Toward Understanding Methods of Videotaping Performative Research Products/Processes

• In Event: 52.057 - Exploring the Use of Pecha Kuchas as a Participatory Form of Arts-Based Research

Abstract

Purposes
With the rise of video as a research method (Haw and Hadfield, 2011 and Miles, 2006) and the proliferation of research performances (Norris, 2009, Saldaña, 2005 and Spry, 2011), there exists the potential to disseminate performative research digitally. One of the three major purposes of this three-year study, Reuniting form and content: Generating, mediating, and disseminating social science research and arts-based performance genres through digital media, was to uncover both the technical challenges and epistemological issues with utilizing video in performative research dissemination. Twenty video examples (Table 1), with headings and subheadings, provide salient aspects of video research.

Perspective(s)
McLeod (1987) advocates the inclusion of image, gesture and sound with the hegemonic word and number media in education. Norris claims that the description of performances into words is highly reductionists, removing much of the texture of the context or “contexture” (p. 28). He believes that video can provide, inflection, pace, volume, positionality, movement and facial and body language far more efficiently than word.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
The primary focus of this presentation is on the use of video of performative research. Camera positioning, sound recording, lighting sources, staging/blocking decisions and editing choices were some of the techniques considered for both recording and dissemination. Throughout the project, as Donmoyer and Donmoyer (1995) claim with Readers Theatre, it was found that the editing process was a form of inquiry in itself.

Data Sources
Well over 100 hours of video footage of both performances and the processes in creating them were amassed, representing over twenty performance pieces and five processes. These included briefing and debriefing sessions prior to and after the recordings as well as rehearsals.

Results
It was found that using one camera for live-performances, in most cases, while useful for archival, analytical and rehearsal purposes, lacked the sophistication for dissemination. Multiple cameras of a single live-performance provided better footage, however they had to be situated as not to be intrusive on the actors and audience. Some performances were remounted for the camera, but performed as if an audience was present and others for a studio audience who expected to witness interruptions. A few were devised specifically for video, one using a one-camera smartphone style. ABER processes were also recorded. These were not staged; rather, in keeping with cinéma vérité, the camera operations were choreographed to be as unobtrusive as possible. A new technique, that we labeled, ‘finding the shot’, had one camera moving throughout the interactive processes while another remained stationary. At times, the other camera could be seen in the disseminate footage as one cannot control positioning in live situations. Rather than considered a disadvantage, this was deemed valuable as it served as a modern form of Brecht’s (1957) ‘alienation effect’. Room clutter, lighting and sound difficulties were also considered part of the ‘data’ and little was done to adjust these.

Scholarly Significance
Through examples, this study articulates a number of the epistemological and technical considerations that are necessary when videotaping performative products/processes.

Authors

• Joe Norris, Brock University

• Brad James McDonald, Brock University