From camera to collaboration: procedural transparency in video essay methodology

Drawing on a study with former combatants of the Cenepa War in Ecuador, we provide an end-to-end account of collaborative video essay production, from pre-production (aesthetic design, materials selection, and interview design) through production (filming, sound capture, and collaborative collection of historical materials) to post-production (data organisation, editing scripts, montage, voice-over, and versioned revision). We argue that technical choices are inseparable from analytic intent and ethical practice. Treating ethics as embedded in workflow, we show how process consent, staged withdrawal options, and iterative participant review redistribute interpretive authority and mitigate risks associated with visibility, representation, and digital circulation in sensitive war-related research. By making procedural labour and decision-making explicit, we offer practical guidance for researchers adopting videographic methods in historical and qualitative inquiry while strengthening methodological credibility, transferability, and participant agency. Moreover, our paper is a collaborative videographic methods article with case-grounded illustration and limited AI-assisted post-production.