Susan Kerrigan

Accommodating creative documentary practice within a revised systems model of creativity

ABSTRACT Practice-led research using person-centred theories of creativity is being challenged by confluence approaches to creativity. ‘The systems model of creativity’ (Csikszentmihalyi 1999: 315) represents one confluence theory, which re-conceptualizes creativity by immersing the agent in a cultural and social system that enables and constrains creative practice. Using the systems model as a theoretical foundation, this research examines my creative documentary practice during the production of an oral history documentary. Using Fort Scratchley, a linear 53-minute documentary, and an online multimedia companion, Fort Scratchley a Living History (www.fortscratchley.org), both detail the military and maritime history of Fort Scratchley, at Newcastle, Australia. Critical reflections on my embodiment and immersion in the content of the domains and fields of Fort Scratchley and documentary practice confirm the appropriateness of the systems model for creative practice research. However, an updated version of the model was generated to provide a more effective representation of how a practitioner internalizes their creative system.

The ‘creative treatment of actuality’: Rationalizing and reconceptualizing the notion of creativity for documentary practice

ABSTRACT Grierson defined documentary as ‘the creative treatment of actuality’. The aim of this article is to add to existing discussions of this phrase. Attention will be given to documentary as art, and the Griersonian notion of ‘artist’. An examination of the relationship between art, creativity and documentary production and consumption will rationalize and reconceptualize creativity for documentary practice. This reconceptualization of documentary creativity will result from three theoretical perspectives. First, the systems model of creativity presents a holistic view of the creative documentary system at work. Next, the staged creative process theories will be paralleled to the documentary production process. The final theory presents group creativity which accounts for collaborative documentary work. In concluding, a brief discussion on the appropriateness of creativity theories for documentary practice will be presented.

Screen production enquiry: A study of five Australian doctorates

Within Australian universities, doctoral research in screen production is growing significantly. Two recent studies have documented both the scale of this research and inconsistencies in the requirements of the degree. These institutional variations, combined with a lack of clarity around appropriate methodologies for academic research through film and television practice, create challenges for students, supervisors, examiners and the overall development of the discipline. This paper will examine five recent doctorates in screen production practice at five different Australian universities. It will look at the nature of the films made, the research questions the candidates were investigating, the new knowledge claims that were produced and the subsequent impact of the research. The various methodologies used will be given particular attention because they help define the nature of the research where film production is a primary research method.

Re-conceptualising screenwriting for the academy: the social, cultural and creative practice of developing a screenplay

ABSTRACT In the last decade screenwriting as a profession has changed significantly, with the writing of a screen idea no longer a singular individual pursuit. Screenwriting has become a truly collaborative practice, and even though the screenplay is considered by some as being ‘authorless’ or a ‘signpost not a destination’ , it is also an activity that inherently recognises writers as the creators of novel and original content. This re-examination of screenwriting situates the practice inside the academy as a place where future practitioners can understand the industry they aspire to work in, and the contexts within which it operates. To this end, the screenwriter steeped in the traditions of creative writing can become more creatively responsive to the industrial and economic factors driving the processes of screen production. By re-conceptualising the screenwriter as a creative and conditioned agent who plays a specific part in the realities of the contemporary screen industry, we can better prepare students for professional practice scenarios that will enable them to make creative contributions that shape and change the industry.

Reconceptualizing Creative Documentary Practices

The systems perspective ‘views creativity not as the product of an isolated individual’s aptitude or quirkiness, but as an interaction occurring among a talented individual, a domain of knowledge or practice, and a field of experts’ (Hooke et al. in Paulus and Nijstad 2003, p. 228) who recognize the work as creative.

Student Film Collaboration: The East-West Dilemma

Abstract This paper outlines the results of a study examining student collaborative practice in screen production courses in Singapore and Australia. Of particular interest, is how the Australian curriculum, originally designed for graduates of a Western liberal higher education system, would translate to a culturally diverse group of students in Asia. The study was informed by the hypothesis that students in Asia would adopt an Eastern collective collaborative style and students in Australia would adopt a Western individualistic collaborative style. The survey was based on a US film-making questionnaire, which used Bilbys Wheelbook, a tool for assessing screen production personality types. The survey results demonstrated strong similarities in the collaboration styles of the two cohorts, revealing that a majority of students from both Australia and Singapore display traits of individualism, but acknowledging the importance of collaborative skills. The similarities suggest that globalization has had a significant impact on film-making practices, and that future curriculum planning should more clearly articulate these collaborative practices helping students to manage deadlines, resolve conflicts and sustain team dynamics.

Still a burning issue: measuring screen production research

ABSTRACT Valuing the production of screen works as research in the academy has become an urgent matter of research and scholarly equity facing the Australian screen production sector. Made up of filmmaker-academics this sector is collectively speaking out about a number of burning issues as evidenced in this article which deeply affect the kinds of scholarship and research enabled in the tertiary space. Representing the collective voices of a significant sample of Australian filmmaker-academics, this article offers some shared perspectives on the assessment of screen works by tertiary institutions created through creative practice research. Understanding what is occurring in the sector includes a deeper examination of three issues. The first issue arises from the Australian federal government metrics, used to classify research products such as films and screen works, called Excellence in Research for Australia and the Higher Education Research Data Collection. These two productivity metrics are disconnected when assessing films and screen works. The second issue is the development of criteria for valuing film and screen works as research, and the third issue relates to filmmaker-academic workload, as assessed by Australian institutions. When combined these issues present screen production academics with an overarching question – how are the production of screen works assessed and measured in and by tertiary institutions?

The spectator in the film-maker: re-framing filmology through creative film-making practices

ABSTRACT The relationship between film-makers who create and spectators who judge film is the focal point of this paper. It examines theoretically how these two positions co-exist inside a film-maker that can be supported through critical and conceptual creative practice frameworks. By drawing on filmology, an early film studies area of scholarship, original film theory elements will be re-framed. For example, the filmic terms ‘diegesis’ and ‘spectator’ are central to film theory and pedagogy but ‘creator’, ‘afilmic’, ‘profilmic’, ‘screenic’ and ‘filmographic’ are not frequently used. A re-framing of the filmology suggests another way for the film-maker and spectator to co-exist as a filmic agent who produces creative practices through film-making structures and production contexts. Spectatorship provides one component of the knowledge, skill and practice required for a film-maker to work creatively in a system. Other systemic components that co-exist with spectatorship are the practical, logistical and networking skills required to conceptualize, finance, execute and distribute a film. The Systems View of Creative Practice provides one theoretical explanation where the filmic agent can hold knowledge of both film-making and spectating that enables them to make decisions inside temporal filmic structures.

Regional Creative Industries: transforming the Steel City into a Creative City in Newcastle, Australia

ABSTRACT The ‘Steel City’ of Newcastle, Australia, is transforming into a ‘Creative City’. Renew Newcastle provides a unique and innovative success story of the reactivation of 150 empty retail shops that were populated by ‘makers’ who could use those spaces as both studios and retail outlets to sell their authentic handmade products. Renews story sits comfortably alongside four in-depth interviews with other Creative Industry (CI) business owners from fashion, graphic and web design, accounting and film. This research reveals strategies used by regional businesses to survive, and connects a citys cultural identity with business confidence. This research builds the argument that opposites should be seen as being complementary so that binaries like competitors versus collaborators could be seen as competitors working together and sharing knowledge and skills. This research is supported by a systemic approach to creativity that places the individual as part of creative system where success and failure can be seen as complementary and where the community is just as important as the individual to achieve creative outcomes.

Looking back in order to look forward: re-scripting and re-framing screen production research

Filmmakers who are also academics want to make creative works as research. This has proven to be a challenging and time-consuming objective for practitioner-academics, despite governmental policy (namely, Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA)) advocating non-traditional research outputs. For example, it is one thing to make a film as research – but it is another to have it recognised as research within an institution, which usually includes the need to provide evidence of peer review or its equivalent. This topic among many has been hotly debated at Australian Screen Production Education and Research Association (ASPERA) annual conferences, and occasionally in some of its publications. But the debates are still ongoing, and given that soon after this special issue is published Australian universities will receive their ERA results, these debates are also likely to continue. ASPERA celebrated its 10th year as an organisation in 2014, and given the growing number of research qualifications amongst the ASPERA community and the formation of a research committee, it seems like now is the time to give support and direction to what is a vibrant community of screen practitioner-academics by not only generating but also recording debates about screen production research. With this we hope to advocate and raise awareness of screen production as a legitimate and important mode of research in the academy. Other research topics hotly debated through ASPERA have been the screen production doctorate and the day-to-day expectations and pressures brought about by ERA. For example, while many of those teaching screen production have research interests in creative practice, there has been a significant increase in the number who are capable of publishing more traditional works too, such as journal articles, book chapters, refereed conference proceedings and in some cases, monographs. This special edition of Studies in Australasian Cinema – the first of two dedicated to ASPERA – reflects the increase in screen production academics who are also publishing more traditional scholarly works, though importantly, scholarly works that are about and/or for practice. Building a cohesive and constructive community of practice is essential for any academic discipline, perhaps even more so for those in creative arts areas where ‘makers’ as well as ‘theorists’ play an important role in defining the scope and nature of research. In relation to ‘makers’ who are also ‘theorists’, such as those who have successfully completed creative practice doctorates, we might usefully conceive them as ‘thinkers’ – people whose work, whether creative or critical, is informed by ideas and wider contexts. In this way, conceptualising a screen production community of thinkers is both useful and productive. For one, it negates any complicated and