Ethnography and screen production research

The purpose of this chapter is to explore what can happen when screen production creative practice research meets ethnography. While ethnography has a long and proud history, creative practice is a relative newcomer as a research methodology. Often creative practice research in the screen production areas is obsessed with representation. Filmmaking, photography and screenwriting suggest representational research strategies with a strong focus on artefacts as texts. However, in the last decade there has been an increased push in creative practice research toward performative research that emphasises the experiential. So how can these ideas and methods be usefully integrated into screen production methodologies? This chapter argues that there is much to be gained from mingling creative practice research with ethnographic approaches. It explores how the making of films, screenplays and photographs can be viewed as a cultural activity and the practices that go into the work of making might be understood in systematic ways through ethnographic writing.