The more I think about this the more I think back to my early training
in film and video. One of the things I really appreciate about the
film production model starts off from the premise that you need
several skillsets in order to make one thing and that the
collaboration works pretty seamlessly.
Broadly, those roles fall under the three pillars of Producer,
Director and Director of Photography. Everyone else fans out
underneath and there is interaction between those people, but also
deep respect for the others' art. Props people don't move lights, for
example, they'll ask a lighting person to do it. Other decisions move
up one pillar and down the other. So a second camera assistant won't
ask the Director about something directly, they'll ask the DP who will
ask the Director. And so it goes on.
This process works very well, by and large and each area has its
specialists, it's 'blueprints' (the script, the shooting script, the
storyboard, the lighting schema, etc., etc.) but all of it is aimed at
one goal - the film. That doesn't stop disagreements and discussion
and it certainly doesn't erode creative thinking, quite the opposite.
Sometimes people move around roles too and sometimes those roles
collapse together on smaller teams - a DP might also handle the
sound, the Director might also be the DP, etc. The smallest being a
director, writer, producer, cameraperson and editor being the a single
person. All of these people - from the electrician to the Director are
involved in filmmaking. All those people are filmmakers, each has a
speciality.
I have often wondered why this hasn't happened in our area and the
reason is that what our (broader) community suffers from isn't a lack
of role definition, it's a lack of a single goal and medium.
We used to be able to say we were in 'new media' - that rubbish, but
fairly all encompassing term. Interactive media used to be a useful
term because interactivity was a defining feature of 'new media', but
interaction design's role on the software parts bleeds into the
hardware and vice versa. The use of the kinds of techniques and
approaches have both borrowed from and contributed to a much wider
range of forms (you know the list - it's pretty much every single role
discussed on this list).
What is different about film is that there is much less division
between the creative and technical amongst the crew. Perhaps the
engineers/designers divide is close to the crew/talent divide in film,
but it's different. In our case, the 'talent' is the client or the end
user/interactor.
I don't know if there is a solution to this and this feels somewhat
along the lines of Joshua's comment about boat builders and the sea.
The endless debate about roles is useless and will continue until
someone can point to the thing that we all make. That seems unlikely
to happen any time soon because the stuff that we all get involved in
gets more diverse all the time.
I submit that this is the reason we have this discussion endlessly and
we just have to live with it or forget about it and get on with making
whatever our equivalent of films is.
Best,
Andy
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Andy Polaine
Interaction & Experience Design +
Service Design Research +
Writing
Twitter: apolaine
Skype: apolaine
http://www.polaine.com
http://www.designersreviewofbooks.com
http://www.omnium.net.au
http://www.antirom.com
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