THE GROUP WORK
This project has been a really interesting experience, and unlike other group work I’ve completed before. I think working in a team for this assignment was great, in terms of both our general dynamic and workflow. For me, one of the most interesting parts of working as a collective was just being able to discuss in length our thoughts on our manifesto positioning statement. The low/high art dichotomy and ‘guilty pleasures’ are both really engaging and fun issues to talk about.
Given that we all had a common denominator in our thoughts (obviously), it was super interesting to hear everyone’s varying perspectives and how we could approach it in our manifesto. For instance, Henry’s positioning statements had a greater focus on the individual’s preferences and high/low art. Whereas Maddy and I honed in on the absurdity of guilty pleasures. Being able to discuss our thoughts as a collective really helped us knit together one, somewhat cohesive manifesto argument we were all happy with. This is something that was definitely a benefit of group work for me. Because sometimes I just can’t arrange my own thoughts in a way that makes sense.
I don’t feel as though we had many issues with our ability to work as a group. More so, the only hinderance for this project revolved around our inability to ‘actually’ work together, given COVID circumstances. As I’ve come to learn this year, group work is a little trickier with the clunkiness/awkwardness of meeting your team members on Zoom/Collab Ultra. (So, this is my thank you to you Cerise for making us turn our cameras and mics on – yay for a great atmosphere in this class!).
Creating a collective body of work entirely online is a little bit of a feat as well, with the various uploading, downloading, transferring, google doc-ing and what not that goes into it. Especially since our manifesto was video based, it was a matter of working within the circumstances to try and make our final video as cohesive as we could.
But with that being said, I think we were able to do so just fine. I think working in a group actually lent itself quite well to manifesto creation. Our creative brainstorming and discussions were always quite fun and fruitful, which in turn helped our overall comfortability with one another. I also think we had a great team dynamic (which admittedly, benefitted Maddy and I’s existing friendship – fun times all around!). We were all quite enthusiastic about both our manifesto argument and creative concept, and we really wanted to have fun with the project. This collective ‘vision’ (if you will), and general keenness translated into consistent communication that helped us easily overcome any obstacles.
THE MANIFESTO THINKING, DESIGN & PRODUCTION
Regarding our manifesto’s critical thinking, I think it developed well. Initially, our statements and ideas for our manifesto were somewhat broad. Upon our first few discussions, we phrased our manifesto argument as to ‘end the gatekeeping of cinema: the individual’s preferences are more important’. Which wasn’t entirely accurate to what we were aiming to convey. Hence, the studio presentations were really valuable, as the feedback we received from Alex and Robin helped clarify our argument.
Especially after looking into the readings that Alex had recommended to us, we recognised the differentiation we wanted to make in our manifesto. Therefore, after discussing as a team and with Cerise, we were able to rework our manifesto argument to be clearer in its message and intention. That is, that we wanted to emphasise the importance of the individual’s preferences, but primarily to oneself, no out of opposition.
This led to rewriting our last section of our manifesto, which was previously around ‘destroying the elitist mentality of cinema’. I think this was a beneficial development, as that section (which I had written) felt more of an echo of the other two parts on the low/high art dichotomy and guilty pleasures. Per Alex’s feedback that this section didn’t hold up against existing scholarly work. So I rewrote it to be an emphasis of our core manifesto essence. I think this ended up making more logical sense, given our manifesto’s discussion of the other two ideas beforehand.
In terms of our manifesto design and production, we had quite a clear idea on what we wanted to create. The aforementioned enthusiasm we shared about creating our piece made the production process generally seamless. We ended up following the same filming timeline which included allowing ample time to make any changes to our final piece before submission.
The only set back of our production was as mentioned, our inability to work directly together. While we had initially wanted our manifesto sections/various film portrayals to visually link quite tightly, this wasn’t realistic. Given our distinctly separate filming locations, we ended up gearing more towards ‘thematic’ transitions. In the end, I think this approach worked well and was a good way to overcome that minor barrier.
Furthermore, I think one of the issues (but more so learning curves) that I particularly ran into, was my general unfamiliarity with the manifesto form. Prior to this assignment, a manifesto was something I had only briefly understood. Despite having explored a variety of manifestos before starting on our own, I still found it difficult to wrap my head around what shape our manifesto was meant to take. Particularly, I maintained a lot of confusion around what parameters our manifesto was meant to have, if any at all. This included troubles with phrasing, if we were to include scholarly sources and so on. But, after discussing these queries with Cerise, she clarified that this was more of a ‘piece of art’ than strictly academic. I’m generally accustomed to sticking to strict guides for coursework (darn you Harvard referencing), so getting used to this freer form project was really insightful.
INSIGHTS ON THE FILM CANON, MANIFESTOS & CO.
Overall, this assignment definitely enabled me to greater develop my understanding of one of the canon’s core issues – who the canon is created by and for. This was something I was really interested in at the beginning of the semester and was fervently curious about in my first reflection. Our manifesto’s focus was highly insightful in approaching this issue from one angle. Of how really, such lists cannot be objective, because they are based on the tastes of select individuals. As Elena Gorfinkel eloquently put it, “Lists are not neutral or innocent or purely subjective” (Gorfinkel in Palacios Cruz, 2020, para.2). Delving into the variety of this fundamental issue with the film canon (and others alike), was super intriguing.
Particularly fascinating, was unravelling the implications of this ‘faux objectivity’ (if you will) on other issues such as the low/high art dichotomy and guilty pleasures. If these standards of greatness, taste, ‘pleasure’ and what have you, are largely shaped by individuals for collectives, is it not unbalanced? Unnecessary? Unjust? Moreover, linking these matters in preparation for our manifesto really illuminated the judgement which stems from this problem of the canon. On either side as we also learnt. Whether you are rebuked for not liking the canonised, or vice versa by a counterculture to elite cinema – judgement seems pervasive.
Hence, while our manifesto didn’t necessarily provide a solution, it was such an engaging issue to interrogate and understand more critically. Ultimately, I think our approach in responding to this matter, in championing the individual to enjoy cinema purely so, was interesting.
Additionally, creating a manifesto was a really captivating experience in itself. In spite of my sheer confusion at the task at hand for a while there, I really valued the process and its momentum. After hearing how other groups were approaching their manifesto creation through different formats, it was interesting to see how we could creatively convey our manifesto argument. In this way, creating this manifesto has enabled me to learn about the film canon’s issues in a way I would have never anticipated.
The only flip side to this, is that I would have loved to have dived deeper into all of the manifesto topics. I thought all of the various statements assigned to each group were incredibly intriguing. But alas, there is only so much you can explore in one semester. But what a fantastic one it has been, to say the least!
References:
Palacios Cruz, M 2020, Whose Canon? | Xcèntric, Xcèntric, viewed 15 October 2020, <http://xcentric.cccb.org/en/programas/fitxa/whose-canon/234462>