Filmmaking as a research method: uncovering complexity within a creative system
- Publisher:
- Taylor & Francis
- Publication Type:
- Journal Article
- Citation:
- Media Practice and Education, ahead-of-print, (ahead-of-print), pp. 1-15
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In researching the creative capacity of The Shoot Out 24 Hour Filmmaking Festival (The Shoot Out) an ethnographic methodology was employed with filmmaking as a research method. This valued the researcher’s existing skills and experience as a filmmaker, their ‘insider’s perspective’ (Robson 2011) as festival creator, their cultural capital and habitus (Bourdieu 1977). Documentary filmmaking techniques were used as a method of collecting, coding, analysing and presenting original interview data. In this way, filmmaking ‘form[ed] an integral part of the research process’ (Candy and Edmonds 2010, 127), aiding the researcher in uncovering the complexities of the creative process within the festival’s creative system (Csikszentmihalyi 1988; Kerrigan 2013). Participant interviews are presented as a series of research films that address the research areas of investigation and sit within a website platform to be viewed in conjunction with the written text. By grouping video clips, it becomes a ‘medium through which ethnographic knowledge is created’ (Pink 2011, 2). Arguments can be shown to be complex and heightened through vocal intonation, emotion, confirmation from other interviews or video archive. This article will discuss how using filmmaking as a research method not only aided but also enhanced the research process.
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