In collaboration with three Penn GSE graduate and PhD students, Diana Lalata, Hidy Li, and Patrice Eugene, the documentary film The Chronicles of CAMRA explores the history and significance of the Collective for Advancing Multimodal Research Arts, a student-led organization established at the University of Pennsylvania. CAMRA fosters collaboration between scholars, artists, and educators to expand academic research using multimedia approaches, such as visual and audio presentations. With individual interviews and a showcase of past projects, we highlight different CAMRA member perspectives and explore their journeys and roles within the organization. We also examine the politics and challenges of multimodal practices, efforts to democratize research scholarship, and their hopes for CAMRA’s future. This documentary invites members to share their stories, research focus, and their thoughts on the evolving role of multimedia in making knowledge more accessible in academia.

Course: Ethnographic Filmmaking

Medium: Because this course focused on film, it was fitting that the final artifact is a film. I also want to emphasize and celebrate the course goal of positioning filmmaking as a qualitative research method. To illustrate the depth and complexity of this approach, below are all of components we had to submit in addition to the film.