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As scholars in the Graduate Institute of Studies in Documentary & Film Archiving of Tainan National University of the Arts (TNNUA) have observed, the style of documentaries has gradually homogenized after year 2000; thus, they propose to make transition of “models” – from “model of creation” to “model of research;” from “model of creator” to “model of de-creator.” Taking the production process of documentaries as a teaching method is among the changes they proposed. In 2013, Taijiang Branch of TNNUA opened a new course – “Documentary of Taijiang – A Full Record of China Petrochemical Development Corporation An-Shun Site,” of which I took the role of lecturer. During the course, what I did was more than acting as a technical instructor or simply expecting my students to complete their works, but using the process as a teaching method, and let the students acquire human accomplishments such as communication, sense of equality, empathy, observation, organization and empowerment through filming the documentary. There are two layers of significance in the course. The first is I, as an instructor, use the making of the documentary as a teaching method; the second is I, as a producer, make the documentary with the mean of mobile research, and guide the students through this method as well. The students and I collaborate with each other in objectives such as setting goals, solving filming-related issues, learning filming techniques, collecting our knowledge and efforts, film-editing, and communicating to the society with acquired knowledge. This is an attempt to bring documentary making into continuing education and to promote knowledge liberation, also to open up the possibility of documentaries as a way of social participation.
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