Throughout the duration of this research task, we were inevitably required to collaborate with others – whether they be other students or people we had sourced outside of university.
Generally, collaboration is quite a fragile process, as you are not only working around your own hectic (and in my case, volatile) schedule – but also at least one others.

I found that when working with other students, particularly the ones in the same class as I, the process ran smoothly and without error. This is perhaps because they understood the importance and value of the project to me, and respected me as a peer. Adversely, it could simply be because of their own disastrous experiences when collaborating with others.

Upon working with people outside of class, I found it to be extremely difficult to co-ordinate times and have people commit to the task. Obviously, I am grateful for those who assisted me; but I found the flakiness of people (mostly my friends) to be disheartening and, frankly, rude and irritating. This is mostly due to the fact that they neither understood, nor respected the deal that this project meant for me regardless of how often I tried to extrapolate on the fact that it was a major assignment. I understand that everyone has schedules they must abide by and deadlines they must meet, but it was disappointing to learn that because my course does not require theoretical produce such as essays or test results, that it is not valued equally to other degrees offered.

Having studied a ‘theoretical’ degree previously, I am able to appreciate both perspectives to this issue. Frankly, I believe that due to my course being more practical than theoretical, it is more enriching and teaches more than ROTE learning and regurgitating information in order to score highly in a fascist academic system. Sadly, others pursuing these types of degrees would not agree.

During the preparation for my final scene I had recruited two actors/actresses to assist me with my vision. I had chosen a date, location and time and I even offered to drive them both. However, on the day of the shoot, they seemed to have difficulty answering text messages and phone calls and, eventually, let me know that they were unable to assist me in my project. To say I was annoyed would be an understatement, but not wanting to sound bitter, I will reflect on the positive aspects of that experience.

Due to the fall-through of my actors, and consequently, my concept, I had to quickly think of another scene through which I could explore the notion of dialogue. Upon watching Su Freidrich’s Sink or Swim (1990) I decided to approach a less conventional method to exploring dialogue/spoken/written word. I decided to construct a narrative of some sort, using footage I had shot both in the past couple of weeks and over the past year in order to construct an abstract way of storytelling. Each segment is unrelated to each other visually, but the entire short-film is tied together through the dialogue.

Ultimately, collaborating with others was an extremely frustrating, yet invaluable experience. Collaboration is an inevitable phenomenon that we all must experience as artists, regardless of how often we try to avoid it. I learned that, when collaborating with others who work within the same field, respect for the project is effortlessly earned. Conversely, when working with others who do not understand the intricacies of the industry, I found them to be flaky, unresponsive and, honestly, degrading.