Current Development FoldersWhat is actually being read, called about and walked through this season.
Projects in progress
DEV-014Estate names that travelled· Reading phase

Following land titles that left the Caribbean with a family name attached, and trying to work out which versions of the story the archive actually supports.

DEV-019What was told at the kitchen table· Interview cycle

Oral history work with three families about what they were told growing up, versus what the certificates, registers and shipping lists say.

DEV-022Records that do not sit in one place· Archive scoping

Mapping where the same person appears across plantation ledgers, compensation claims, parish books and family papers — and where the trail breaks.

DEV-024The land that nobody quite owned· Notes only

A long shelf of voice notes and location photos about a piece of land that several family branches each consider theirs. May never become a film.

From the development folder
Daniel MacKinnon Roberts — portrait of a documentary producer working on historical development
Daniel MacKinnon Roberts, documentary producer in historical development, photographed in his Auckland workspace between two long-running Caribbean history projects.
Daniel MacKinnon Roberts researching Caribbean history and archive records
Daniel MacKinnon Roberts reading through archive material for a Caribbean history project — the kind of slow work that may or may not become a film.
Daniel MacKinnon Roberts, Auckland-based documentary producer in historical development
Daniel MacKinnon Roberts at his Auckland desk, where most of the development reading, transcript work and family phone calls happen.
Daniel MacKinnon Roberts reviewing archival leads and family memory material
Daniel MacKinnon Roberts going back through archival leads and family memory notes for a project about land that nobody quite owned.