Documentaries dealing with photographic technology?

[christian.rudman]

I have been in a documentary mood recently, and would love to watch more centered around photography. I am also sincerely interested in camera design, and would like to see a film that deals with that. I searched the goog and checked out my local indie video store, but no such luck so far. Are there any documentaries about Victor Hasselblad or Ernst Leitz or the like? Plenty of Bresson and Avedon and other "behind the camera" films lying around, but not a whole lot in the vein of the people responsible for the camera.

Any suggestions or pointers on things to look for would be much appreciated. Tanks!

[back alley]

i have no ideas but i agree that it would be interesting.

[christian.rudman]

I looked even harder and still nothing. I found this gem, but it's only 7 minutes long, silent with music, and all the prompt cards are Deustch. So far he was the only person interested enough in the process to make a film about the actual production of a piece of photographic equipment.

You would think there is at least a "How Things Work" video that's aired on Discovery or something, but I am even having trouble finding that. Would love to see something in this area!

Edit: Just realized that video I linked only includes footage of the Leica 1 being built starting at about 6:34.

[peterm1]

Not sure if the full series is available online but the documetary series The Genius of Photography is superb. All about the art and the technology as well as the artists. Here is a web iste about the series. I enjoyed it so much I bought the DVDs. I hav enever seen any purely on the techmology though.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/

[christian.rudman]

Thank you for the suggestion! I'll check in to it, but so far it just looks like I will have to shoot my own video just to watch one!

[carpark]

If you do the research I will help you shoot it if you want. Sounds like a great idea for a documentary.
Genius of photography is well worth checking out as well

[christian.rudman]

Yeah, I think that I will be purchasing a copy of that series to check it out.

I'm really imagining a "Helvetica" or "Objectified" style documentary. I'm aware that those two influences would mainly result in ripping off the single director of those two films, but the attitude in which the subjects were approached I would like to mirror.

If I can get more people on board and serious talks with industry figures situated, I would love to see this happen.