NEWSLETTER
Winter 03/04
GETTING
IT MADE: Tate Britain
- 27 March Money,
technology and the critical questions around creativity have impacted
dramatically on the formation of British film and video. This day will
explore the various avenues that have changed the production, distribution
and look of the moving image. Have artists found new ways of funding
their work? How has the ever shifting commercial and public sector relationship
affected creative practices? What might the advent of new technologies
bring to the making of new film and video? Artists, filmmakers, critics,
broadcasters and historians come together to explore the many and varied
influences and shifts in contemporary practice. Key presentations
will be given by Mike Figgis, director of Cold Creek Manor and
Hotel, and Lynne Ramsay, director of Morvern Callar and
Ratcatcher. OFF-SCREEN
SPACES: University of
Ulster, Coleraine - 28-30 July This major
international conference will explore the relationship between 'global'
popular culture and various definitions of 'local' culture. Crucial
to an understanding of this relationship is the concept of 'the region'
as this has become reconfigured by global economic and cultural forces.
Regional cultures exist in relation to and in opposition to dominant
national cultures in complex and contradictory ways. National cultures
themselves are often posited as regional cultures in opposition to the
global and the concept of 'critical regionalism' has been canvassed
as a challenge to global conformity. On the other hand, in line with
the strategies of multinational corporations more generally, multinational
software manufacturers have divided the global market into 'regions'
for the purpose of controlling the DVD market. This would suggest that,
despite the fact that regional cultures seem to offer alternatives to
the global market there appears to be nothing intrinsically challenging
or radical in the concept of the region. The conference
will explore the complex and contradictory relationships among the local,
the regional, the national and the global and assess the implications
for both media representation and local, national and transnational
audio-visual policy. Central to discussions will be the concept of comparative
film studies and a number of papers will address the rationale and theoretical
implications of comparative media research. Following
Sylvia Harvey's appointment to a new chair at the university of Lincoln,
the final phase of the Film and Broadcasting Policy strand will be based
at Lincoln, with Margaret Dickinson as Senior Research Fellow and Kathrein
Guenther as Junior Fellow. This phase
will cover the period 1985 to 2000, from the point when the Conservative
Government effectively dismantled the post WW2 structure of film support
and regulation, through the beginnings of co-ordinated European media
policy under the MEDIA programmes, up to the formation of the UK Film
Council as a new unitary body. It will cover the appearance of Channel
4 as a new force in British production, becoming a major player in brokering
international co-productions (such as Secrets and Lies). The steady
fall in domestic cinema attendance reversed in the late 80s as multiplex
construction spearheaded a revival of confidence in exhibition, despite
the emergence of home video as a potential competitor. Inter-preting
the dynamics of this period of British film policy promises to be a
fascinating subject. Paradoxes
of identity. Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste toast their
new relationship in Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies (1996), a
quintessentially English film largely financed by France. By mapping
the growth of this dynamic new industry and entertainment medium, year
by year, it will become possible to trace for the first time how moving
pictures were shaped by the economic and social geography of the capital
- and how they in turn helped shape the 'imperial metropolis' of Edwardian
London. Such a realization has been largely missing from the accounts
of London's historians, beyond a token acknowledgment of the spread
of 'super cinemas'. But film was already an important business, transforming
lives and fortunes for a decade before these appeared. It has
also been missing in any systematic form from the work of British film
historians, ever since Rachael Low drew attention to the wide disparity
of contemporary estimates as long ago as 1948. Most subsequent studies
have concentrated instead on the work of individual producers (John
Barnes), or on pervasive aspects of exhibition such as the shift from
music halls and 'penny gaffs' to purpose-built cinema halls (Michael
Chanan). As a result, we have only an impressionistic view of how production
and exhibition actually developed during the period up to 1914 - a period
that was crucial in witnessing Britain's early lead in both production
and exhibition decline, to the point where foreign suppliers were the
majority suppliers to a burgeoning exhibition sector by 1914. The study
will involve, first, collation and assessment of existing published
materials, both primary and secondary. These will include the early
film trade press, and major works of synthesis such as Rachael Low and
Georges Sadoul; as well as sampling of contemporary newspaper and ephemera
sources. A second phase is envisaged as the study in depth of selected
areas of London, using local history archives, to determine through
'micro studies' the pattern production and exhibition development, together
with associated factors such as transport and housing density. Where
were cinemas created? And how did audiences reach them? Why did studios
move and how did they develop, as production became more elaborate. Presenting
the results will involve tabulation and databases. But it should also
include an accessible visual display, which will allow trends to be
seen, year by year, and compared. There will be issues of coverage to
decide. How far beyond Central or Greater London should the study reach?
What attention should be paid to the parallel development of other forms
of mechanised or 'mass' entertainment, such as music hall, theatre,
dance halls? A series of seminars will convened during 2004 to canvass
expert opinion on these matters; and also to identify likely members
of the Advisory Panel. It is hoped to appoint a Senior Research Fellow
to lead the project by March.
LOOKING
FORWARD TO 04/05
EVENTS
Contemporary Film and Video
Regionalism and Globalised Cultures
PROJECTS
FILM
AND BROADCASTING POLICY MOVES TO LINCOLN
THE
LONDON PROJECT
By a timely coincidence, the London Assembly's report on current cinema
provision across London boroughs, Picture Perfect?, appeared just as
the Centre's' London' project got under way at the end of 2003. This
project will study the growth of the moving picture industry during
its first twenty years, from 1894-1914, within the area which saw its
most explosive development. One important feature will be the correlation
of knowledge about exhibition as well as production, and studying the
emergence during this period of distribution as a distinct sector of
the trade.