The answer to this question is very broad considering it is not specified to who collaborative documentaries are significant, so I will focus my answer on students like myself.

Prior to this studio, I never realized the extent to which collaborative documentaries are effective in creating a sense of community. In particular, the current Grasslands project we are doing. The fact that our documentary will actually help people like Alf get support and species like legless lizards from getting extinct testifies to the significance of collaborative documentaries, which explains why communities and non-governmental organizations actively seek filmmakers and the reason behind our media studios collaborating with said community organizations like Melbourne’s Living Museum of the West. It is beyond satisfying that as students we are not just communicating the problems of the community, but also we’ve become part of the solution.  Moreover, students like me get to be faced with a variety of options for producing stories and interact with diverse subjects. According to Coffman, ‘participating in authentic, collaborative experiences of gathering stories is a valuable learning opportunity’ (2009, p.76). This is due to the fact that collective and collaborative documentaries teach students ‘good listening and interviewing skills, showing them how to identify community liaisons and ….. helping them anticipate methods for community outreach’ (Coffman 2009, p.76). I can testify, from my own experience, that forming relations and building trust within all the parties in collaborative documentaries is crucial to a documentary’s success. I was privileged to learn these skills by working with the interviewees of our documentary: we had to learn about their story, make them trust us, and finally distribute their interviews. In conclusion, collaborative documentaries are significant, because they teach students real-life skills, create a sense of community and unity, and finally helping those whose stories need to be told.