Filmmaking Process Research Articles

Moving from Accessible Filmmaking toward Creative Media Accessibility

Abstract Accessible filmmaking, a new model that proposes the integration of translation and accessibility into the filmmaking process through collaboration between filmmakers and translators, is leading to increasingly creative examples of media accessibility. In this article, the author puts forward a definition of creative media accessibility and illustrates it with examples of current professional practice. Situated at the crossroads between creation and translation, these practices point to a new way to approach audiovisual translation and, more importantly, filmmaking itself.

Exhibition of a VR Experimental Documentary

During the exhibition session, we propose to view a VR experimental documentary of 20’. The VR film is made after a three-year practice-based collaborative research on mothers and children living together in a condition of imprisonment. The objective is to understand their different points of view about the confined spaces they are - or have been living - and how they endured the challenges of raising children in prison, and also which are their hopes and dreams for the future. This Ph.D. research mixes theory and practice, with the intent to analyze the production of the VR film, made combining live-action shooting and animation Objectives and methodology: The aim is to discuss which are the potentialities and also limitations of immersive storytelling applied to visual anthropology in closed contexts such as prisons, with the collaboration of multiple approaches and forms of art, like animation. VR filmmaking process helped to research confinement - in confined places - during the pandemic. The objective is to understand their different points of view about the confined spaces where they have been living in the past, and how they endured the challenges and the crises they faced during their childhood and motherhood, worsened by the pandemic. The attempt to hear their own voices and their perspective following Mirzoeff’s ideas (Mirzoeff 2011, 2015) brought me and a group of artists and practitioners to experiment and employ different forms of art and methodologies, such as illustration, animation, digital storytelling, photo-elicitation and anthropological observational fieldwork. My hypothesis is that the VR filmmaking process – more than the normal ‘flat’ documentary cinema – helped to build and share a collaborative process (between academics, practitioners and the protagonists of the research). Furthermore, I (Rossella Schillaci) think VR technology helped to support the participation of children and youth, envisioning new possibilities for interdisciplinary collaborations and to better listening to children’s ideas of participation, and expression of their point of view about the present, past and mostly future, representing their thoughts, fears and dreams. Intended results: reflection and debate about ethical problems, the potentiality of using new technology in the research and also in the dissemination of the results. How new media can facilitate and open a broad discussion about the topics that involved not only academics but also practitioners and decision-makers? The VR film will be available for participants. An excerpt will be available for publication, together with a paper about the making process, the methodology, the challenges faced and the results obtained.

Abstract Machine

The last three decades have been a time of changes in filmmaking. Film editing as a part of it it’s not immune to this set of transformations. The driving force is the digital revolution, but the level of changes comes in different dimensions. The filmmaking process brought a change in technology and equipment that impacted technical and creative procedures. The emergence of the internet, social networks, streaming platforms, altered the relationship between the spectator and the medium. Film language acquired the capacity to absorb styles originated in television and in other media and keeps evolving. Access to the tools is democratized. Any young adult can use a phone or a computer to edit video content that feeds social networks. The next step will be artificial intelligence and this whole transformative process is far from ending. Throughout this evolutionary process, the montage theories have remained relatively stable because they are very robust, but the scale of contextual changes requires an update to this different technological and cultural setting. This paper aims to answer this question by proposing a conceptual framework for creative film editing. The framework design is based on the theory of assemblage (Deleuze, Guattari; DeLanda), it identifies the two minimal essential elements of the process: filmic elements and relations. Filmic elements are concrete, relations are abstract. Editing is creating relations between filmic elements and shaping those relations to produce meaning and aesthetics. In assemblage theory all assemblages share three characteristics, they all have concrete elements, an abstract machine, and agents. The abstract machine is a space of possibilities determined by the concrete elements in which all relations are possible. The editor is an agent acting on an abstract machine. From this perspective, we can identify two processes of interaction between concrete elements and relations and they occur along different dimensions. One dimension defines the variable roles that an assemblage component may play, from a purely material role to a purely expressive role. These roles are variable and may occur in mixtures. The other dimension defines variable processes in which these components become involved and are referred to as processes of territorialization or deterritorialization. These two specialized expressive media are viewed as the basis for a second synthetic process called coding. Coding supplies a second articulation, consolidating the effects of the first and stabilizing the identity of an assemblage. For coding methods, we use models from the theory of editing that define “rules” on how to connect shots together. Continuity editing, for instance, is a set of rules that can be viewed as a specific code. This framework includes a model for grid analysis to grasp how the relations being crafted can affect the film experience from different perspectives, namely narrative, aesthetic, and discursive. With this framework we provide a conceptual model to understand the film editing process from its most basic components, allowing the editor to have a clear understanding of how he can affect the cinematic experience, thus providing tools and methods for critical analysis.

Grace Wyndham Goldie at the BBC: Reappraising the ‘first lady of television’

This working paper explores the significance of the work of the assistant head of BBC Television Talks and Features, Grace Wyndham Goldie, in the development of current affairs and documentary television which took place at the BBC in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Wyndham Goldie was central to these processes. She was passionately committed to the creation of a ‘neutral’ current affairs television, built upon the veracity of the live image. This same passion was not evident in her attitude to the production of documentary television, and she disdained the carefully crafted process of documentary filmmaking. Notably, while Wyndham Goldie was one of a very few women to reach the top of the BBC management ladder, she offered limited encouragement and support to other women working at the corporation.

Producing Maka: Hybridisation and Dialogue in Academic Filmmaking

ABSTRACT Academic filmmaking has become a rich area of practice and inquiry, driving debates about academic rigour, affect, social impact, and knowledge production. While scholars have increasingly sought to expand their practice beyond strict, ‘academic' modes of filmmaking, little attention has been paid to the ways diverse approaches to film production may also offer opportunities for creative practice that extends beyond the academy. This article explores the production model underpinning Maka, a documentary biopic of Geneviéve Makaping and product of intensive collaboration between academic and industry-based filmmakers. Drawing on interviews with the film's producers, Graziano Chiscuzzu and Ermanno Guida, I explore Maka's status as a hybrid film, a dialogic project in which multiple positions and voices intersect. I trace the filmmakers’ negotiation of funding and prestige – from university grants to legitimation at film festivals – as well as their use of techniques such as retroscripting to cultivate a dialogic filmmaking process. I also discuss the ethos of social commitment that appears to unite both academic and documentary filmmaking, and explore avenues for expanding and measuring social impact through film distribution. I conclude that Maka offers an important case study of academic-industry hybridization, permitting further interrogation of the boundaries between the two spheres.

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Video Editing: Technical Vs.Creative Tool

The audio and video editing software market are expected to increase at a growth rate (CAGR) of 11.24% as per the Technavio report by 2024 [1]. Video editing is the unique aspect of the filmmaking process that involves cutting and assembling segments of shot footage to create a cohesive story. Since its inception, video editing has transformed itself tremendously from a series of transition from kinetograph device (better as 'cutting and sticking ') used in early stage of editing to art of manipulating the viewers emotionally with the Kuleshov effect. Later came Non-linear video editing that could locate a frame within seconds and go back to the edit to change. Through this technical development, filmmakers have always understood video editing as a technical stream rather than the creative. In this research paper, the researcher tries to explore the technicality of video editing skills used in filmmaking since its inception. The paper also explores the extent to which the creative side of the video editing has been studied and understood.

Embedding impact in collaborative filmmaking processes: a case study

ABSTRACT Working with two community partners, Barnet Mencap and Why me? (a restorative justice provider), we were invited, with our students from the BA Film programme at Middlesex University, to participate in a knowledge exchange project. The aim of this project was to make the processes of restorative justice more accessible to individuals with learning disabilities and/or autism. We produced and delivered four short educational/campaign films, which are now available online, 1 including on our partners’ websites. While the anticipated impact of the films was clearly defined, positioned from the outset of the project and will be monitored over time, we wish to shift our focus in this article away from the outcomes and explore the notion of impact in relation to the process of making these films. We worked collaboratively with our students, challenging hierarchical assumptions both in an educational setting and in the context of a filmmaking crew. Most importantly, the collaboration also entailed working with a group of neurodivergent actors, who contributed, apart from their acting, through improvisation and interventions to the script. In this context, our project provides for an insightful framework for thinking about impact in relation to a more accessible and inclusive filmmaking process.

A Conversation with Nora de Izcue: Runan Caycu, New Latin American Cinema, and the Peruvian Documentary Tradition

ABSTRACTThis dialogue features the Peruvian filmmaker Nora de Izcue, paying particular attention to her early documentary Runan Caycu, the impact it had on her own trajectory as a director, and the role it played in connecting her with the New Latin American Cinema movement. De Izcue has not only contributed to the Peruvian documentary tradition through her groundbreaking films and filmmaking process, but has also been instrumental in promoting social justice filmmaking throughout Latin America. This article expands international awareness of De Izcue's work, opening new pathways for engagement and analysis.

Knowing everything: Interview with Maura Delpero

In this interview, Italian filmmaker Maura Delpero reflects on her career and the filmmaking process for the fiction film Hogar (Maternal) () about teenage motherhood in a Buenos Aires religious centre, as well as on her three documentaries: Moglie e buoi dei paesi tuoi (‘Choose your wife and oxen from your own town’) () about couples from different cultural backgrounds in South Tyrol, Italy; Signori professori (‘Professors’) () about the Italian school system and Nadea e Sveta (‘Nadea and Sveta’) () about female eastern European immigrants in Italy. Delpero discusses the differences and similarities between her non-fiction and fiction films, exploring topics such as the preparatory work, the storyboard, the timeframe, the locations, working with professional and non-professional actors, film techniques and production issues.

How does a film remember? Cinematic memory as a living constellation in El escarabajo de oro o Victorias Hämnd

ABSTRACT The film El escarabajo de oro o Victorias Hämnd (2014), directed by the Argentinean-Swedish duo Alejo Moguillansky and Fia-Stina Sandlund, presents clashing storylines, histories, merged film genres and conflicting aspirations within a transnational film production set in Argentina. It stages a performance founded on real circumstances, where two filmmakers (Moguillansky and Sandlund) begin working on a biopic based on the life of Victoria Benedictsson, a 19th-century Swedish feminist writer, but then, partly in secrecy, the main character changes to her contemporary, Leandro N. Alem, an Argentinean revolutionary politician, while all gets tangled up in a fictional story of a treasure hunt. The film crosses boundaries between documentary and fiction with its maze of rogues, tricksters, and unreliable narrators, opening up stories within stories. In the performance of the documentary filmmaking process, there is a constant struggle over memory: whose (hi)story gets to be told and from what angle. In this article, cinematic memory in El escarabajo de oro o Victorias Hämnd is delineated through the performative gestures of reenactment and voice-over narration as aesthetic strategies that promote a non-linear, multidirectional perception of remembering. I suggest that the film offers an alternative way to approach cinematic memory, not attaching the act of remembering to an individual, a group or a nation, but to the film form itself. The film engenders cinematic memory as a living constellation, where diverse historical temporalities exist simultaneously and interact freely. In the film, cinematic memory is constantly being created and recreated in the here and now.

The Art of Sim-Making: What to Learn from Film-Making.

The components of each stage have similarities as well as differences, which make each unique in its own right. As the film-making and the movie industry may have much we can learn from, some of these will be covered under the different sections of the paper, for example, “Writing Powerful Narratives,” depiction of emotional elements, specific industry-driven developments as well as the “cultural considerations” in both.For medical simulation and simulation-based education, the corresponding stages are as follows: DevelopmentPreproductionProductionPostproduction andDistribution. The art of sim-making has many similarities to that of film-making. In fact, there is potentially much to be learnt from the film-making process in cinematography and storytelling. Both film-making and sim-making can be seen from the artistic perspective as starting with a large piece of blank, white sheet of paper, which will need to be colored by the “artists” and personnel involved; in the former, to come up with the film and for the latter, to engage learners and ensure learning takes place, which is then translated into action for patients in the actual clinical care areas. Both entities have to go through a series of systematic stages.For film-making, the stages are as follows: Identification of problems and needs analysisSetting objectives, based on educational strategiesImplementation of the simulation activityDebriefing and evaluation, as well asFine-tuning for future use and archiving of scenarios/cases.

Feminist Ironic Montage to Dismantle Gender Essentialism

Feminist Ironic Montage to Dismantle Gender Essentialism Isabel Seguí (bio) and Marina Cavalcanti Tedesco (bio) Comparing Woman's World (María Luisa Bemberg, AR, 1972) and Miss Universe in Peru (Chaski Group, PE, 1982)1 One day, out of the blue, Marina proposed to Isabel to write something together about two Latin American feminist documentaries, Woman's World (Original title: El mundo de la mujer, 15') and Miss Universe in Peru (Original title: Miss Universo en el Perú, 39'). Marina thought both works share epochal (thematic, political, and formal) similarities. Isabel felt the same to such a degree that, serendipitously, not long before receiving Marina's proposal, she had asked Alejandro Legaspi if he was influenced by Woman's World when he edited Miss Universe in Peru. Isabel thought that Legaspi could have had the chance of watching the short documentary in Montevideo or Buenos Aires before fleeing to Peru due to the dictatorship in Uruguay. The answer was no. Legaspi had never heard of Women's World before. Notwithstanding, we decided that a collaborative comparison of both films was worthwhile. After agreeing with the editors of Framework, we started working on it. As for the similarities, both documentaries question the dualism imposed from a patriarchal gender structure in which women are assigned particular roles and obligations. Woman's World is an early María Luisa Bemberg film. She will go on to become the foremost female filmmaker in Argentina. This work, her opera prima as a director, responds straightforwardly to a feminist agenda. It was shot entirely at the Femimundo '72 trade fair, a commercial event focused on women as a fast-growing market, held in Buenos Aires in 1972. The small crew led by Bemberg captured footage in the exhibition halls. Once in [End Page 62] the editing room, she created a vivid, humorous montage to reflect on the construction of a feminine identity based on traditional values of submission and service, and how capitalism has exacerbated this millenary oppression to take economic advantage of it. Emphasis is placed on the theme of the tyranny of beauty. For women forced to be the object of male desire, the beauty industry offers, in exchange for money, all kinds of devices that will make them more palatable: clothing, cosmetics, hairdressing, gymnastic equipment, and so on. The (self) objectification of women is a gold mine. And two birds are killed with one stone: social control and economic gain. Coincidentally, Miss Universe in Peru is the first film of the Peruvian group Chaski, a film collective that follows the Third Cinema tradition.2 The documentary is constructed around the opposition between two events celebrated in Lima in July 1982: the Miss Universe contest and the VI Congress of the Peruvian Confederation of Peasants. The television business that is the contest for the election of the most beautiful woman in the world imposes a global beauty canon, in addition to being a very lucrative enterprise. But Miss Universe in Peru not only denounces and ridicules the American contest, it puts forward a sour criticism of the matrix of domination and its propaganda tools, but also allows us to witness the political practice of organized women who resist the Western heteropatriarchal and capitalist mandate. In addition, the women represented in Miss Universe in Peru belong to all social classes, with the special participation of indigenous women, who, with a defiant gaze, challenge the manipulation attempted by corporate patriarchy. This is a significant difference vis-à-vis Woman's World, where we mostly see white middle-class women on screen. Following a closer analysis, we realized that many other aspects of the film-making processes and the enunciative voice bear remarkable differences. María Luisa Bemberg, born in 1922, was from a very privileged background.3 She did not access formal education, and, like the women of her class, she was mostly prepared for marriage. However, her knowledge of foreign languages and the possibilities of travelling abroad granted her access to the feminist discussions that were taking place in the 1960s. She was an avid reader of French, Italian, and American feminist theory. Leonor Calvera (in Rodríguez and Ciriza) highlights that Bemberg and Gabriela Christeller...

Рroduction and distribution of author's cinema in Ukraine as a state problem. Part 1. Film рroduction and problems of state administration of film industry

The purpose of the article is to identify the problems of film production and distribution in Ukraine and to identify scientific guidelines that contribute to a comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of Ukrainian authors’ cinema in the intercultural space. Research methodology. Methods of scientific analysis, comparison, generalization were used in the development of the topic. In addition, analytical and systematic methods were used in their unity, which is necessary to study the art aspect of the problem. The scientific novelty of the study is that the problem of author's film production and distribution in Ukraine in the context of the functioning of state support programs first appeared as the subject of a special study; the content of the concept of "film production" as certain specific integrity and unity of interconnected elements is argued; the works of Ukrainian film directors-authors, whose films were created with state support, are singled out and characterized; the expediency of using the system method in studying the peculiarities of the film-making process in Ukraine is proved; a comprehensive analysis was carried out and the features of author's film production in Ukraine and abroad were identified. Conclusions. Acquaintance with the materials presented in the article expands the arsenal of knowledge about the specifics of the author's film production and distribution in Ukraine and makes their use in training courses on the theory and history of cinema and directing.
 Keywords: Ukrainian cinema, film production, distribution, state support, director-authors.

PETITION AS INDONESIAN FILM’S ROBBER: Theodor Adorno’s Perspective on Majority-Leaning Group’s Criticisms

Filmmakers have felt the impact of numerous films that have been petitioned or rejected by groups acting in the majority’s interests. The groups carry religious issues and view films as a new force capable of undermining the values (dogma) they believe. The views were infiltrated by efforts to homogenize discourses for a particular purpose rather than pure objectivity, resulting in petitions opposing certain films. In this regard, Adorno’s perspective on the revolutionary objective basis leads to the eradication of critical thinking against individuals associated with capitalism. The term “capitalists” refer to persons who control the Indonesian film industry. The underlying phenomena of this research are alienation and oppression, and the research sources are film industry actors who are directly affected by the phenomena above. Using Bogdan’s and Taylor’s qualitative approach in Moleong (2018), this study reveals that capitalists attempt to paralyze the joints of critical thinking to steer Indonesian films toward uniform themes, namely religious ones, that are “safe” from mass organizations’ petitions and rejections. These efforts mark the end of critical thinking and ideas in the creative filmmaking process.

Movie Genre Classification from RGB Movie Poster Image Using Deep Feed-forward Network

A movie poster image is one of the important media in the filmmaking process, providing valuable information about the movie, such as movie titles, characters, and genres. Identifying a movie genre from a poster can be a daunting task, as it can relate to multiple genres. To solve this problem, this paper uses a deep feedforward neural network to classify movie genres from movie poster images. In this regard, we used and trained a state-of-the-art InceptionV3 deep neural network. The network is trained on our dataset consisting of 36,423 movie poster images taken from the IMDB website, which is categorized into 28 genres. The model predicts the top three classes with the highest probability of a particular movie poster.

Film producer: European cultural context

The purpose of the article is to identify the specifics of the development of the producer's activity in cinema in the context of the European cultural space and to outline the vectors of mutual influence of the producer's activity in the countries of the Eurospace and Ukraine. Methodology. In elaborating the topic, the historical method was used to identify the peculiarities of the origin and development of the profession of film producer under the influence of socio-cultural, economic, political factors, in particular, in Ukraine; analytical method and methods of scientific analysis, comparison, generalization, which came in handy in the process of establishing artistic, production, organizational, managerial, financial and economic features of the film producer in the European cultural space. For the sake of art history and culturological aspects of studying the problem, methods of systematization and analysis were used. The scientific novelty of the study is that the origin of the profession of producer in cinema is considered in the context of both European and Ukrainian cultural space, and has become the subject of a special multi-vector study; the content of the concepts of "film producer", "production system" as specific unique integrity and unity of interconnected elements is argued and clarified; the expediency of using the comparative method to study and manifest the peculiarities of production in the filmmaking process of European and domestic cultural space is proved. Conclusions. Acquaintance with the materials of this study enriches the arsenal of knowledge about the origins of the film producer in the culture of film production in European countries and Ukraine and provides a scientific basis for their use in courses on theory and history of culture, including filmmaking, production and directing.

The Non-Existent Documentary Nor Fiction

The status of reality in cinema has been questioned since the invention of the movie camera. Reality, facts, and staging, among other issues, are aspects that have to be addressed in the filmmaking process and categorization of a film. This paper analyses the divergence of reality and cinematic representation in documentary filmmaking, a so-called non-fictional practice intended to document reality. In this filmmaking process, the artist is looking to create a specific narrative around the topics addressed in the film. As Maya Deren states,
 (...) reality is first filtered by the selectivity of individual interests and modified by prejudicial perception to become experience; as such it is combined with similar, contrasting or modifying experiences, both forgotten and remembered, to become assimilated into a conceptual image; this in turn is subject to the manipulations of the art instrument; and what finally emerges is a plastic image which is a reality in its own right.
 The manipulation of the political and the treatment of reality in cinema is the undeniable freedom of the artist. Aesthetic composition can either show or deny facts and shape the storytelling in any direction. In a time where digital manipulation of the cinematic work increasingly subverts what is commonly understood as a representation of reality, the ethical aspect of filmmaking and the critical agency of the audience become all the more important. This paper proposes a move away from the categorization of films into genres and advances the urgency of finding innovative ways of thinking and experiencing cinematic works.

Hidden persuaders on film: Exploring young people’s lived experience through visual essays

The Hidden Persuaders research group examines ‘brainwashing’ in the Cold War for the roles, real and imagined, played by psychologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts. Our project engaged young people in an exploration of the history of fears about brainwashing, and enabled them to explore their thoughts and ideas about the forces that shape their lives in contemporary society, through film-making. Working with three schools in the Camden area of London, our partners at the Derek Jarman Lab media hub, Birkbeck, University of London, and an artist facilitator (Lizzie Burns), we invited Year 12 students to learn filming and editing to create their own short video essays. The use of this format resulted in a significant depth of engagement and generated a wealth of creative responses. The various stages of the film-making process enabled the students to work out the terms of an argument and to consider how best to express it concisely. In the resulting films, they came up with a variety of forms of visual storytelling, and used the medium to express their thoughts, feelings and ideas in diverse ways, giving us a range of new perspectives which we could consider in relation to our historical research.

Activity of a film producer within the cultural space of Ukraine

The purpose of the article is to identify problems in the development of production in Ukraine and outline ways to overcome them. Methodology. In elaborating the topic, the historical method was used to identify the peculiarities of the origin and development of the profession of film producer, in particular, in Ukraine; analytical method and methods of scientific analysis, comparison, generalization, which came in handy in the process of establishing the creative, production and economic and legal features of the film producer in the cultural space of Ukraine. Methods of systematization and analysis were used for art and cultural aspects of studying the problem. The scientific novelty of the study is that the problem of functioning and motivation of the producer in the context of the cultural space of Ukraine is the subject of a special comprehensive study; the content of the concept of "film producer" as certain specific integrity and unity of interconnected elements is argued and clarified; the expediency of using the comparative method for the study and manifestation of the peculiarities of production activity in the film-making process of the domestic cultural space is proved. Conclusions. Acquaintance with the materials of this study enriches the arsenal of knowledge about the specifics of the producer's activity in the culture of film production in Ukraine and forms the scientific basis for their use in courses on theory and history of culture, including cinema, production, and directing.