Potter, Martin and Grieve, A 2017 Big Stories Small Towns: Asia Pacific (Australia), video recording, Big Stories, Small Towns (http://bigstories.com.au/towns/cowra; and http://bigstories.com.au/towns/queenstown-tasmania); Queenstown Heritage & Arts Festival 2014; The Uncomfomity Arts Festival, Queenstown, 2015; Cowra Arts OutWest, 2014; Queensland Regional Arts Festival, Big Stories Co..
Big Stories, Small Towns (http://bigstories.com.au/towns/cowra; and http://bigstories.com.au/towns/queenstown-tasmania); Queenstown Heritage & Arts Festival 2014; The Uncomfomity Arts Festival, Queenstown, 2015; Cowra Arts OutWest, 2014; Queensland Regional Arts Festival
Background
Big Stories, Small Towns is a collaborative transmedia documentary project that generates stories with and by community members underpinned by filmmakers living in residence in the town. Each iteration of Big Stories proceeds by way of a different and specific research question within this container. For this iteration the researcher asks:
As process-driven participatory media projects reach broadcast scale and quality (Potter 2017; 2019), more intimate and nuanced understandings of both co-creative processes and the values of co-creative and transmedia production are needed to call attention to the larger ordering strategies that give public memory its contours as well as offering a way to move beyond what is seen in order to consider a way of seeing or being in the world.
The focus of this research was therefore to create a working model of co-creativity across mediums, underpinned by a value-based approach to the production process that would allow for regional Australian communities to address limited opportunities to participate in screen, media and digital cultures (Potter 2014: 78).
Contribution
The research spans two filmmaker residencies in the town of Cowra, NSW and Queenstown, Tasmania bringing the innovative co-creative model of Big Stories (replicated by ABC Open) to the 2 towns. The process of co-creation and the significant outputs of stories produced demonstrate a working model of nuanced and intimate co-creativity across a range of mediums. This co-creation foregrounds the importance of collaborative creative work based on dialogical relationships (Freire, 1970), and results in nuanced, multiple perspective on places and communities that lack screen-based representation, emphasising movements towards collaborative, open-ended knowledge.
As creative director and producer, Potter's work in this project focused on defining the process and principles of production, developing and resourcing the system of production and on the impact of participation in media making and sharing on individuals, communities and societies. Resourcing the project through development of funding relationships, grant writing, training of filmmakers in residence and local content producers (Potter, 2019) was foundational to this work. Stories focussed on people who sought or had found solutions to local problems and this approach, defined as ‘positive deviance’ (Potter, 2014: 4, 58-60) was key to the approach and well received by the community. A process of local feedback defined by Potter worked through a tiered structure of community approvals, from individual participants to family or local community group to consulting groups to the wider community before broader public screenings and exhibitions beyond the town.
Field of Research
190205 Interactive Media 200102 Communication Technology and Digital Media Studies 200103 International and Development Communication
Socio Economic Objective
950204 The Media
HERDC Research category
JR1 Recorded/Rendered Creative Works – Film/Video
Recognitions, Awards and Prizes
This work was the most substantial Australian iteration of the Big Stories project in terms of people employed, budget raised, and community participants engaged. 40 documentaries were produced (over 3 hours of stories), multiple local digital storytelling workshops were run in community, and 2 significant websites offer an archive of some of the stories and images produced. Funding partners include Screen Australia, Tasmanian Regional Arts Fund, Screen Tasmania, Cowra Council and competitive grant funds of over AUD$150,000 were received for the project.
Works produced are held at the National Film and Sound Archive, online at the bigstories.com.au website and made available to the public through screenings and exhibitions. More than 10,000 people attended a Big Stories event or exhibition and there were over 130,000 views of the bigstories.com.au website.
Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that permission has been obtained for items included in DRO. If you believe that your rights have been infringed by this repository, please contact drosupport@deakin.edu.au.
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