The Fogo Process

Participatory Video by Shirley White, Chapter 5 (actually an essay by Stephen Crocker)

It is popularly thought that digital media destroys sense of place since distances are meaningless leading to some grotesque monoculture of capitalism at the scale of mass society.

The Fogo Process was born from an initiative called the Challenge for Change and organized by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) in the late 1960's. Initial goal was to create documentaries with local video in underdeveloped regions of Canada as messages for politicians and decisionmakers who are not taking their opinions into account. "The Fogo Process provides real evidence of how peoplle who have been marginalized the economicand political structure of the world system can renew and empower their local communities and transform conditions of uneven development." p. 123

Prior to the Fogo Process was the Lumerire brothers, who invented movies, popularized their cinematograph in the 1980's - presenting film from everyday life in other parts of the woorld. Similar things were being done in the streets of Russia, and live activist scripts were filmed by filmakers like Roberto Rossellini. In the 1940's we have the British Colonial Film Unit producing films to show African colonists was England was like and attract Europeans to colonies. (Mr English at Home, and Southern Rhodesia: Is This your Country).

The first attempt by the NFB in 1966 was The Things I Cannot Change - a documentary on the social problem of poverty and the family it was based on was aversely affected by the production due to ridicule and embarrasment. Colin Low is the producer and director for the Fogo team. He wanted to put the filmaking tools into the hands of the locals and teach young ones how to be filmakers. Donald Snowden was a community development worker directing the Extension Service of th MUN. This project was incited by an article on poverty reduced to economic figures. What about the poverty of information and organization? Fogo was chosen because it had several small communities but very similar yet disconnected. 5000 lived in 10 communites with religious divides. No common voice nor communication chanell with government (p. 125).

First step was to go through a local community worker to identify some social problems and issues with the people. Much stress is placed on who you connect with to enter into the trust of the community. Suggested ideal is a local community organizer who often will look like he is the director of the set. Result was 28 short films on Fogo. Low moved away from horizontal filmmaking to try this vertical means of capturing different opinions rather than aggregating them. The people were shown the videos first and feedback elicited became the precedent for community feedback loop. A bigger loop closed by taking the video to the MUN and eventually government. A film was then made of the Fishing Ministries' response and returned.

There is much more information in this chapter that discusses a bit more on process vs product, as well as the continued need for improved development communications.


Reflection

I've been waiting impatiently to come across a more detailed account of the Fogo Process, and here it is. The best thing I learned was that vertical documentaries are real.

I would like to know how long the various feedback loops take to occur, and who filmed and edited/compiled the response from the government? Was it the government officials, or the NFB/MUN project team?

The history is interesting but the second part of the chapter is dedicated to the process that has become famously known as the Fogo Process. It has been applied by various different groups including Martha Stewart's initiative for Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), which produced some 400 films on their situation. It is interesting to think about how video seems to have been born into the development arena as a participatory tool, rather than evolving into one.