7. Ethnography and Screen Production Research

This chapter explores what can happen when 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 artifacts as texts. Over the last decade there has been a push in creative practice research toward research that emphasises the experiential. Ethnographic writing strategies provide useful alternatives and additions to reflection on process as a way of constructing knowledge. Ethnographic approaches capture the nuances of the experiential, affective and sensory aspects of everyday life. This chapter argues that there is much to be gained from mingling creative practice research with ethnographic approaches to research.