The Film-As-Text

After reading MacDougall's The Film-As-Text, I kept going back to the one idea explained in Jaguar. As far as achieving ethnographic accuracy, this sounds like a really neat idea. They added a third element, which is the subjects adding commentary after the footage is shot. From here, you have the filmmakers perspective, the audiences interpretation, the subjects actions, but also the subjects commentary and their perspective.
Later, they go on to talk about an anthropologist adding commentary, as well as the filmmaker in the post production stage.
This may not be the most important point of the reading, but it does sound like a really interesting way to achieve a more sound ethnographic film that would be accepted more generally.
Imagine attempting to document a spiritual ritual. The subjects are dancing and sacrificing, and the camera rolls. Most of the documentaries I have seen would show this footage with whatever sound was captured, and have the filmmaker or narrator explain the actions. At most, it would have captions with what the subjects are vocalizing. Imagine this, but also with the subjects explaining what they were doing at that time as an overdub, and an anthropologist explaining how he/she feels about it. That's magic.

Shohat and Sham's "The Imperial Imaginary"

A lot of Shohat and Sham’s "The Imperial Imaginary" follows with what we were discussing in class on day 1. The colonists of the late 19th and early 20th century had access to filming equipment and were able to use it to record their imperialism. “The most prolific film-producing countries of the silent period – Britain, France, US, Germany - also ‘happened’ to be among the leading imperialist countries.” (Shohat and Sham, 1) This is not a coincidence. It proves that the ability to shoot and manipulate one’s own footage is powerful enough to convince large amounts of spectators one way or another.
This ability, which was new at the time, was unlike anything the world had seen, and was able to bring those large audiences together unlike any novel or newspaper. “While the novel is consumed in solitude, the film is enjoyed in a gregarious space, where the ephemeral communitas of spectatorship can take on a national or imperial thrust.” (Shohat and Sham, 3)
Once the population of imperialistic nations became enthralled and enraptured by cinema, the filmmakers/imperialists could show anything however they wanted. “No one questioned how Egyptian land, history, and culture should be represented, for example, or asked what Egyptian people might have to say about the matter.” (Shohat and Sham, 5) This power put filmmaking countries in the lead for imperialism. These nations were now able to expose foreign peoples to their heart’s content, for instance, getting pygmies sick off of European cigars and filming it.

Shohat, Ella, and Robert Stam. "The Imperial Imaginary." 9 Sept. 2007 .