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The Introducer, My Childhood Dream Job

2017-05-16 · review / recommendation · John · 3:58 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Pop culture (also: Personal life) · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion

John recalls that their dad is a documentary filmmaker and that his childhood dream job was to introduce documentaries on TV; he names favourite documentaries, argues that Kedi, unlike most nature documentaries, shows humans as part of nature, and recommends Kedi, PBS documentaries and The Road to Nerdfighteria.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Their dad the documentary filmmaker; vlogs as 'very short podcasts featuring facial expressions'

  • ★★ John says their dad is a documentary filmmaker who, while they grew up, made films on everything from water in Florida to education in Alaska. — 00:00:02 · Mike Green, Florida
  • ★★ John grants they may have followed their dad by making non-fiction video, but calls vlogs not documentaries but very short podcasts featuring facial expressions, needing less visual-storytelling talent. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:08 · Mike Green
  • ★ John says that even after more than ten years he is still pretty bad at editing video. (playful) — 00:00:26

00:00:34 — Cable television and John's childhood dream job: introducer of documentaries

  • ★★ John says he inherited from their dad a really deep love for documentary films. — 00:00:34 · Mike Green
  • ★ John jokingly describes cable television as an outdated technology: a monthly fee for lots of video, like Netflix, except you still had to watch advertisements. (playful) — 00:00:40
  • ★★★ John recalls cable channels like Turner Classic Movies where a host introduced each old film with context; as a kid his dream job was to be such an introducer, but of documentaries. — 00:01:00
  • ★★ John suspects in retrospect the introducer existed mostly to make the movie longer: stretching a 90-minute film into 120 minutes of content would add eight minutes of advertising. (hedged) — 00:01:08

00:01:24 — Favourite documentaries not on Netflix

  • ★★ John says documentaries are much easier to discover now than in his childhood; Netflix has an excellent, extensive library, yet many of his favourites aren't on it. — 00:01:24
  • ★★ John names favourite documentaries missing from Netflix: the 7 Up series, Herb & Dorothy, Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter and Slavery by Another Name, each briefly described. — 00:01:33 · New York City, United States
  • ★★ John says there are so many great documentaries and so few ever find a broad audience. — 00:01:57

00:02:02 — Nature documentaries leave humans out; Kedi shows humans as part of nature; funding documentaries

  • ★★ As a kid John's favourite genre was the nature documentary: animals fighting to survive, a magical glimpse into a world without us, almost never with humans in frame. — 00:02:02
  • ★★★ John says in real life humans can't be separated from nature: we are currently nature's most important species, and our choices affect every other species on Earth. — 00:02:16
  • ★★★ That is why John loves Kedi and wanted them to help distribute it: it uses nature-documentary conventions but includes humans, showing how a city, its people and its cats connect. — 00:02:24
  • ★★★ John calls Kedi a nature documentary that acknowledges humans are part of nature, showing cats' lives as tender, cold and unpredictable, as human lives are. — 00:02:46
  • ★★ John notes Kedi is currently only available by purchase or on YouTube Red, which makes it inaccessible to many viewers. — 00:02:56
  • ★★ John says documentaries are really hard to fund on advertising revenue alone, which is why so few are on free streaming services, at least legally. — 00:03:03 · online advertising
  • ★★ John says that if viewers get a chance to see Kedi someday he really hopes they do; it is a wonderful movie. — 00:03:12

00:03:18 — PBS documentaries, The Road to Nerdfighteria; end screen: John's break from the internet

  • ★★ Fulfilling his dream of being an introducer, John tells US viewers that PBS has excellent documentaries available for free. — 00:03:18 · United States
  • ★★ John recommends The Road to Nerdfighteria, a free ongoing documentary project on how people found this corner of the internet and what it means to them; it still accepts submissions. (hedged) — 00:03:25 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ In the end screen John says he won't see Hank on Friday: he is taking a week or possibly two away from the internet to write, and next Tuesday's (23 May 2017) video is prerecorded. (hedged) — 00:03:42

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Anthropocene · documentary film · Kedi · nature documentary

Also: People: Mike Green

Projects: The Road to Nerdfighteria

Works: Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter · Herb & Dorothy · Slavery by Another Name · Up series

Organizations: Netflix · PBS · Turner Classic Movies

Concepts: advertising · Alzheimer's disease · online advertising · television

Places: Alaska · Florida · New York City · United States

Events: Reconstruction era

Products: YouTube Red

Also centred on Anthropocene: John Reviews Kids Movies · The Anthropocene Reviewed, Animated · Nourished by Leaving · I Had a Hallucination This Week

Also centred on documentary film: Seeing Myself Through a Cat's Eyes

Also centred on Kedi: Seeing Myself Through a Cat's Eyes

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