The author invites attendees of the Special Session on Film Making for Marketing Research and Communication to have a critical look at the short history of film making in the marketing discipline and foresee its future. There are two perspectives for this discussion: one is a broad overview of film making for consumer behavior research, and the second is the personal reflection of the author who first engaged in film making nine years ago. Film making as a research approach in the academic areas of marketing and consumer behavior is just beginning its early “teenage” years. It counts its formal age from the time it obtained legitimacy when the first Film Festival took place at the Association for Consumer Research Conference in Atlanta, USA, in 2002. Since then, the Film Festival has become an integral part of this major conference that draws together a global academic audience of consumer researchers. In fact, film festivals are now included in the European, Asia-Pacific, and Latin American ACR conferences, and as of 2012, there were more than 125 films accepted into the various ACR Film Festivals (Belk and Kozinets 2012). The current number of accepted films probably exceeds 150, which demonstrates growing interest in film making in the academic discipline of marketing. Russell W. Belk and Robert V. Kozinets,“founding fathers” of the ACR Film Festivals have become instrumental in developing guidance and academic criteria for the novel research approach of videography. Films are expected to be topical, theatrical, theoretical, and technical. That means that 1) the topic under visual investigation should relate to consumer research; 2) the film should flow in a dramatic and engaging way; 3) a theoretical perspective and contribution should be evident; and 4) the film should have good production values (Belk and Kozinets 2012). The author, who started making films without prior expertise after attending a workshop, has since produced four videographies of various lengths and levels of mastery. They have been presented at conferences globally, one was published in a special multi-media issue of an academic journal, two have earned academic awards, and all of them have found use in the classroom. Topic-wise, the films related to consumer research by exploring happiness (“Finding Harmony in the Jungle”), the role of narratives on food product packaging (“It All Began with a Kiss, or When Packaging Sells a Country”), the transformational power of street language (“Red Bull on the Roof of the World or From Landscape into Servicescape”), and the Easternization of the West (“Yoga and Fashion”). The videographies were filmed in Belize, Italy, England, Indonesia (Bali) and China (Tibet). The film making process for the author has been rewarding because of the creative potential that comes with videography and the use of visual channels of communication for academic purposes. Challenges include making sure the films have the necessary rigor to qualify as academic work.

• Maria Kniazeva(University of San Diego)