Dr Laura Taylor

BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants SRG (2024) Supporting the researchers with Technical and Creative Surround and Binaural soundscapes for a Podcast. My Personal Research Output is a study of movement and sound and where the audience might listen from and why, in immersive podcasts.

A documentary Film about Magda a woman living with Dementia and the impact that this has on her family.

A 10 minute Fiction Film exploring women, gender and aging. Laura's research explores foley as an embodied creative practice.

(2023) VR/180 Film, 1 day workshop and sound recording, Research project led by the University of Birmingham and LBU

Time Network artist Debbie Harman, explores the future after coal while paying homage to the mining past. The work' seeks to deepen our connection with the land through sensory ethnography and sound.' An immersive film installation rooted in memory and renewal. Inspired by Kellingley Colliery, the UK's last deep coal mine, it explores grief, legacy, and transformation in a post-coal world through film, sound, and virtual reality.

Bringing together the seemingly opposing modes of self-shooting and participatory filmmaking is entirely possible. This paper focuses on these critical elements of current documentary filmmaking practice and argues that adopting modes used in cocreation is a useful tool when approaching low budget filmmaking. As we move into the realms of virtual production, extended reality, AI and interactive modes, it becomes ever more urgent to find new ways of working beyond the authored hierarchies that we often find in documentary film production in the UK. Participatory modes, defined by the decentralisation of power (Nash et al., 2014, p.19) or negotiated collaboration (Rabiger, 2009, p.50), acknowledge that when crew and subjects work as co-collaborators, exciting, dynamic work can follow. Interesting things may happen. Initially this way if working may seem at odds with self-shooting documentaries. It can be a successful tool for enabling the immediacy coveted by observational documentary forms through capturing the spontaneous. Nichols (1991) suggests that control is a big part of why small crews gained momentum, as people believed it was easier to be inconspicuous (Nicholls, 1991, p.14). Kim Longinotto’s sentiment that filmmaking is a team effort is an interesting perspective, arguing that “It’s the sound person and the editor who make it work, it’s just a shame that only one gets to be called the director” (Gal, 2015). There is a connection between intimacy and technology, and this is why the self-shooter has become a successful element documentary film practice. The person pointing the camera is also the person talking to the ‘subject’. The demystification of the ‘person with the camera’ is a helpful device in such documentary modes if we remember that, traditionally, it is unusual for camera operators to directly address subjects if a director is present and modifying this relationship can prove successful. This paper will examine what it means to be a self-shooting documentary filmmaker in today’s fast changing world.

Fighting or Talking – A documentary film There have been numerous attempts to quantify mode, narrative, style and structure within the documentary form, with John Corner (1997), Bill Nichols (1991, 2017), Erik Barnouw (1974, 1993); Paul Ward (2005), Toni de Bromhead (1996) and Stella Bruzzi (2006) being widely cited. Pinning down the documentary form continues to be of interest to the academic world. Between 2016 and 2024 I made a documentary film with fellow academic Anna Zaluczkowska and recent graduate of the Northern Film School Natalie Mayer. The ‘subject’ was a woman living with dementia and her family, as a group, we wanted to shine a light on living with dementia and its impact on carers. There were no runners, boom operators, or directors of photography, just three women sharing roles including operating cameras, recording sound, directing and producing. The family saw rough cuts of the film and were invited to respond during the editing process. The film was made as a response to the rapidly changing environment that filmmakers find themselves in, it is necessary to bring together a critique of current practice and to define a new mode of representation that brings into focus ways of working with technology, story and people for a modern audience. Bringing together the seemingly apposing modes of self-shooting and participatory filmmaking is entirely possible and this research focuses on these critical elements of current documentary filmmaking practice and argues that adopting modes used in cocreation is a useful tool when approaching low budget filmmaking

An original Urban/Fantasy/Thriller webisode, Shot with a micro crew on a small budget. The series currently has over 2,800 hits on Youtube. The webisode is a fascinating, emerging format that can draw in substantial audience numbers. Freedom from the commissioning process is very appealing to filmmakers, production values on www sites such as Vimeo and Youtube are increasingly high and the number of hits that a programme can achieve is comparable to some broadcast figures. Laura’s research is focused around the around the methodology and working practices within the micro crew and self-shooting director/producer model of filmmaking. Themes emerged not just around the impact of advancement of technology in recent years (HD and SFX) but also around the impact of collaboration within small crews, who can now achieve high quality looking results in creative and complex pieces of work.

Traditionally a film crew is made up of a collection of highly skilled people, including a producer, assistant producer, director, director of photography and sound recordist, amongst many other roles. Over the last decade in the UK, crew members working on factual broadcast productions have depleted. It is now common practice for one person to be responsible for producing the whole programme, undertaking the camera operating, sound recording and research of the film, as well as being responsible for the overall content. This role is known as the ‘shooting director/producer’ (DP). TV companies want you to be able to Produce, Direct, and Shoot your own films. It's claimed that it makes documentaries more authentic, contributors feel more relaxed, and of course, production companies save money. How can we make this the best experience it can be for the maker? This paper explores themes method, technology and form and includes discussion from working self-shooters and shared good practice from across the field. It’s particularly important in an industry that is becoming ever more fragmented, where holistic long-term decisions are rare and commissions are often made on the basis of how quickly a programme can be turned around and which production company will offer the least risk.

Music mixing for a 24 hour performance event. 3pm Saturday 4th April and 3pm Sunday 5th April 2009 ELFM is a community radio station broadcasting in East Leeds since 2003. In that time over 3,800 people aged between 3 and 100 years old have been into one of the ELFM studios and ended up on the air. With audiences of over 10,000 people, ELFM has two current strands – developing excellent community journalism and promoting the best in local music. The Musicathon: “Hereʼs the concept. We get as many people to come and play live in a 24-hour continuous broadcast. A kind of day-long live-lounge. And whatʼs more, we do it in Seacroft Methodist Chapel – a beautiful old chapel currently disused, but crying out for a new life. So with two studios – one of which includes the possibility of singing from the pulpit and playing the original church organ – weʼre talking about a very special Later (and later and later) without Jools Holland but with a special invited audience in the pews.” Laura undertook the 12-hour night shift as the sound-mixing engineer for the live Musicathon. Since this event, ELFM have raised all the money they need to go ahead with the development of chapELFM: the first-ever dedicated arts venue in East Leeds.

Interrogating the role of traditional production practice in modern immersive filmmaking. Creating the soundscape, testing modes of practice on location.

An interactive film testing experimental practice in immersive film production. Themes include, production hierarchies, technology and its role in modern storytelling.

Getting de Menezes is a 14 minute movie that recreates the last minutes of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent man, mistaken for a suicide bomber, and shot by police in a London Tube station. The case represents the entire paradox of security in the miasma of politics and fear. Exhibited in a Chicago Art Gallery in 2009. Producer, sound recordist, designer, voice.

From the late 1990s onwards the factual and documentary television industry has seen a massive change in the way that its content is made; the democratisation of technology and the farming out of budgets to independent production companies has enabled the self-shooting producer/director to thrive in the UK (and beyond). It’s very easy to get caught up in the political elements of this phenomenon - a few minutes on social media platforms or on the film, television and theatre union (BECTU) website will reveal the struggle for fair wages and rights as urgent issues for self-shooters in the industry. But as the self-shooting producer/director becomes a mainstream practice could it be that we are also seeing positive change? 50% of factual directors, a format where self-shooting has become mainstream, are now women, compared to 13% (crewed) for drama episodes (Directors UK, 2017). Has the democratisation of technology enabled women to have a voice in documentary filmmaking?

This programme is supported by Creative Skillset’s Film Skills Fund, with BFI’s Film Forever National Lottery funds, and Directors UK. Raising Films will be holding a series of three one-day personal & career development days across the UK to help those who have taken a career break for caring responsibilities to focus on their goals, plan a route to achieve them and address the specific barriers and challenges they face.

A regular 90 minute radio broadcast for Chapel FM. Discussion and debate around the creative industries, as well as a curated playlist. Producer/Curator

Radio documentary originally made and broadcast in 2003. Part of the Burning Embers exhibition on display at Space2’s new base at the old Gipton Fire Station in Winter 2016/17. Listening to the documentary now demonstrates how much the role of a firefighter and the community have changed since it was first made.

Sound Consultant and Recordist for production company, Rareday on a three-part documentary series, Police Under Pressure, about South Yorkshire Police, which was broadcast on BBC2 in June 2014. Seminar to TV industry practitioners, around the impact of location sound in documentary filmmaking.

Laura wrote a Chapter called Nurturing Enterprise in Work Based Learning – this work brings together case studies and research that she has conducted into Work Based Learning and packages it for a wider audience, with a specific aim of informing placement providers. “To any graduate seeking employment, it is not just about getting a job, it’s being employable throughout life, something that is so important in the film and television industry because of the very nature of the work, with its ever-changing technologies, funding and patterns of work (for example, the growing use of freelances instead of employing staff). Learning the skills is all very well, but they need to be transferred effectively back into the workplace; this is why enterprise is becoming ever more important as a tangible skill and why it is important that it remains a fundamental principle of higher education.”

This film explores the phenomenon of relational performance within contemporary music festivals as an emergent genre of creative communication. What are the implications for making relational or interactive performance for a festival environment where site, audience and context are inherently unstable and unpredictable? In what way do changes in the festival environment impact upon the manner in which work is performed and how are the interactions that ensue negotiated differently according to changes in context? In what ways do festival-goers respond to performative encounters within the festival site and how does this differ across a range of environments? The film followed academic researchers, working in partnership with Urban Angels Circus over a two-year period as they developed a commissioned piece of interactive performance that then toured to three different contemporary music festivals. Each festival was chosen to provide a different 'environment for encounter' so that a comparative analysis could be made and the research questions addressed. The film was shot at two UK festivals that have distinctly different cultural contexts and a third European festival.

This thesis proposes a new documentary ‘mode’, the ‘experiential mode’, which is characterised by a focus on co-production and intimacy. Bill Nichols’ seven documentary modes of representation (Nichols, 1994, 2017) are used as a point of departure for this investigation. It is argued that the observational mode has become particularly problematic for filmmakers and that hybridisation of existing modes is not the only effective solution to this problem. The research brings together evidence illustrating new approaches and insights emerging in the field to be analysed so that they can be used and replicated by other filmmakers, academics, arts praxis researchers and students. Through a multi-modal methodology incorporating autoethnography and participatory action research, the thesis comprises of the practice, which is a series of short, filmed tests and a forty-minute experiential documentary film called Fighting or Talking (accessible via Google Drive (here) or Vimeo (here)) and this commentary. The work systematically and rigorously maps out the reasons for a new documentary mode by examining the process of documentary filmmaking against current practice in the field and drawing upon the experiences of the filmmaker/academic and industry practitioners. Participatory action research offers a practical structure for analysis in the form of a series of reflective-action cycles, so that practice can be reflected on and reworked leading up to the final film, Fighting or Talking. Documentary films are now being consumed at an unprecedented rate and this work considers ways for filmmakers to work with contributors, it offers a way to engage them and to build an equitable partnership, foregrounding trust and empathy, which results in the intimacy so coveted by documentary filmmakers.

Location Sound Supervisor/Sound Designer MANSFIELD 66/67 is about the last two years of movie goddess Jayne Mansfield's life, and the rumours swirling around her untimely death.

This chapter discusses the forms and prospects of cinema and film.