For this project people were randomly approached to shoot a bit of film that to them represented their environment, life in London or the city. The aim initially was to sketch a portrait of London as its residents view it. In all 46 people shot bits of film for this project and gave comments, opinions and feelings about the city to describe their contributions. All this material was later joined into one narrative and the final script of the film- therefore essentially the story was written by a number of people. The project used an improvisational approach to storytelling and narrative building, which almost invisibly, also manifest itself in an editing process that was derived from the participatory shooting methodology and user input.
As the project grew it churned out a huge amount of content which came to me in various forms such as footage, sound, comments, opinions, personal accounts, conversation, scribbles, notes, and even merely ideas or thoughts. Although it posed a rather robust editorial challenge; at the same time the diverse content itself suggested the methodology of weaving all these forms into a cohesive narrative, which in turn guided the development and refining of this experiment into an organizational and logistical approach for working in film as a participatory media.
This experiment 's success has been in creating a working model for participatory film/video projects that can be used as effective tools for communities and focus groups to create collaborative expressions. This is a versatile model that can be adapted to any kind of local, national or international communities to address issued of politics, economics, history, culture, heritage, environment etc.
