Community Documentary: A Collaborative Design Aiming at Recording, Reconfirmation, and Sharing Community Life

Towards Another Tomorrow, a community documentary project based on the concept of “Our community life should be recorded, created and shared by ourselves”, was produced by members of the community currency group, the Santo Club Mayu, students from Chiba University and the unit L&R Production. Through the analysis of the experience in each stage of the project, the survey conducted in the opening premiere and the real comments, we come to the following conclusions: (1) The co-creation method of community documentary production is effective for information dissemination within and outside the endogenous community, and is a model that can be promoted. (2) With local community members as the main body, the system of collaborative creation by various groups is the foundation. (3) In the editing stage, we tried to create the script in this method: participants converted the available video materials into text cards, and then classified and combined these cards through discussions. In the end, the script of the documentary was made by connecting all the cards together. This method effectively compiles and summarises the information in the production of community documentaries with a certain amount of participants. (4) At all stages of the project, the concept of creating opportunities to make full use of the abilities held or potentially held by each participant should be upheld. (5) After release, the sharing mode should be skillfully designed.