Untold Stories | Week 8 Blog 

Why are collaborative and collective documentaries necessary? 

According to the reading, “collaborative documentaries engage not only communities but collaborative teams, displacing the role of the auteur”, this allows people with different background, skills and life experiences come together and work as a team. I think it’s pretty important because having different skilled and experienced group members can contribute their own skills and give advice to the final project, which will definitely better than you work in your own direction. Differently, in Auteurist production, usually the filmmaker takes control of the documentary project, there is less possibility of trying a different angle and ways of presenting the documentary, thus, there are more restrictions. The reading also mentioned that collaborative documentaries have been marginalized in programming and exhibition, it is been showed that in the exhibition we usually only see the work of a single artist with a personal touch. This might because a single individual could maintain the focus of art pieces. However, through the term work experience at RMIT University, I think collaborative is necessary for media production. It is important to get everyone to involve in the project, to communicate and make a contribution. Collaborative can help to expend more ideas, help yourself develop technical skills from learning from each other and make the final project more perfect. Therefore, Collaborative is necessary for the project process.

Thank you very much!