This video was a joint effort with Dr.Charles Vanover (USF) and Bob Devin Jones (and many others named in the video) as part of an arts-based qualitative inquiry into teaching and learning experiences in Chicago Public schools. The video is based on a stage dramatization of one teacher’s interview transcript (Vanover, 2018). The performance script was created using the teacher’s exact words from the transcript; neither her words nor the order of her words were changed. This is my perspective on my role as editor on the project.
Below the film preview, I have posted my reflective paper which is to appear in Charlie’s (Dr. Charles Vanover’s) book Chicago BUTOH onethe project and arts-based research. Reflections by other team members will also appear in the book.
Critical Film Editing of an Arts-based Research Project
Trace Taylor
College of Philosophy, University of South Florida Tampa
My 30, 2020
Trace Taylor is currently a second-year student in the Interdisciplinary Studies Ph.D. program. Taylor’s primary focuses are technology in the field and classroom; language and its applications, and biological and physical energy exchange systems, all in relation to human and nonhuman sustainability and resilience from individual, community, and planet perspectives. To know more about the work Taylor is doing visit https://thetracetaylor.com.
For further inquiry about this article, reach out to Trace@TheTraceTaylor.com
Abstract
In this reflection, I discuss my role as editor of Chicago BUTOH: The Studio@620 Performance, a film of a live performance arts-based research ethnodrama stage play. I discuss how the editor’s role can shape the final research product and describe critical elements one might use for evaluation in efforts to assess the work of the editor.
Critical Film Editing of an Arts-based Research Project
This reflection describes my experience as editor on the rough cut of Chicago Butoh: The Studio@620 Performance. Our first version was quick and dirty to meet the 2020 AERA submission deadline, which ended up earning the team an invitation to present at the San Francisco 2020 American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference. This was to be our first round of peer reviews across five peer-review sessions connected to the project including two at the (AERA) and two at the European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ECQI). Unfortunately, AERA 2020 was cancelled due to lockdown, however, ECQI on Malta did take place and the film and presentation was fantastic dialogue stimulator. We have since made a cleaner version of the film in preparation for a 2021 Canadian academic premiere.
In January of 2018, one of my friends, Dr. Charles Vanover, aware that I had produced several short documentaries, came to me for help. Charlie had footage shot during one of his stage plays, but he was having problems editing the footage. I knew enough about the project and was familiar with Charlie’s plays that I felt confident I could help, so I told him I would take a look at the footage. When we met, I realized the project was in crisis. It was not only that Charlie did not know how to edit footage, because he did not, but that he also lacked the computer power to do the work even if he had the skill. Editing a 30-minute film requires specialized video and audio editing software and powerful computing equipment.
Early February 2019, I received unprocessed video captures from several cameras and camera perspectives. The footage was rough. Charlie had 6 cans of film from the two nights, but two of the cans were over exposed and out of focus. The other two cans had some interesting shots but also contained long stretches of unusable footage. For the most part, the cameras were positioned and then monitored with only a few focus adjustments during the performance. Some unavoidable questionable footage is noticeable in a few of the frames in the finished rough cut, but while large swaths of the footage were unusable, the footage that was usable revealed some powerful moments, powerful enough that I felt we could see the project to fruition. The reader should understand that such a situation is far from best practice. To best do their job, the editor should be involved in the shoot and work directly with the director and videographer to help set up the shoot. This type of collaboration did not happen for this film.
[CV1] One of the first things Charlie and I did after examining all video and audio, was establish some clear and realistic goals. Charlie (writer and producer) and I (editor) wanted to capture in the film the immersive quality of the stage play. To do this, we chose strict adherence to continuity and context. Most shots in the rough cut sequentially adhere to the playscript and performance. What viewers of the film see is what the audience at the play saw, at least as closely as we could manage with the available usable footage. Chicago Butoh: The Studio@620 Performance is thus closer to a documentary report than a feature film. We both agreed throughout the project that this goal was best achieved through a utilitarian style of editing. We worked to produce for the viewers the sense of sitting in the audience watching a performance of a stage play rather than watching a flat 2D film. This anchor point guided us throughout the entire editing process and quickly resolved any editorial debates of which there were many.
Venue lighting was one of the big issues. The lighting at the Studio@620 was not ideal for videography. Lighting choices made by the director (Jones) were made for the power of the play rather than the demands of the film shoot. The audio was riddled throughout with ambient sounds and audience noises. While these challenges at first seemed detrimental, we quickly learned that with only minor adjustments, the lighting and audio actually added to the sense of being in the audience watching the play for the first time and leant that live, raw quality to the film. I feel that this rough edge lends to the credibility of the project and creates that sense of being in the audience watching the piece performed rather than providing viewers with a flat 2D experience of watching a film of a play.
This ethnodrama was written from one perspective: Dr. Charles Vanover who wrote the script based on his interpretations of an interview he conducted. The stage play was then directed from another perspective: Bob Devin Jones who had the freedom to craft the performance based on his views of the script. It was performed per two other perspectives: professional actors Jai Shanae and Lisa Tricomi, both given a great deal of freedom to develop their characters within Bob’s design. The two evening performances were then captured on several cameras from several different perspectives chosen by the videographer, Kevin Daughtry, based on his perspectives of not only the play, but also the venue and audience. So, while making a film about a play might seem pretty straightforward, it was anything but.
Maintaining the quality of the stage performance as it played out sequentially on stage is a different task than making a film based on the same story. Charlie and I cut the film in a way that allows the audience to form their own opinions about the research presented in art form. We did not want to lead the viewers one way or the other. This meant editor crafted transitions such as cuts, fades, dissolves, etc., were extremely limited. Each type of transition impacts neurological processing of continuity differently during the course of a film (Magliano & Zacks, 2012; Swenberg & Ericson, 2018). We worked to minimize distractive shifts and maintain the continuity. Three-minute music videos typically have more editor created transitions than what we employed throughout the 30-minute Chicago Butoh film. This simple approach combined with the skill and believability of the actors’ performances imbues the film with the emotion-invoking impact of the stage play. We had to walk a tight rope between polish and shine and the production of a powerful research documentary to create a film not so manipulated as to distract from the play and potentially directionally lead assessments of the performance one way or another. We wanted the viewers to connect and interpret the performance in their own way and so contribute in their own way to the global conversation.
Objectivity has long been the ideal albeit mythical model of scholarly study, but in fact, it does not exist. As my discussion, above, emphasizes, objectivity is a style of performance (Snyder-Young, 2010), it is in no way an intrinsic quality of a particular work. At best, we can acknowledge the influence of many perspectives both directly, through the chosen footage, and indirectly by making cuts that acknowledge the researchers, their backgrounds, their experiences, their biases (Angen, 2000; Barrowman, 2018; Bagele, 2012; Gross, 2009; Donmoyer, 2006), etc. For instance, Kevin Daughtry, the videographer’s interpretations influenced camera positioning, framing, lenses, angles, etc. His intentions could not help but influence the film. For this reason, I prefer to refer to footage as processed or unprocessed rather than raw because raw, I believe, discredits the videographer’s perspective, and so fails to acknowledge their contribution to the project and the conversation: captures of the venue based on videographer choices of equipment, audio, lighting, positioning, etc.
The sense of objectivity we attempted to produce was an illusion. No one has ever produced an objective film (Dias, 2014). Any attempt to assess Chicago Butoh must take into account the often unaccounted for and sometimes employed biases and enculturated values of the researchers and artists that staged the ethnodrama and produced the footage and ultimately the film. Bias shapes not only research designs but also the assessments that support and even lead dominant narratives about quality and objectivity (Mayo, 2008, Donmoyer, 2006). Such bias and influence can however be consciously managed via acknowledgement, containment, and incorporation as an aspect of transparent research. The guideposts we used to edit the film minimalized our influence over audience interpretations so as to allow for the broadest range of assessments by the broadest spectrum of the audience; which is to say, we included the audience in the research by allowing them to experience the emotional impact and then draw their own conclusions.
Overall, my work as an editor for the project left me with a deeper understanding of critical film editing for arts-based research and how the editor’s contribution can either influence or facilitate global interpretations and learning based on how I, as the editor, choose to present the research. It also reinforced for me that one perspective is actually a compilation of many perspectives, since one life, human or nonhuman, cannot help but be influenced by others’ perspectives constructed through personal experience.
I offer the following set of questions for readers interested in assessing Chicago Butoh: The Studio@620 Performance and other works of arts-based research
- Does the film achieve the researchers’ and the artists’ intentions?
- In the Chicago Butoh project, the artists’ goals were to create an aesthetic of objectivity and create a film that evoked the live performance experience. Do the editor’s choices: transitions, cuts, fades, dissolves, etc., enhance this experience?
- Does the film communicate research that matters?
- Does the compilation help the audience understand something important about our world?
- Imagine you were asked to serve as the editor for a production of Chicago Butoh or a similar staged ethnodrama before, not after, the performance was shot. What are some questions and suggestions you might have for the show’s writer, producer, director, actors, and videographer as you begin to plan the work?
- How does my inability to engage in this collaboration influence assessments of the over-all quality of the film?
- One of the wonderful things about the Chicago Butoh project is that the footage that I edited can be assessed from the Prism Archive. Within the confines of the creative commons licenses that govern the project, please pull up the footage and ask yourself what you might do differently, keeping in mind the notion of minimal influence.
- Might you have made different editing choices?
- Are there different ways to communicate the experience of the stage play with an aesthetic of objectivity?
- Might it be possible to mix up the footage and create a documentary about the performance rather than a documentary report? How and why might such a film differ from the rough-cut film we’ve produced?
References
Angen, M. J. (2000). Perals, pith, and provocation, evaluating interpretive inquiry: reviewing the validity debate and opening the dialogue. Qualitative Heath Research, 10(3). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/104973230001000308?journalCode=qhra.
Asvoll, H. (2012). Abduction, deductions, and induction: can these concepts be used for an understanding of methodological processes in interpretive case studies? International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 27(3). Accessed online 9/2/2019. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09518398.2012.759296.
Author Unknown. (2014). Scientific objectivity. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed online 3/23/2020. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-objectivity/.
Bagele, C. (2012). Indigenous research methodologies: 27-36. Print.
Barney, D. T. & Kalin, N. M. (2014). The poster and the poster: critical arts-based research as dissensual aesthetics. Critical Studies Critical Methodologies, 14(6). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1532708614548131.
Barrowman, N. (2018). Why data is never raw. The New Atlantis, Journal of Technology and Society, 129. Accessed online 9/2/2019. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/subscriber_services/buy-back-issues.
Dias, J. (2014). The myth of objectivity. Saybrook University Blog. Accessed online 4/6/2020. https://www.saybrook.edu/blog/2014/01/31/01-31-14/.
Donea, M. (2017). Critical and contextual production analysis. Accessed online 11/03/19. https://www.academia.edu/35326437/Critical_and_Contextual_Production_Analysis_Video_Essay.
Donmoyer, R. (2006). Take my paradigm…please! The legacy of Kuhn’s construction in education research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19(1): 11-34. Accessed online 10/20/2019. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248987057_Take_my_paradigm_please_The_legacy_of_Kuhn%27s_construct_in_educational_research.
Gross, D. (2009). Making a story move, the art of film editing. University of Conneticut Open Commons. Accessed online 11/3/2019. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1079&context=srhonors_theses.
Harding, S. (1992). Rethinking standpoint epistemology: what is strong objectivity. The Centennial Review, 36(3): 437-470. Accessed online 9/3/2019. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23739232?seq=1.
Magliano, J. P. & Zacks, J. M. (2011). The impact of continuity editing in narrative film on event segmentation. Cognitive Science, 35(8). Accessed online 1/15/2020. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3208769/.
Mayo, P. (2008). Antonio Gramsci and his relevance for the education of adults. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(3): 418-433. Accessed online 10/11/2019. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2007.00357.x?journalCode=rept20.
Nerenberg, E. (2015). Co-creativity, cadences, and collaborations. Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies, 3(3), 363-374. Accessed online 4/2/2020. https://www.academia.edu/34292975/_Co-creativity_cadences_and_collaborations_An_interview_with_Roberto_Perpignani_The_Journal_of_Italian_Cinema_and_Media_Studies.
Skains, R. L. (2018). Creative practice as research: discourse on methodology. Journal of Media Practice and Education, 19(1). Accessed online 3/16/2020. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14682753.2017.1362175.
Swenberg, T. & Eriksson, P. E. (2018). Effects of continuity or discontinuity in actual film editing. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 36(2). Accessed online 10/11/2019. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0276237417744590.
Vanover, C. & Jones, B. D. (2019). Chicago Butoh: The Studio@620 Performance.
Trace Taylor 