Writing, Film, Meaning

Lizzie Thynne

Abstract for Writing Practice In/With Audio-Visual Production

We often tell our students that the writing up of process of production is an important aspect of their learning. The reflection on the process and product clearly generates forms of knowledge and can thus be seen as a significant part of the research dimension of a project. However, just as the reception of a media artefact engages an audience at both conscious and unconscious levels so creativity involves affect. Creativity can be seen as a from of not knowing that is, of letting go of analytic control in favour of an aesthetic and emotional response to the material in hand.

A purely discursive account of a production by its maker cannot fully address these affective components and seems reliant on notions of authorship and intentionality that have long been challenged in media studies. The conscious intentions of the author, even where these are fully available, are not been seen at least since Barthes’ ‘The Death of the Author’ as the sole source of a text’s meaning. Current media theory emphasizes how the interaction between text and audience produces meaning and the importance of the historical, institutional and social context in determining its significance. A producer’s refusal to ‘explain’ their work can be a recognition of the ways in which the work operates beyond their specific intentions, even where these engage with a known viewing context. Given these problems with the idea of intentionality I will suggest other ways in which writing might engage with practice in a manner which allows for an affective and aesthetic response and acknowledges that the meaning of a film cannot be contained within writing about it either by the author or by others.