JISCMail - MECCSA Archives

1 February 2017 Stephen Morgan, 1A159, 1-2.30 pm

Authenticity, Location, and the Transnational Studio: Ealing’s Australian Venture, 1945-1960

In their introduction to The Film Studio: Film Production in the Global Economy (2005), Ben Goldsmith and Tom O'Regan assert that the 'contemporary conjunction of studio and location cuts across two traditions of thinking about cinema, one as a medium of illusion and artifice and the other as a medium of verisimilitude and realism.’In the fifteen-year period following World War Two, Britain’s Ealing Studios made five feature films in Australia, each framed under the broad promise of ‘authenticity’.

In addressing their production history using archival documents and contemporary discussions, I demonstrate the varying approaches to location and studio work on each of the five films. In doing so, I question how these mixed production modes (ie. the blending of location and studio material), shaped, altered, even hindered, Ealing’s attempts to present an ‘authentic’ vision of Australian stories, lives, and landscapes.

Stephen Morgan is an AHRC-funded PhD candidate at King's College London, Stephen Morgan recently submitted his doctoral thesis, entitled 'Ealing Down Under: Nation, Empire, and the Australian Films of Ealing Studios, 1945-1960'. As well as contributing chapters to Ealing Revisited (BFI/Palgrave, 2012) and Film on the Faultline (Intellect, 2015), he has also written for Studies in Australasian Cinema, Reviews in Australian Studies, and Senses of Cinema.

1 March 2017 Dr Catherine Grant, 1A159, 1-2.30 pm

What can the audiovisual 'portrait-homage' do for Star Studies?

In much of the last decade, I have been exploring the production and circulation of user-generated media forms, like blogs and online video, through personal and professional practice in the contexts of film research and scholarship, and digital cinephile culture. One of the kinds of content that I, along with many others, have been drawn to producing are short tribute videos to stars/celebrities who have (just) died. I will show and discuss some of these videos, and reflect on their tributary forms and energies in the contexts both of related, earlier work by artists, such as Joseph Cornell (Rose Hobart, 1936, USA, 19 mins.), Bruce Conner (Marilyn Times Five, 1973, USA, 12 mins.), Mehrnaz Saeedvafa (Jerry and Me, 2012, USA, 38 mins.), and Mark Rappaport, and by scholars, such as Laura Mulvey (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (remix remixed 2013), UK, 2013, 3 mins. 32 seconds), as well as of the adoption of creative critical modes (including audiovisual / videographic ones) in research and teaching in contemporary film and moving image studies.

Dr Catherine Grant teaches and researches film studies at the University of Sussex (UK). She has published widely on theories and practices of film authorship and intertextuality, and has edited volumes on world cinema, Latin American cinema, digital film and media studies, and the audiovisual essay. A prolific video essayist as well as a pioneering publisher and curator of such works (including at Film Studies For Free and Audiovisualcy), she is founding co-editor of the first peer-reviewed publication for audiovisual essays on film and media studies topics, [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies, which was awarded the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Anne Friedberg Innovative Scholarship Award of Distinction for 2015.

5 April 2017 Easter vacation

3 May 2017 Marie-Claire Isaaman, 1A159, 1-2.30 pm

NextGen Skills Academy (NextGen) instigated the Gender Balance Research and Development Programme for the UK Games Industry (GBRDP) in response to the Creative Skillset Employment Census (2012) – which found women under-represented within the UK game industries at only 14% of the workforce – and #GamerGate 2014. The programme was co-funded by the Creative Skillset Skills Investment Fund, an initiative that helps companies invest in the development of skills and talent in games and other creative industries.

The GBRDP launched in December 2014, conducting a survey and interviews with women and employers in the game sector across the United Kingdom. In particular, the survey asked questions regarding women’s experiences of employment, barriers to career progression and other challenges that might be encountered in the workplace. Importantly, the research also sought to identify and explore the obstacles to achieving a gender-balanced workforce companies and organizations face, believing that only by identifying and understanding the perspectives of both employee and employer can practical and workable solutions emerge.

The research was conducted in the aftermath of Gamergate, a series of controversial online attacks on women working in the game industries that began in August 2014 and continued into 2015. These attacks solicited a resilient response from many women (and supportive men), quickly becoming an online ‘culture war’ and receiving extensive exposure in both global game industry and mainstream news media. The long-term impact of this controversy remains unclear. However, this report highlights initial responses to Gamergate within the UK game industries in order to consider its possible impact, and help develop positive strategies to support both women and game companies to counteract attacks of this nature in future.

Based on the findings of this report, this talk will outline the nature of the research conducted and themes that emerged from it, before exploring and evaluating initiatives instigated by NextGen as a response. The discussion will then move onto identify further themes that emerged through deeper analysis of the research before making recommendations for future action.

Marie-Claire Isaaman is the CEO of Women in Games, the not for profit, games industry diversity organisation. She is an Artist, as well as Researcher and Education Consultant of eight years at Norwich University of the Arts, serving as Course Leader on the BA (Hons) Games Art and Design course and Subject Leader on the MA Games course. As Course Leader Marie-Claire grew the course to 40% female, both in student cohort and teaching staff, and last September was the first educator to be inducted into the EA sponsored European Women in Games Hall of Fame.

7 June 2017 Dr Laura Mee, 1A159, 1-2.30

When Stranger Things was released in July 2016, it was not only met with widespread critical acclaim, but labelled as an “instant cult sensation” (Variety) with the potential for niche fan appeal. Given the series’ self-referential approach to the sci-fi/horror hybrid genre to which it loosely belongs and its ample nostalgic allusions to an array of influences, these claims are not unfounded. Stranger Things represents a successful example of the “pre-fabricated” cult text (Hunter 2009) designed to appeal to a specific audience sector by offering multiple opportunities for a knowing viewer to recognise its references.

Still, as this paper argues, viewing Stranger Things as a cult television show marginalises both its broader audience appeal and its engagement with and recycling of recognisable popular culture of the 1980s. Its most obvious and overarching homages are to some of the biggest films, filmmakers, books, games and music of the decade, not least the successful family blockbuster formula popularised by Steven Spielberg. Instead of aiming for ‘authentic’ reproduction, the series blends these references to create a new intertextual product which appeals to a range of viewers with varied tastes and understandings of the texts under consideration. In this way, Stranger Things exemplifies a mode of contemporary communication wherein references to cultural products of the recent past – films, games, and so on – act as a shared language. If “cultishness” generally implies exclusivity (Jancovich 2002), Stranger Things in many ways represents its opposite: its references encourage inclusivity, accessing what Jim Collins has called the “array” of shared signs that form the “fabric” (246) of contemporary life to appeal to a wide audience, one comprised not only of cultists, but also a more general viewership.

Laura Mee is a Lecturer in Film and Television at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Her research focuses on remakes and adaptation, cultural recycling and horror cinema. Caitlin Shaw is an independent scholar and tutor interested in the function of retro and nostalgia in contemporary film and TV, especially in representations of the 1980s.