How to preserve the visible content of films in visual form throughout the analytical process?

Abstract

This article demonstrates an analytical and arts-based approach using drawings as tools to retain the visual information in a film visual, throughout the research process as well as for thinking. The approach brings in methods and theory from disciplines using visual materials as data: Visual Anthropology, Ethnomethodology/Conversation Analysis (EMCA), Art History and Film Studies. Furthermore, tools and reflections on how to sketch, draw and construct analytical images using paper and pen, technical tools such as features in movie players and image processing software, and basic drawing apps on a tablet, are presented and demonstrated in empirical examples from a study on preschool naptime. The drawn analysis are abstractions of the visual data where certain visual aspects, visible in the film, are re-used thus creating a direct link between the film and the drawing that preserve visual aspects of the original throughout the research process. This gains new knowledge, further and different knowledge than just using words. Also, the drawings address ethical issues as children’s right to anonymity in a study. The visual remake is proposed as a term for this arts-based approach to highlight, enhance and visualise the features of films that are of special interest to an enquiry and facilitate comparative analysis.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the anonymous referees for their constructive critical engagement with the paper.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

[1] For a further discussion on naptime, see Grunditz (2018, 2013) and Grunditz, Lindgren, and Frankenberg (2019).

[2] In total, I found 14 films from the period 1914–1966 visualising preschools. Six of them depicted some sort of naptime practice. During the period 1929–1956, these films have the character of a newsreel or are more or less documentaries.

[3] In total: recordings from 19 naptimes over a period of three + eight weeks.

[4] If a film were shot in a studio, there might not be any more of the room than what is seen.

[5] Floorplans are drawings, to scale, seen from above, showing the spatial organisation of the layout of a building.

[6] Inquescribe.

[7] I used a free Ipad app: SketchBookX.

[8] I used the transcription software Inquscribe.

[9] I used the basic drawing software SketchBookX and a stylus on an iPad.

[10] The third of these images is the same as Figure 4b.

[11] For details on blankets at naptime see Grunditz (2013).

[12] For more elaborate results on naptime, see Grunditz (2018) and Grunditz, Lindgren, and Frankenberg (2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sofia Grunditz

Sofia Grunditz (PhD) a senior lecturer in the section of Early Childhood Education at the Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University. She has a special interest in Arts-based research, Visual Methodology and Ethnomethodology. In her research, she uses visual materials, films and photographs, in different sorts of ethnographic studies when exploring everyday life in historical and contemporary preschools.Sofia Grunditz Email: [email protected]