In 2006, I began working collaboratively with People First members to use video as a means of telling experience-based stories. Although, I found little information that would help prepare me to work collaboratively with people who have been labeled with an intellectual disability. I was acquainted with participatory approaches to making video and with inclusive research methods with people with learning disabilities. After working for over two years and facing a variety of hurdles and barriers, The Freedom Tour documentary was released in DVD in 2008, and a year later, short video stories were published on the Internet as part of the Label Free Zone web-based project. After having worked intensely and with great urgency to “get these stories out,” I felt the need to pause. To reflect upon my experiences and to ask questions about the work I was doing, I chose to write stories adopting an auto-ethnographic approach. Experimenting with auto-ethnography as a method of inquiry and storytelling as a form of representation, gave me the opportunity to experience a process I had encouraged so many others to do: telling experience-based stories. I hope this study will increase our knowledge and understanding of collaborative video storytelling projects involving people who have been labelled. I also hope that by delving into and speaking from my experiences as filmmaker/facilitator, sibling and now auto-ethnographer I have contributed, if ever so slightly, to shifting our thinking about intellectual disability from a deficit perspective to an assumption of competence.

"...we, directors and actors, put into practice the practice - we don't practice the theory. I think that if there is no theory of acting, at least there are theoretical laws that we may find, curiously enough, in all traditions of acting. It is true that the term "theory of acting" does not seem fundamentally wrong, but it seems always somewhat imperialistic and pretentious. I prefer to use fundamental laws which we sometimes know but then sometimes lose and forget. It is only practice that all of a sudden can make law or tradition rise to the surface. I will not say then that there is no theory of acting; on the contrary, there have been many of them. Of course, what interests me in these multiple theories are the essential laws that are common to all of them." - Ariane Mnouchkine (from "Building Up the Muscle" in Re:direction edited by R. Schneider and G. Cody, Routledge, London, 2002.) I come to filmmaking from an actor's perspective and believe that the power of each individual performance is the key to audience engagement with a feature film. The technical aspects of filmmaking, for me, exist primarily to serve the story as revealed through the actors' performances. Because performance in film has been a neglected area of research, I set out to explore the different approaches to performance theory which might apply to film performance in an Australian context. In this dissertation, I have asked a number of key questions about how the director communicates with the actor to elicit the desired performance. I framed this thesis around one overarching question: What is the dominant approach used by Australian film directors when working with actors on performance? This study reveals that many Australian filmmakers have been most influenced by a wide variety of approaches to working with actors, particularly because of the way actors are trained in Australia. My interest in this project was partially triggered by my observation that many filmmaking students at QUT seem driven by the technical aspects of filmmaking. Given the complex demands made on actors, filmmakers who do not learn to speak the actor's language arguably fail to capitalize on their working relationships with actors. I have attempted to express my findings in plain English because the whole purpose of this project was to ensure that my findings would be of use to new filmmakers in a practical sense.

Women exert only a modicum of production power in 21st century cinema despite its growing accessibility and spectatorship through the developing technologies of the digital era. In 2007, of the top 250 grossing films in Hollywood, only 10% were written, and 6% directed, by women, and just 16% contained leading female protagonists. Why, after the gains of the film feminist movement, is there such a significant gender imbalance in mainstream film, and an imbalance that is only increasing over time? More significantly, what are the possibilities and limitations for reel woman’s subjectivity and agency, in and on screen, in this male-dominated landscape? As a female filmmaker in this current climate I conduct an autoethnographical scriptwriting-based investigation into female subjectivity and agency, by writing the feature length screenplay Float, which is both the dramatic experiment and the creative outcome of this research. The exegesis works symbiotically with my scriptwriting journey by outlining the broader contexts surrounding women filmmakers and their female representations. In this self-reflexive examination, I use an interdisciplinary methodology to unravel the overt and latent sites of resistance for reel woman today on three interdependent levels. These comprise the historical, political and philosophical background to woman’s treatment both behind, and in front of, the camera; my lived experiences as an emerging writer/director as I write Float; and my representation of the screenplay’s central female character. I use the multiple logic of screenplay diegesis to explore the issues that have a bearing on women’s ability to be active agents in the world they inhabit, including: the dichotomising of female desire, the influence of familial history, the repression of the mother, the dominance of the male gaze, the disavowal of female specificity, and women’s consequent dislocation from their self-determined desire. These obstacles are simultaneously negotiated as I map my process of writing Float and deal with the challenging contexts in which the screenplay was created. In the course of my scriptwriting investigation, film feminist and French poststructuralist paradigms are considered and negotiated as I experiment whether it is possible for female filmmakers, and their female characters, to overcome the seemingly insurmountable odds facing women’s actualisation today. My research brings to light the critical need for more inclusive modes of practice across the film industry, discourse and pedagogy that are cognisant and respectful of reel women’s difference, and allow them to explore their own specificity. The thesis argues that it would be advantageous for female filmmakers to challenge their ‘fixed’ status in phallocentric discourse, and to deconstruct their patriarchal conditioning through engagement with forms of identity and writing resistance that recognise the fluidity of their subjectivity, and the consequent potential for change. I also highlight the importance of an accessible and affirmative feminist cinema pertinent to the 21st century, to integrate feminist ideals into the mainstream, and finally bring reel woman out of the margins.

Migration has become a topical theme both in academia and in public discourses across the media which have contributed to create a highly political and visual 'migrant subject'. However, the highly mediatized figure of the migrant has left crucial aspects of migration underrepresented and unrecognised. What is normally concealed and left to the margins of public debate is the individual experience of the protagonists, their imaginative lifeworlds and the complexity of their stories. This practice-based research has centred its inquiry on the relationship between the lived experiences and the imagination of past, present and future existential possibilities, by engaging three Egyptian migrants through the creative processes of theatre improvisations, storytelling practices, participatory photography, collaborative filmmaking and animation. It recognizes the fundamental role that imagination and future existential possibilities play in people’s perceptions of reality, in their decisions and actions, and finally in the way they narrate their experiences. In order to better understand how individuals make their choices, interact with each other, understand themselves and the world around them, I have argued that we need to take into account their biographies and imaginative inner lives as the ways people retell their stories allow space for contradiction, feelings of ambivalence and uncertainty, unlaced and unfinished thoughts and existential dilemmas. Imaginative realms of existence are ever-changing and ungraspable, posing a challenge to conventional methodologies in the social sciences which rely heavily on observation, interviews and text. The thesis is divided into two parts. By using the ethnographic material that emerged during fieldwork and from the creative processes, in the first part I look at the role imagination and the future play in Ali’s, Mohamed’s and Mahmoud’s relationships to their origins, and to their decisions and experiences of illegally crossing the Mediterranean Sea in order to reach Milan (Italy). The second part describes and reflects upon the performative and audio-visual collaborative practices that involved my participants in producing their own narrations and theoretical reflections on their experiences, aspirations and memories. It is thanks to the ‘subjunctive possibilities’ enabled by performative improvisations, creative storytelling and the animation that my participants and I could explore their mnemonic and imaginative processes. Finally, the thesis concludes by arguing for social research to engage participants in more collaborative and creative practices in the study of migration, as a necessary way of involving the protagonists in producing the questions and counter-narratives that reclaim their acts of struggle and their creative imaginative abilities to contrast objectifying political discourses and exclusionary legal and bureaucratic procedures.

abstract: In this study, the researcher develops a documentary-driven methodology to understand the ways four women in the United States use their involvement in the belly dance phenomenon to shape their ongoing individual identity development. The filmmaking process itself and its efficacy as a process to promote self-understanding and identity growth among the participating belly dancers, are also investigated phenomenologically. Methodological steps taken in the documentary-driven methodology include: initial filmed interviews, co-produced filmed dance performances, editorial interviews to review footage with each dancer, documentary film production, dancer-led focus groups to screen the film, and exit interviews with each dancer. The project generates new understandings about the ways women use belly dance to shape their individual identities to include: finding community with other women in private women's spaces, embodying the music through the dance movements, and finding liberation from their everyday "selves" through costume and performance. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Anthropology 2012

La thèse porte sur le cinéma d’amateur et, plus particulièrement, sur la pratique des home movies en France, à savoir la réalisation et la réception en famille de films d’amateur. En étudiant la période qui s’étend de 1960 à aujourd’hui, nous nous sommes intéressés à la manière dont la pratique a évolué à la fois sur le plan technique et technologique, grâce à l’introduction de trois formats (le Super 8, le VHS et le numérique), et sur le plan social et culturel, à travers la prise en compte de différents types de modèles familiaux (de la famille nucléaire aux familles recomposées en passant par les familles adoptantes). À partir de ces observations, nous avons élaboré une esthétique des home movies entendue comme esthétique du lien. Cette étude croise deux approches : d’une part, la sémio-pragmatique avec la notion d’espace de communication élaborée par Roger Odin et, d’autre part, l’interactionnisme inspiré des travaux d’Erving Goffman. Ainsi, nous avons construit deux espaces de communication afin de systématiser les interactions, les discours, les relations énonciatives et les affects qui se développent respectivement durant le filmage et le visionnage. Nous avons également introduit deux modes principaux censés structurer les processus de production de sens qui seraient à l’œuvre dans les deux étapes de la pratique et nous les avons appelés respectivement mode ludique (le filmage serait donc mené comme un jeu) et mode taxonomique (le visionnage s’apparenterait à une opération de classement). Pour cela, nous nous sommes également appuyés sur des entretiens avec les membres de six familles françaises ayant réalisé ou réalisant encore des home movies. Nous avons formulé l’hypothèse que la pratique des home movies permettrait aux individus impliqués dans la production et/ou dans la réception de ces films de prendre conscience des dynamiques familiales et de leur rôle au sein du groupe. Nous avons nommé méta-famille le potentiel autoréflexif de la pratique des home movies. / My research concerns the evolution in France of home movie filming from the 1960s (Super 8 films) to the present (digital films) and the changes that have affected the family unit during this period. It brings together a theoretical dimension, the symbolic implications of the practice, and an empirical one, the findings emerging from an exploratory case study of six French families shooting home movies. Based on the psychological, social and cultural study of these families, the multidisciplinary approach of this piece, combined with a qualitative methodology (in the form of several in-depth interviews with the members of those families), is meant to explore how family images and conversations help individuals to think about themselves and their roles within their groups. I conceived my field survey as a form of role-play in which the subjects were supposed to show me their home movies and talk about them: I interviewed family members separately (for instance, the parents together and then their children) about the same home movies in order to find out how people give several interpretations of the same representation of a family event. I will argue that the making of home movies contributes to a family’s sense of self-awareness by introducing a concept that I have named the meta-family. Thanks to the interactions in shooting home movies and the different types of verbalisation, the family is allowed to think about itself. The meta-family is not the real family, shooting or watching images, but represents the conscious and unconscious workings of the family members produced with, and through, the images. The evolution of the technical age and technologies in the practice of home movies has followed, recorded and sometimes predicted those conscious and unconscious changes within the family unit.

This thesis focus on ethical issues within documentary filmmaking in the largest broadcasting institution in Denmark. It is a case study of the documentary serial Generation Hollywood, produced by Danmarks Radio (DR) in 2016. DR has produced many documentaries, using same style and format as in Generation Hollywood. But something is different with this one, and the thesis aims to find out why this one stands out, from the presumption that ethical issues are involved. It examines the participants’ motives and expectations, DR’s intentions and how ethical issues affected the final product. In the attempt to understand the complexity of ethics, a small sample of interviews are conducted and analyzed and presented together with a partial content analysis. The notions of truth, authenticity, and representation are applied as the theoretical framework to understand: not merely ethical procedures, but underlying feelings possessed by the participants.The thesis brings to light that ethical issues are not only embedded in already established procedures but also caused by unforeseen circumstances and participants’ motives in relation to the project. The research shows how ethical issues affect the final representation, especially concerning authenticity. It also shows how a discrepancy between intentions and expectations, and the understanding of truth (in its start-up phase) impacts the process. Furthermore, it concludes that entertainment demands and modern technology can affect how filmmakers treat people when representing them and it explains how the line between the modern ‘everyday life’ documentary and Reality TV is seemingly blurred.

Tanya Silverman CECS 2018 Abstract The Czechoslovak New Wave film movement saw directors such as Jiří Menzel, Věra Chytilová, Miloš Forman and Ivan Passer capture the liberalized mood of the 1960s. After the momentous cultural era ended in the aftermath of the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion, all four figures continued their directorial careers, albeit either by overcoming bans or emigrating to the United States. This thesis aims to put forth a unique methodology of examining how these four auteurs' filmic outputs demonstrated their interactions with social environments from the 1970s to 2006. The research process included systematically surveying films for cues and corroborating observations with interview media or memoir texts. The analytical structure focuses on three significant tropes: car culture, money as power and censorship. Descriptions include particular findings pertaining to all four directors as well as synthesis for the contexts of both locations. The research suggests that Jiří Menzel and Miloš Forman exhibited the most reverence towards Czech and American culture, respectively, while Věra Chytilová and Ivan Passer demonstrated a number of similar societal criticisms throughout their filmographies. This thesis hopes to serve as a model for understanding post-New Wave films by Czech directors that...

This exposition provides the insight of indeterminacy during improvisation, as well as the reflection process of how I converted my problems-solving skills to planned improvisation during the adverse filming condition of my graduation feature film production. I define Improvisation as a way to be adaptive and flexible in uncertainty, while problem- solving as a solution to overcome the obstacles faced. I started from an ambitious goal by making a feature length hybrid film for my graduation showcase in my two years of master study. Facing problems like lack of money, insufficient network to find talents and limited time to acquire local knowledge of the working styles in the country, I met a lot of challenges. When I solved the problems one by one within this filmmaking process, I gradually realized I relied quite a lot on improvisation. It does not only apply on the set when I worked with the actors, but also on scriptwriting, crew recruiting, locations scouting, shots creation, etc. The turning point for me to change from coincidental (unplanned) improvisation (because it is needed with problem solving) to deliberate (planned) improvisation started from my second half of principal photography (or simply called production/filming) stage because more uncertainty emerged and I started to get used to such style. At the end, I made two versions of the films with different levels of improvisational practice. I will reflect my whole filmmaking process and its connection with improvisation from my film products.

In this thesis, I will examine how I worked artistically with perspectives and subjective truths in my two short films, What I Wanted to Say and TIPS. Both films are exploring the use of first-person perspective in different ways to allow the audience to experience two different opinions of the story. This exploration is the main part of my artistic research. Through my work with perspectives, I have also added the dual perspective of working as an actor-director on both films and how that method evolved through this process. This method will also be explored as a part of this thesis. In working with perspectives, I have studied when to focus on what role, both when it comes to what character’s perspective should be in focus on the screen at what time, and when to focus on what part of the actor-director role. Searching for this balance will be the focus of my artistic research, as well as looking into the possibility of allowing both roles the focus at the same time. The first film I made, What I Wanted to Say, is a love letter to a broken relationship, a short drama that explores the difficulties of ending a relationship. For this film, I used the same visuals twice but changed the voiceovers so that the visuals of the couple being in love and then fighting with each other would be influenced by each character’s subjective thoughts. The voiceovers take the audience on a reflective journey through their thoughts as Lisa leaves her lover, Oliver at the end of the film. The second film, TIPS, is a story about the newly hired bartender, Sarah, and a group of guys celebrating their friend’s birthday. Here, I worked on changing the perspectives visually through closeups and point-of-view shots, as Sarah builds up the courage to flirt for tips. This act is misinterpreted by the guys who decide to follow her home after work in pursuit of her phone number. We move back and forth between the perspective of Sarah, who learns to stand up for herself, and the self-proclaimed leader of the friend group, Pete, who learns to apologize in the end. I will be starting my thesis with an introduction to my work on the films and the artistic research. Then, I will bring up theories from my acting background to explain why I started working with perspectives and how I work with acting, before exploring the method of working as an actor-director and how I worked with that during the two film productions. The exploration of perspectives came about as a response to the seemingly growing number of echo chambers, which I will be explaining more in-depth through the research part of this thesis. Here, I will study the structure of echo chambers and look at the possibility of having narrative films counteract them. Moving over to the discussion part I will go more in-depth on how I worked with the perspectives, both when writing the script and when acting-directing. I will also look at how I worked with and developed my method of acting-directing, before concluding the thesis with a summary and how I plan to continue my work on perspectives.