The Impresario in British Cinema: Bernard Delfont at EMI

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-33
Author(s):  
Andrew Spicer
Keyword(s):  
Risk Taking ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Business Enterprise ◽  
Dynamic Leadership ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
Film Producer ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
Communication Company ◽  
Production Losses

The article argues that Bernard Delfont played a significant role in the development of the British film industry in the 1970s as head of EMI's entertainment division that included film. In contradistinction to existing accounts, it is contended that Delfont provided dynamic leadership to the corporation's policies through the skills and knowledge he had developed as a highly successful theatrical impresario, even if he lacked a detailed understanding of the film industry. Delfont made a series of bold choices. The first was to appoint Bryan Forbes as Head of Film Production in an imaginative attempt to revitalise the British film industry using indigenous resources and talent. The commercial failure of this initiative occasioned Forbes's departure and a more cautious regime under the direction of Nat Cohen. Faced with a rapidly shrinking domestic market, Delfont decided that a thoroughgoing internationalism was the only way to sustain EMI's film business. He sidelined Cohen by appointing two young ‘buccaneers’, Michael Deeley and Barry Spikings in May 1976 to pursue a policy of investing in Hollywood films and producing ‘American’ films financed by British money. This radical strategy was controversial and reconfigured EMI as a ‘supranational’ rather than national film producer. This was intensified by Delfont's boldest move: establishing Associated Film Distributors (AFD) in July 1979, in partnership with his brother Lew Grade's Associated Communication Company, to distribute their companies' films and become a major Hollywood player. Its failure, after only 20 months, coupled with spectacular production losses effectively ended both companies as important film production units. Delfont's career demonstrates the wider significance of the risk-taking impresario in understanding British film as a business enterprise, the importance of the policies and tastes of studio heads and the need to reposition the film industry as part of wider entertainment and leisure provision.

Producing Outside the Box: Creative Strategies in the Work of Betty E. Box, 1957–64

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-374
Author(s):  
John D. Ayres
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Film Production ◽  
World War ◽  
E Box ◽  
Film Producer ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
Working Practices ◽  
Location Shooting ◽  
Second World

This article considers the working practices of British cinema's only major female film producer during the early-to-mid post-Second World War era, Betty E. Box (1915–99). Via reference to her extensive archive at the British Film Institute and the films Campbell's Kingdom (1957), The Wind Cannot Read (1958) and Hot Enough for June (1964), the article charts how Box initially envisaged multi-generational casting for roles that were eventually taken by long-term collaborator Dirk Bogarde. It considers the manner in which she approached the diplomatic complexities of location shooting, with particular focus on Ralph Thomas's military romance The Wind Cannot Read, the first British film to be shot in India for twenty years at the time of its production. The reasoning for Box's ongoing absence, as a female creative figure, from scholarship addressing British cinema, and film production more generally, will also be addressed.

Anthropology, Film Industries, Modularity

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
The World

From Bangladesh and Hong Kong to Iran and South Africa, film industries around the world are rapidly growing at a time when new digital technologies are fundamentally changing how films are made and viewed. Larger film industries like Bollywood and Nollywood aim to attain Hollywood's audience and profitability, while smaller, less commercial, and often state-funded enterprises support various cultural and political projects. The contributors to Anthropology, Film Industries, Modularity take an ethnographic and comparative approach to capturing the diversity and growth of global film industries. They outline how modularity—the specialized filmmaking tasks that collectively produce a film—operates as a key feature in every film industry, independent of local context. Whether they are examining the process of dubbing Hollywood films into Hindi, virtual reality filmmaking in South Africa, or on-location shooting in Yemen, the contributors' anthropological methodology brings into relief the universal practices and the local contingencies and deeper cultural realities of film production. Contributors. Steven C. Caton, Jessica Dickson, Kevin Dwyer, Tejaswini Ganti, Lotte Hoek, Amrita Ibrahim, Sylvia J. Martin, Ramyar D. Rossoukh

The Struggle for History: Lindsay Anderson Teaches Free Cinema

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 312-331
Author(s):  
Erik Hedling
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
General Idea ◽  
Personal View ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Film Producer ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
Television Programme ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Press ◽  
The University

In spring 1986, Lindsay Anderson appeared in a television programme on British cinema. This was part of a series of three under the heading British Cinema: Personal View, produced by Thames Television. Anderson's contribution, Free Cinema 1956–? An Essay on Film by Lindsay Anderson, was written and directed by him. He was also the star of the programme, providing a lecture on the history of British cinema with himself at the very core, although, at the time of the production, Anderson's career was in decline and he was not involved in any film projects. Drawing on press materials, the programme itself and Anderson's personal papers in the University of Stirling library, this article analyses Anderson's personal conception of Free Cinema – according to his understanding, a short-lived documentary movement in the 1950s which eventually transformed itself into a series of feature films in the ensuing decades, particularly his own trilogy If…. (1968), O Lucky Man! (1973) and Britannia Hospital (1982). The polemic in the programme was particularly aimed at the general idea of the British Film Year of 1985 and at the successful film producer David Puttnam, at the time well known for his contribution to what was sometimes called the ‘New British Cinema’ of the 1980s. Anderson, however, dismissed Puttnam as a film-maker concerned only with Oscars and economic success, and instead lauded the qualities of ‘Free Cinema’, a realist, non-conformist and radical aesthetic, as the most artistically rewarding tradition in British cinema. The programme was highly entertaining and was generally well received by the British press, but did not really strengthen Anderson's position within the British film industry, which might, or might not, have been Anderson's intention.

From Film Practice to Data Process

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Atkinson
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Profound Change ◽  
Data Process ◽  
Production Practices ◽  
Digital Film ◽  
Contemporary Britain

From Film Practice to Data Process critically examines the practices of independent digital feature filmmaking in contemporary Britain. The business of conventional feature filmmaking is like no other, in that it assembles a huge company of people from a range of disciplines on a temporary basis, all to engage in the collaborative endeavour of producing a unique, one-off piece of work. The book explicitly interrogates what is happening at the frontiers of contemporary ‘digital film’ production at a key transitional moment in 2012, when both the film industry and film-production practices were situated between the two distinct medium polarities of film and digital. With an in-depth case study of Sally Potter’s 2012 film Ginger & Rosa, drawing upon interviews with international film industry practitioners, From Film Practice to Data Process is an examination of film production in its totality, in a moment of profound change.

Film Production and Consumption in Contemporary Taiwan

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ya-Feng Mon
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Media Convergence ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
And Control ◽  
Depth Interviews

This book uses the potent case study of contemporary Taiwanese queer romance films to address the question of how capitalism in Taiwan has privileged the film industry at the expense of the audience's freedom to choose and respond to culture on its own terms. Interweaving in-depth interviews with filmmakers, producers, marketers, and spectators, Ya-Fong Mon takes a biopolitical approach to the question, showing how the industry uses investments in techno-science, ancillary marketing, and media convergence to seduce and control the sensory experience of the audience-yet that control only extends so far: volatility remains a key component of the film-going experience.

scholarly journals Scene, Aesthetics and Industry Chain: Postmodern Cultural Thinking of Films in 5G Era

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 19-24
Author(s):  
Heqiang Zhou ◽  
Lei Que
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Important Influence ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
Industry Chain ◽  
Chinese Film ◽  
Post Modernism ◽  
The Way ◽  
Film Aesthetics

With the in-depth influence of 5G technology on film art, the postmodern culture contained in it is also becoming more and more obvious. Understanding the context of the 5G era and clarifying the origin of film postmodernism culture will help us deeply analyze the cause of the rise of postmodernism film culture, especially the important influence of the expansion of film application scenes, the innovation of the whole industry chain and the evolution of film aesthetics on the rise of postmodernism film culture. In addition, we should also think deeply about the film culture under the post-modernism of 5G era, and explore the way to stick to the benign development of film creation and film industry. To enhance our cognition and appreciation of post-modern film culture, to give play to the positive factors of post-modern film culture, and to promote the healthy and prosperous development of Chinese film production, creation and industry.

scholarly journals Spotlight on Challenges and Prospect of Directing in Nollywood: A Decade’s Study (2006-2016)

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 100-117
Author(s):  
Kingsley Chukwuemeka Anyira ◽  
Divine Sheriff Uchenna Joe
Keyword(s):  
Survey Research ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Film Production ◽  
View Point ◽  
Data Collation

The art of video film directing is all encompassing as the director deals with virtually all aspects of film production. This comes with herculean challenges that tend to mar the efforts of directors if not properly addressed. Film scholars cum critics have done a lot of work investing the challenges of the Nigerian Video Film industry with little or no effort to directly ascertain the peculiar challenges of each sector of the industry. To this effect, the paper seeks to source from the directors what these challenges have been over the decade in view and as well through the affected, proffer plausible suppositions asmeasure to ameliorate the identified challenges. In doing so, this paper adopts the view point that the director is the author of the film and thus engages the Survey research method wherein Personal interviews are employed as data collation tool and later analyzed with inferences made from the responses. Conclusively, it anchors on the directors’ views of possible ways to improve/enhance the director’s art in future productions.

scholarly journals ‘Pungent Sex’ and ‘Room at the Bottom’: Reframing British Exploitation Films of the 1960s

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Early American ◽  
Cultural Currency ◽  
Production Distribution ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
Exploitation Films ◽  
Exploitation Film ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Exhibition Strategies ◽  
Mode Of Production

Eric Schaefer, in his exploration of the American exploitation industry, has argued that exploitation cinema developed in opposition to mainstream Hollywood products. Furthermore, the topics and subject matter presented in early American exploitation films dealt with subjects Hollywood were unwilling to produce. As a result, the production, distribution and exhibition strategies developed by exploitation filmmakers differed markedly from the American mainstream film industry. However, in Britain (amongst critics and scholars) the exploitation film has no similar defining characteristics and is a term that has been applied to a wide variety of British films without regard to their industrial mode of production, distribution or exhibition. As a result, the cultural currency of the British exploitation film, as it is now understood, has no connection to the films they now describe, and often fails to take into account how these films were originally produced, marketed, distributed and exhibited. In the British film industry during the 1960s, the term ‘exploitation’ was used by the industry to refer to a wide variety of films which are now viewed differently by contemporary critics and academics. In other words, the currency of the term exploitation has changed from its original meaning. Therefore, this article is an attempt to reframe the debate around the meaning of the British exploitation film from the 1960s onwards, and to re-evaluate our understanding of the development of British cinema during this period.

scholarly journals Researching Janet Dean

2021 ◽  
pp. 205-212
Author(s):  
Christina Lane
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Television Production ◽  
Star Power ◽  
American Television ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
Growing Medium ◽  
Film Producer ◽  
Production Practices

The 1954 American television series Janet Dean, Registered Nurse (1954–1955) capitalised on the star power of its lead Ella Raines, business heft of CBS executive William Dozier, and cache of film producer Joan Harrison. Though a brainchild of Raines’, the series relied heavily on Harrison’s decades of nuts-and-bolts experience producing Hollywood films. It became a vehicle for both women to pool their creative talents, advance a growing medium, and comment on contemporary social issues. This contribution to the dossier considers the methodological challenges posed by analysing this instance of female collaboration in 1950s television production. It represents an effort to excavate undocumented production practices and women’s creativity, while decentring prevailing historical narratives surrounding the “great genius” male executive.

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