Dziga Vertov's 1929 film Man With A Movie Camera records the progression of one full day synthesizing footage shot in Moscow, Riga, and Kiev. The film begins with titles that declare it "an experiment in the cinematic communication of visible events without the aid of intertitles, without the aid of a scenario, without the aid of theater." It is often described as an urban documentary yet the subject of the film is also the film itself from the role of the cameraman to that of the editor to its projection in a theatre and the response of the audience. It is a film within a film made with a range of inventive effects - dissolves, split screen, slow motion, freeze frame-all of which are now embedded in digital editing software.

2008: Man With a Movie Camera is a participatory video shot by people around the world who are invited to record video according to the original script of Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera and submit it to a website which will archive, sequence and deliver the submissions to The Big Screen (www.bbc.co.uk/bigscreens/) in 2007-08. When the work streams your contribution becomes part of a worldwide montage, in Vertov's terms the "decoding of life as it is."

This website contains every shot in Vertov's 1929 film along with thumbnails representing the beginning middle and end of each shot.

You are invited to interpret Vertov and upload your footage to this site to become part of the database. See the Scene Index.
PRESENTATION 2008:Man With a Movie Camera will be streamed on four public screens in the UK beginning in October 2007 on the Big Screen Manchester

All material on this site is public domain

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CONTACT Please email perrybard@gmail.com for questions about this project.