Debra Beattie

The Wrong Crowd: Theory and Practice in Producing Documentary Online Debra Beattie

In late 2000 the Australian Film CommissionDocumentary Online initiative commenced with a call for documentaryprojects that would explore the online environment in innovative, challenging and original ways. The Australian BroadcastingCorporation then provided the delivery mechanism via its ABC Onlineportal, www. abc. net. au/wrong crowd. The Wrong Crowd: Insidethe Family, Outside the Law is a public history recounted throughthe prism of a bildungsromannarrative. Theoretical issues emergedaround the nature of the documentary form and its inherenttruth-claim as the work traversed the intersections between documentaryevidence, history in the public domain and personal memory. This book recounts in three major chapters the theory andpractice of producing one of the world first onlinedocumentaries. Beginning with a discussion of the form of thehistory-documentary and issues of history and cultural memory, the second chapter isdevoted to building an understanding of the digital revolutionin the moving image and its impact on the documentary form, withthe final chapter being a case-study of the creative workwww. abc. net. au/wrongcrowd