Introduction

Creative practice research that is lens based has become more widespread in universities in the UK over the last 20 years. While music, drama and fine art have had a practice research presence for many decades, it has taken concerted efforts by practitioners to convince the academic world that lens-based creative practice can and does allow research insights that might otherwise be hidden. Early examples of such successful initiatives include the Practice as Research in Performance project (PARIP) at Bristol University and the Audio Visual PhD (AVPhD) network based at Goldsmiths, University of London. Publications that consistently supported this acceptance included the Journal of Media Practice, now incorporating Education into its remit. The online peer-review platform for practice research in screen media, Screenworks, was first established in 2006 at the University of the West of England. We have reached the stage where Fitzgerald and Lowe can state, ‘While documentary filmmaking has traditionally been viewed as a creative practice, it has been transitioning into the academic world as a way to undertake and engage with research practices’.

One, but not the only, advantage that film-making has as a research methodology and output over text-based approaches is its more visceral nature, which allows the senses, audio and visual, to engage independently and together so that participants and audiences can engage with both the verbal and the non-verbal signs available, such as hesitancy, voice alterations, body movements, background contexts and atmospheric sounds. And, of course, editing strategies of compare and contrast can create new meanings. This book begins with the premise that documentary filming can be a method of addressing challenges we face in society. Michael Jackson argues, ‘Stories are redemptive not because they preserve or represent the truth but because they offer the perennial possibility that one sees oneself and discovers oneself through another, despite the barriers of space, time and difference’.

Participatory Practices

While using a creative practice foundation, clearly there are older precedents in documentary film-making that involve close collaboration with participants, for example, Jean Rouch tended to screen his films to the participants during the post-production stage to get their input in order to enhance the film’s authority.