Deborah Scranton described making The War Tapes as "directing through instant message" in her talk at beyondbroadcast. "We will tell your story," was what she told the soldiers. She got five volunteers. She trained them on mini-dv cameras, tripods, blank tapes, and her IM screename. The solidiers came up with ways to rig the cameras to their helmets, tanks, etc... They shot 800 hours. Tape took 2 weeks to get home. Soldiers were on IM with her all the time. She'd watch the tapes and then talk about them on IM. Deborah never went to Iraq. It interfered with the goal of the film. The soldiers were participants. Deborah and the crew at home were doing their jobs. It's a participatory production indeed. I haven't seen the film. But I'm looking forward to it. And I'm sure the success of The War Tapes is going to stimulate interest in more participatory cinema. It was the web and IM that helped make this happen. And it will be interesting to see how network-connected cameras change this. However, there's still the problem of producing a traditional linear film. There needs to be a better way to achieve the goal of sharing the lives of the participants, yet still providing directorial control. Interesting dilemma.