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construct chronology or cause-and-effect relationship by recognizing patterns
of events represented in the text.
A simple list resulting from a database query may demand some intel-
lectual labor from the perceiver to make any meaningful associations. If a
search mechanism is programmed to evaluate thematic or chronological data
for each record, then the three elements of narrative that I use from Propp
can be present. That is the premise from which I create my database-driven
documentary.
I anticipate one problem; it is implied from the notion that narrative does
not exist outside the mind of the perceiver. Narrative in a documentary is the
result of a series of pre-planned understandings resulting from cues of nar-
ration that fit remembered patterns of logical or rhetorical structures - the
syuzhet. With database culture still in its infancy, we have very few database-
configured patterns embedded in our collective memory. Therefore I rely on
other forms of expression. Cinematic and televisual patterns of narration are
useful in this inquiry.
Another term must be clarified in order to proceed. Documentary is cer-
tainly a term with which recent cinema and its critics have come to no agree-
ment. For the purposes of this discussion I will refer to the idea of documentary
as the expressive form that utilizes physical objects that were not fabricated for
thepurposeoftheimmediatepresentation,buthaveindependentsignification
in a distinct and separate context.
Using a database for the presentation of interactive documentary
To address this issue, let me first say that creative work is not necessarily educa-
tional. Documentary has much to offer the student or researcher of any subject.
An educational outcome is not my only objective. I intend for my documentary
films and videos to entertain in a similar way as fiction films. My interest is to
affect the viewer with a memorable experience rather than instruct on a partic-
ular concept. But unlike many fictional dramatic films, my documentary films
are not scripted. They are loosely defined in their cinematic or videographic
plan. And the material I bring to the editor can be, and has been, restructured
many different ways to suit very distinct purposes.
What makes a nonfiction documentary film, video or multimedia project
distinct from its fiction cousin is that the objects used in the making of the
finished work often have a previous life of their own, a value to another context,
another system of meaning. The photograph on my license serves one context:
