In recent years, video has become more important to clients as part of the final report/final package of deliverables. Consequently, there is an implicit requirement for qualitative researchers to keep pace with improvements in video recording technologies and techniques. This workshop is designed to bring production tips to ethnographers who want to improve the visual look and sound quality of their fieldwork footage.
Goals and Key Benefits
It is my goal that participants will leave the workshop with: specific, actionable steps for improving their audio and video footage; a better understanding of lighting, composition, “set design,” and “shooting to edit” in the field; new strategies to capture essential “b-roll artifacts” in respondents’ environments; new insights into “the economy of attention” through the video interviewing workshop; helpful anecdotes from peers during the group discussion; and a “wish list” of upgrades for camera and audio equipment.
Structure
Part I will be a powerpoint presentation with video clips and stills from ethnographies and documentaries (analyzed from a technical point of view), along with a hands-on demonstration/exploration of a video cameras and sound equipment.
Part II will be a video interviewing workshop where pairs will interview each other on-camera with lavalier microphones.
Part III will be a group discussion on video fieldwork practices, including topics of technical challenges, favorite pieces of equipment, and integration of the client into the field of research. Each part will last about an hour.
Target audience
Qualitative researchers and ethnographers who are currently shooting their own footage, but have not had formal training in video production.
Items to bring
Video cameras, microphones, and (if used) tripods. If possible, the workshop organizer would also like to compile jpegs of video footage the participants have shot in the field for the group discussion portion of the workshop.
Organizer
Nan Bress has worked as an ethnographic researcher for the past 10 years, focusing on medical ethnographies and consumer goods. She is also a documentary videomaker, having worked on four PBS documentaries, on indie films, in television, in t.v. news, and as a writer/shooter/editor of corporate videos. She holds an M. A. from Stanford University in the Department of Communication, Documentary Film and Video Production, an M.A. from the University of Chicago in the Social Sciences, and a B.A. with honors from Swarthmore College in History. Docnography (documentary + ethnography) is the name of her research/production company.
