“Group projects”- two words when combined, make most university students recoil into their seats, eyes roll to the backs of their heads and deep, solemn sighs escape their mouths. We all know the drill; one or two students of the group do all the work while trying endlessly to connect and meet up with the remainder of the group to no avail. Thankfully, this wasn’t at all the case when working on our short documentary for ‘They Film People Don’t They?’.

With five in our crew, splitting up the work became less of a ‘you do this and you do that‘ process and more of a collaborative shared experience (with, honestly, Laura and Katrina taking on the bulk of the work themselves). With all of us conducting the interviews together and with Laura who was unable to make one but instead filmed two separate ones in her own time, we were able to all have a shared and balanced input as to what we wanted from this interview and how we were going to aesthetically direct it.

When it came to editing, everyone was present at different times, depending on their schedules outside of university and we eventually broke off into little side groups- editing one half between two members or having someone find and convert archival footage when they felt they’d hit a brick wall in the editing suits.

Overall, this group project experience was a breath of fresh are compared to past ones where it has felt very one-sided when it’s come to dividing the workload.