After the facts: These edits are my thoughts

This article considers the underlying research project of the short documentary After the Facts (Pearlman et al 2018), and discusses its large scale inquiry in to creative practice, distributed cognition and feminist film histories. The research methodology of the inquiry involves embodied creative practice and analysis of specific actions in that practice, as done in my own filmmaking, and as can be seen in others’ filmmaking work. Analysis of filmmaking ‘thinking’ processes demonstrates that filmmaking creativity is an instance of distributed cognition. (See Pearlman 2018a, Pearlman, MacKay & Sutton 2018). Once we understand that ‘thinking’ doesn’t just happens in the brains of individuals, but arises through entangled engagements of brains, bodies and world, we can look at women in early film and see that what they were doing as more than “just helping”. Although their ideas may not be documented on paper, we can see the evidence of their creative and intellectual work by looking at the films themselves.