Couple 3 Filmmaking Handbook*
The Couple 3 filmmaking handbook outlines the values, guidelines and protocols we aim to enact in every project we work on. Read more about its genesis and implementation on our 2020 feature film LAPSIS in this essay for Talkhouse by Couple 3 Founding Partner Noah Hutton.
Our handbook is a constantly evolving text and lives in a shared, collaborative format, publicly accessible here. We encourage its dissemination and adaptation into other settings and disciplines (the handbook is available for non-commercial remix and reuse via Creative Commons standards).
This document emerged from a fruitful collaboration between filmmakers from Couple 3 and a marine science laboratory known as CLEAR (Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research, https://civiclaboratory.nl/). Dr. Max Liboiron, Director of CLEAR, was the focus of a short documentary called Guts which Couple 3 Films shot in 2018 and which was released by The Atlantic in 2019. As part of the early discussions about making the documentary, Dr. Liboiron asked that the filmmakers go through the same training process that any of the new CLEAR members would encounter, and thus for the filmmakers to become full members of CLEAR in conjunction with their documentation of the lab itself. As a result of this direct engagement with the values that guide CLEAR, the filmmakers from Couple 3 came to reexamine their own filmmaking practice, first as a critical reflection on “extractive filmmaking,” then as a more general examination of relations and values in the film industry at large.
As a result of this encounter with CLEAR, an earlier version of this handbook was created to serve as a framework for the film production work we do. Because it is meant to remain as a living document, updated through frequent interaction and dialogue, we renewed our values in 2021 and updated the language of our filmmaking handbook through a process detailed within its pages, following protocols outlined by CLEAR.
While this guide is primarily meant for anyone involved in Couple 3 productions, it may also be useful for partners to understand how we work, for other production companies as inspiration for their own handbooks, and for those generally interested in how all cultural production is based on values.
Couple 3’s foregrounded values are Accountability, Humility, and Humor. The handbook outlines what each of these terms means to us.