Archaeological survey on film

I’m unconvinced by a lot of Web 2.0 material for teaching. The limit of my use of Youtube or Vimeo is for showing short animations. The idea of putting something substantial up as video doesn’t appeal, especially on Youtube, which is not that good for watching lengthy video. Archaeology is particularly difficult. For filming in the field, I don’t have the time to learn the skills. Lab-based material may be easier where more variables can be controlled, but even that takes a bit more effort than just pointing a video camera at something. I also get the impression that some of these things could be done better in other ways. For instance the Çatalhöyük project might have some interesting short films, but I can’t be certain because I’ve only found it on their Second Life Island and Second Life is lousy application for viewing video.

Nonetheless I’m impressed with PKAP’s new short, Learning Fieldwalking announced on Ancient History Ramblings. It shows me what you can do with short video, if you do it properly. It’s large enough on the screen that you don’t feel like you’re peering at an animated stamp. It took a couple of views for me to realise the sound is high quality. Outdoors on a windy day that’s no mean feat. It may be an annoyance for a film-maker that if they do their job properly then a a lot of what they do isn’t noticed. It’s when things are done badly they stand out.

As for the content, it’s interesting. I think it captures why people get excited about not digging on an archaeological project. It might be time for me to go back and have a look at some other more recent videos on the Archaeology Channel.