Moore, S., 2011.

"Does this look right?" Working inside the collaborative frame

In my animated documentary practice the collaborative nature of what goes on inside the frame and how to develop a methodology for that collaboration is something which increasingly interests me. The issue raised by this paper is the extent to which the frame within an animated documentary can become a collaborative space, working with the interviewees to create the image, and how one might go about creating and sustaining that collaboration. There are a combination of motivating factors for making the frame a collaborative space. The integrity of the image to claim documentary status and its relationship to indexicality is one. The authenticity of the (particularly internal) experience translated into visuals is also key. The relationship between subject and film maker is another element. This paper will look at what a collaboration inside the frame is, why it would be attempted and what impact that might have for audience, film maker and subject using key examples from my own, and other's, practice. I will also look at how a methodology of collaborative working might be developed and how that could be applied to practice. I do not claim this collaborative approach as peculiar to animated documentary as such, but I do think that there are representational issues about the extent to which the image can be presented / manipulated from a particular perspective (and why this might be so) which animated documentary provides an interesting comment on.