making documentaries. Docu workshops, contests and festivals are mushrooming in the Philippines, including the almost monthly I-Witness documentary festivals that GMA stages in universities, high schools and sometimes even elementary schools. The screenings are often packed and followed by panel discussions on everything from the docu’s topic to the role of scoring in a documentary. We have realized that I-Witness is one of the few TV shows that easily transfer to the big screen. The first festival at UP Diliman was audaciously entitled, "TV Documentary as Cinema." The success of I-Witness reflects changes in the viewing public. Defying expectations, many TV viewers have become more discerning, able to follow lengthy stories that are not about celebrities. In a culture notorious for an MTV attention span, an appreciation for documentaries represents a refreshing counterculture. We like to think I-Witness has contributed to this change. The fork of three golden ages In the media landscape, I-Witness is nicely positioned at the fork of three golden ages. While globally the documentary format has entered a golden age, so has Philippine television, in some ways. No longer just an appliance in middle class homes, television now penetrates more than 90 percent of Filipino households, according to A.C. Nielsen. Surveys show that television news not only has a much larger audience than newspapers, TV is even more trusted. Finally, GMA7 has entered a golden age of its own, at least in ranking, ratings, and revenues. Respect it continues to build with shows ahead of their time. I-Witness was envisioned by its founders at GMA to be a flagship — for the documentary format in the Philippines, for local television, and for the network. Today, I-Witness: The GMA Documentaries is the only network show with GMA in its name. (Howie Severino has been a host, writer and cameraman for I-Witness since 2002. He has been producing documentaries since 1988.)