Takanori OISHI, Shunsuke YAMASHITA, Motomitsu UCHIBORI
Journal of the University of the Air 放送大学 (30) 63 - 75 0911-4505 2012
[Not refereed][Not invited] In the late 1990s, the Open University's special lecture series, "HUMAN: A quest for the origin of humanity,"was filmed on location abroad, and it remains the largest educational anthropological film production project everundertaken in Japan. Professor Junichiro Itani supervised the project, which consists of two parts, primatology andanthropology, both of which reflect the academic career of Itani and his research group. In the anthropological part,the series featured people whose "livelihoods [were] highly dependent on natural environments," such as huntergatherers,pastoralists, and shifting cultivators. We made a digital archive( which includes migration of master tapesinto XD-CAM files) of the anthropology portion of the series, which represents about 40 percent of the originalrushes( unedited daily prints) of the series, with financial support from the President's discretionary budget of theOpen University in fiscal year 2011. Target films for archiving included unedited films, most of which had not been used in the creation of the teaching materials. We also interviewed people who had been involved in the planning,filming, and editing of the films to get background information. More than 15 years had passed since the timeof the original filming at the various locations. At many sites, researchers were still continuing similar researchactivities over several generations. Our interviews with these researchers indicated that they see two primaryacademic values of the digital archive.(1)It can provide high quality audiovisual data to reconsider the past andpresent conditions of the subject populations whose societies have been strongly influenced by the penetration of acash economy and globalization processes, especially in the last decade. From this perspective, the archives mayalso prove to be meaningful for the people and local communities involved in the projects.(2)With the addedethnographical meta data, the archived films have the potential to benefit researchers and students with broaderinterests. The specific case of digitally archiving shows that the Open University's primary audiovisual materials witha high academic value can be maintained for further use in scientific research and other educational activities. Suchuse of audiovisual materials will also encourage the establishment of a more recursive loop between research and theproduction of teaching materials.