DETERMINACIÓN DE LAS NUEVAS MEDIDAS

Historical Analysis

An unflinching knowledge of our past is a prerequisite to building both a lasting peace, and an authentic democratic communication system (Halleck, 2002). From

Poverty Row, to Jean Luc Godard’s transition from French New Wave icon, outlining the historical context and diffusion of collective filmmaking in past actor-networks is

paramount to contextualizing current forms of social grouping. This includes

understanding the pragmatics of Hollywood’s mode of production, as it continues to

“exert a power that can be opposed only by a knowledge of its past” (Staiger, 1985, p.

385).

Utilizing Actor Network Theory, I am interested how instances of the collective formational mode exists and affects actor networks of people, technology, and

institutions. Actor network theory diagrams will be constructed utilizing NodeXl software in order to visualize historical filmmaking landscapes. Primary focus will be placed on the nascent workings of independent filmmakers outside the hegemonic industry (although these will be provided for juxtaposition and points of reference).

Case Studies

This research uses a comparative approach. To riposte why some systems have relatively higher effectiveness and performance than others, a researcher needs data from systems that vary in such dimensions as connectedness, diversity, and location (Rogers & Kincaid, 1981). A pioneering example of this design is Yadav’s (1967) investigation of two Indian villages, one of which he knew to be much higher in agricultural innovativeness than the other. The more innovative village was more open to external ideas, with its internal communication structure more connected (thus facilitating the flow of innovativeness within the village) (Rogers & Kincaid, 1981).

Very few past studies have utilized systems like groups, villages, or organizations as their units of analysis. This research investigates eight different filmmaking collectives ranging the early years of the 21^st century (2003-2017), spanning across the United States.

My research follows Willemen’s (2005) “comparative film studies.” He finds the comparative approach to study modern cultural forms should be founded on the

common experience, “but divergent histories of the development of a capitalist mode of production and the impact of its reformatting dynamics on social, including cultural, relations” (p. 98).

All collectives that are non-centralized, based only on city affiliation rather than social connection, only for specific colleges, international, established and working outside of the no-budget economic restraint, and activist, were dismissed. The sample identified eight filmmaking groups. In categorization, the to be included in the sample, it was necessary for a group to identify themselves whether in their name (and thus identity) as a collective.

1. Collars Up Collective (NYC)

2. Ladder Films Collective (Denver Colorado) 3. Mad Hatter Collective (Austin Texas) 4. Film Crush Collective of (Atlanta Georgia) 5. Watchword Film Collective of Los Angeles.

6. The Shooting Wall Collective of Philadelphia.

7. Olympia Film Collective (Olympia Washington) 8. Hypnagogia Collective (Staunton Virginia)

Informal interviews. Informal interviews will be enacted for the eight groups.

Although questionnaires can provide information in this area, the survey researcher

“rarely develops a feel for the total life situation in which respondents are thinking and acting” (Babbie, 2017, p. 272). Seidman (2006) finds, “if the researcher’s goal is to understand the meaning people make of their experience, then interviewing is a

necessary and completely sufficient avenue of inquiry” (p. 11). Wimmer and Dominick

(2000) acknowledge that while in-depth interviews tend to use smaller sample, they include elaborate data about the respondents’ opinions, values, motivations,

recollections, experiences and feelings. Auteurism is a situated value, which further leads me to utilize informal interviews. As no-budget filmmakers exist as marginalized individuals—typically underemployed—sociometric data, and rehearsed questions asking others to recount their hardship and struggle poses as exploitative at this

juncture. Recounted by one group member, “Every time I share my work, I feel a little bit more foolish in doing it.” Filmmakers may not be aware of the consequences of their innovation. To that degree, an informal discussion, rather than direct questions, may be better suited to find answers.

Participant observation.Auteur theory leads me to participant observation, where I may be able to consider how the filmmaking process is conceptualized and enacted in filmmaking preparation, and presentation, against a prominent theory affording recalcitrance, and singularity. Two of the groups are both active, and available, providing the possibility for participation observation. While producing issues of obtrusiveness, observation is said to provide a rich kind of direct

understanding of network behavior that has often been sorely lacking in most past network analysis. Babbie argued that the concept of ‘being there’ is a powerful technique for gaining insight into “the nature of human affairs in all their rich complexity” (p. 305). Further, Actor Network Theory warrants the active tracing of linkages in how the collective exists, and how it is situated within the community. It is important to see how the collective is enacted (or halted) by the participants within their community, and with each other. As according to Postpill and Pink (2012) many

contemporary groups exist in both the real world, and as mediated through digital platforms. It is in observing web pages that I will be able to see how groups continue to shape and work through their proposed collective identity. I am interested in how, through their online content, the collectives have come to establish their

actor-networks, and how they have been able to establish their identity as either auteurist, or collectivist.