Depending on the age of the participants, their degree of “media literacy” and familiarity with the audiovisual technique and the duration of the workshop, we can accomodate different degrees of group involvement in the laboratory.

The fundamental and unavoidable phase is that of writing. Sometimes it is possible to create participatory video-only laboratories (even though ZaLab normally does not do them because our approach is aimed at audiovisual narration). Usually we start a collective brainstorming phase on the theme and then focus on the ideation of the subject. We then move on to the choice of the protagonists and in conclusion the narrative development.

Flying Roots

As far as this field is concerned, it is the shooting phase that is the most interesting to get involved in. Normally we organize the first shots within the group, then go out and film on the field. It is important to first ask about the problem of the social impact of filming and of their filmic rendering, and to minimize invasiveness. It is very useful to divide the group up into different roles, forming troupes composed of  prospective sound engineers, operators and authors / interviewers.

Cucinema – Laguna Sud 2015

The editing phase is more complex to carry out in a group and this is sometimes the responsibility of the trainers who share the process with the participants only during individual meetings.