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Photo by Joel Heller

Agnes Varnum

Tell us about your blog.

The tagline for Doc It Out is “watching, ranting and connecting with documentary film.” Beyond that, I’ll leave it to others to say.

How would you describe your readers? Do you have much contact with the people who read you?

Most of the people who read my blog seem to be in the industry; either filmmakers or festival programmers, distributors, or other writers. The blog has been an amazing way to meet new people—many times, I’ve written about a film and then sometime down the road, I meet the filmmaker and they have read my post about their film. Luckily, for the most part, I write about films I like so these encounters are friendly and open the door to more conversation.

Tell us how – and why – you started your blog?

Doc It Out started as an experiment. I wanted to understand how people where creating their communities online and I was hoping to improve my writing skills. The topic of documentary film made sense because that was the primary focus of my day jobs up to that point. Doc It Out just passed its three-year anniversary.

Describe your blog day – do you work at home? Go to a café? Sit in an office?

I have a day job, so I’m lucky if I get to post 2 or 3 times a week these days. When I do write, it’s usually at home and either in the early morning or late night. I’m not sure if I’m a natural writer. I need some quiet and a burst of inspiration, which is why I tend to write about films I like or are unique in some way.

How do you find things to blog about and how do you decide that a entry is worth being in your blog?

I used to travel to festivals quite a bit and writing about what I saw was a way to add value to those trips. My day job at the Austin Film Society doesn’t really involve much travel so now I rely on screeners or things I see here in Austin. I moved to Austin, in part, because there is a strong film culture here. Any night can find some kind of art house/independent/repertory film. I also sometimes write about music, books, or other topics… nothing is off-limits so long as it inspires me.

I find it odd when people ask me to post about a film I’ve never seen. I can’t understand how they think that will benefit them?

What is your favorite blog entry?

I think everyone has heard of memes-they are kind of like blog chain letters. I participated in a few early on when the concept was novel, but it quickly grew tiresome. Around the 2-year anniversary of my blog, I had this idea that I wanted my readers to recommend some of their favorite books, movies, websites, and/or music. So my 2-year meme was born, where I committed to take a look at anything anyone recommended to me and write about it.

I meant to get the whole thing done within a year, but I’m still working on it slowly. That’s ok because it remains my favorite blog project.

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Doc It Out

What was your most popular/controversial blog entry?

There was a film, The American Ruling Class, which I was interested in because I had seen it as a work-in-progress. I went looking online to see what had become of it and I found an extended scene on YouTube, which I watched. I thought that the segment was interesting because the filmmaker was experimenting with form but I wasn’t sure it was working, so I was even more eager to see the film. I made a quick post asking my readers if anyone knew what had happened to the film and said what I thought about the trailer. The filmmaker found the post and tore into me. After he insulted me, some of my readers jumped in to defend me, then people jumped in to defend the filmmaker.

I don’t think the exchange was a particularly valuable debate, but since people weren’t threatening others, I decided to let it play out. I still think I had every right to post about the trailer, which was the filmmaker’s central issue. He thought it was unfair to comment on a trailer, but if you put something out in the world to represent your film, you have to anticipate that people will judge the movie on it. I still hold that view.

Is blogging the new path to fame and fortune?

It has been for Perez Hilton, but not for me. I do have rock star moments at film events where someone will know who I am before I’ve introduced myself, but then I walk out onto the street and no one knows me or cares if I blog. That moment of pride evaporates quickly.

What separates journalism from blogging?

I can only state my opinion on this, and I’m not sure how informed that opinion really is, but hey, I’m a blogger, so I’ll go ahead and answer anyways. What seems to separate the two fields in my mind is that journalists feel some sense of having to try to be objective. AJ Schnack (All These Wonderful Things) was trained as a journalist and his posts tend to cull opinions from various places, sometimes he even digs in and investigates issues. I don’t feel the need to try to be objective or to investigate beyond where my curiosity takes me. My blog isn’t an institution, it just a memoir of the things I’ve seen and how I’ve reacted to things. I even shy away from the term critic to describe what I do because critics have to see what their editor tells them to and report back, good or bad.

The really difficult thing today is media literacy. How do you evaluate what you see and read?

 Who are the bloggers that you read religiously?

I’m sorry to say that these days, not much. I found that for a while, I was in a cycle that continues on blogs today, which is that one writer fuels another. Someone would post about something and then others would respond on their blog. I lost interest in that kind of circle-jerking. I want to have my own thoughts and talk about the movies that have genuinely captured my attention. I’m sure I’ll go back to reading others’ blogs, as I do think it is important to be a part of the conversation, but at this moment, I’ve given it a rest.

What I have been doing is using my Twitter feed and Facebook to point me to things of interest. I follow people I like and check out the things they are recommending.

How has your life changed because of your blog? Has it gone in any new directions because of your newfound prominence?

My writing has led directly to other gigs—I contribute to IDA’s Documentary magazine; I wrote the documentary column at indieWIRE for about a year; I wrote for the Tribeca Film Institute’s Resources blog for 2 years; I got my job at the Austin Film Society as communications manager because of my experience online; and most recently, I’m working on the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program blog, DocSource. None of that would have happened if I hadn’t started my own blog; it is how I exhibit what I’m capable of. Besides these gigs, I’ve also met so many people that I might not have otherwise, and truthfully, it is the wonderful people that keep me in it.

My blog has given me a place within the documentary community, which I needed since I’m not a filmmaker. Before I wrote about film, people would wonder why I was at a festival. I didn’t want to be a hanger-on, I wanted to have a place within the constellation and I think I have achieved that. I don’t know about “newfound” though, I’ve been working in the doc community since 2002!