Abstract:

All research in Australian universities involving human participants needs approval from human research ethics committees, who make judgments consistent with accepted ethical principles that have recently been captured in the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007).  Making a film as an academic research project is a relatively recent phenomenon and there are apparent contradictions between the requirements for ethics approval and the accepted practice of screen production.

As an illustration of these contradictions, typical requirements to gain ethics approval are for research participants to be anonymous, have the right of withdrawal at any time and be able to withdraw their data at any time, if that is possible.  Is it viable to make a fiction film as research on these terms if the actors are defined as research participants and their data is their performance?

This paper will look at the apparent mismatch between the application of ethics in academic research and the practice of screen production, reflecting on my recent experience making the film How To Change The World as a higher degree by research project.  It will examine questions of definition, such as whether the actors and crew on a film should be considered research participants and whether making a distinction between publishing the creative work and publishing the research is a viable way forward.  While Human Research Ethics Committees do not commonly make unreasonable demands in resolving these issues for screen production researchers, the paper will argue there is value in clarifying the status of screen production research in relation to ethics approval and encouraging greater consistency in the operation of the ethics approval process in this area.

Bio:

Leo Berkeley is the Discipline Head (Media, Journalism, Screen & Music) within the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. He also has considerable experience as an independent filmmaker, having written and directed the feature film, Holidays on the River Yarra, which was an official selection for the Cannes Film Festival in 1991.  More recently he has developed an interest in a new media form called “machinima”. A machinima work he produced, Ending With Andre, screened at the 2005 Machinima Film Festival in New York. In 2008 he has also made a micro-budget feature film called How To Change The World.