Film Studies For Free: On the Issue of Collaboration in Film Production Education

Image from La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (François Truffaut, 1974)

Film Studies For Free was thrilled to find not only that the internationally renowned scholarly Journal of Film and Video had published a recent, excellent special collection of articles on the often thorny issue of teaching collaboration in film production collaboratively, but also that this collection was freely available online.

The full table of contents is given below.

Now, please get into groups and read the articles...

Journal of Film and Video
Volume 61, Number 1, Spring 2009

Guest Editor: Rob Sabal

Introduction by Rob Sabal

Excerpt: The impulse for this special issue on teaching about and through collaboration comes from a shared search for answers to the question, "how might production students work more productively and more harmoniously with others—peers, professionals, and members of the community?" The search is spurred by the recognition that, as a field, we are not doing much to address this facet of production education. Drawn together by a mutual concern for providing a rich and lasting education for our students, the authors included in this issue, along with fellow members of the University Film and Video Association, formed an informal collaboration interest group and have, for several years, been sharing stories, ideas, information, and resources about teaching collaboration and conflict resolution.
The implicit question running through this special issue is, "what is the purpose of a film production education?" This seems to be a particularly important question to ask of undergraduate production programs because the traditional value of a liberal arts education is its breadth and its focus on inquiry and methods, which gives it its enduring value over a person's lifetime. What do we teach in a traditional production class that is of abiding value? Certainly nothing related to physical production, where technology, process, storytelling structures, exhibition, and distribution outlets continue to change rapidly. The enduring value of production classes has to be that as each student develops his or her artistic identity, he or she also comes to a clear and truthful understanding of him- or herself, develops an ability to see and appreciate the talents of others, learns to constructively negotiate conflict, and extends this ability to work positively with others into their institution and their community.