scholarly journals EMI and the ‘Pre-heritage’ Period Film

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-76
Author(s):  
Claire Monk
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Industry Conditions ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
English Heritage

First coined in the UK in the early 1990s as a new label for an ostensibly new, post-1979 kind and cycle of period cinema, the ‘heritage film’ is now firmly established as a widely used term and category in academic film studies. Although the heritage film’s defining features, ideological character and ontological coherence would remain debated, its status as a ‘new’ category hinges, self-evidently, on the presumption that the films of post-1979 culturally English heritage cinema marked a new departure and were clearly distinct from their pre-Thatcher-era precursors. Yet, paradoxically, the British period/costume films of the preceding decade, the 1970s, have attracted almost no scholarly attention, and none which connects them with the post-1979 British heritage film, nor the 1980s cultural and industry conditions said to have fostered these productions with those of the 1970s. This article pursues these questions through the prism of Britain’s largest film production and distribution entity throughout 1970–86, EMI, and EMI’s place as a significant and sustained, but little-acknowledged, force in British period film production throughout that time. In so doing, the article establishes the case for studying ‘pre-heritage’ period cinema. EMI’s period film output included early proto-heritage films but also ventured notably wider. This field of production is examined within the broader terrain of 1970s British and American period cinema and within wider 1970s UK cinema box-office patterns and cultural trends, attending to commercial logics as well as to genre and the films' positioning in relation to the later heritage film debates.

We’re All Backing Britain?

2019 ◽  
pp. 142-168
Author(s):  
David Thackeray
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Market Research ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Foreign Markets ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Uk

Chapter 5 considers the role that Britannic loyalism played in various facets of everyday life in the UK and the Dominions, exploring developments in the fields of advertising and market research, attempts to promote Commonwealth collaboration in non-fiction film production and distribution, and the politics of post-war patriotic trade campaigns. The dismantling of import controls in the late 1950s and early 1960s led to a revival in patriotic trade campaigns. However, such campaigns increasingly came to be seen as outmoded during these years, jeopardizing trade with growing foreign markets. Moreover, changes in the advertising and marketing industries, and the growth of market research, discouraged businesses from making undifferentiated appeals to national markets. Earlier ideas that consumers across the British World had broadly similar interests and tastes were comprehensively challenged with the expansion of segmented marketing.

Becoming a Global Producer: Creative and Industrial Change at Post-Studiocanal RED

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-326
Author(s):  
Christopher Meir
Keyword(s):  
Video On Demand ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Industrial Change ◽  
Export Markets ◽  
Literary Adaptation ◽  
The North ◽  
Industrial Landscape ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
Critical Scrutiny ◽  
The Uk

Up until late 2013, RED Production was considered one of the UK's premier independent producers. In December of that year, 51 per cent of the company was sold to Studiocanal, the production and distribution arm of France's Canal+, a pay-television provider with an increasingly global orientation. Although the UK trade press has continued to label RED as an ‘indie’, this article argues that the investment by a much larger multinational corporation marks a watershed moment in RED's history. While the company's trajectory since the takeover shows many artistic continuities with the previous fifteen years – including continuing collaboration with key writers and a dedication to shooting and setting stories in the north of England – there have also been significant changes to some of the company's long-standing practices that require critical scrutiny. The article will document and analyse a number of these, taking as case studies the series created after the investment and distributed by Studiocanal as well as a number of projects reported to be in development since that point. Collectively these changes have seen RED shift from what Andrew Spicer and Steve Presence have called its ‘rooted regionalism’ to being a more globally oriented producer, a change apparent in the settings of some of its shows. It has also seen the company embrace artistic practices – such as literary adaptation and the remaking of existing series and films – that it had long eschewed. The article seeks to explore what has been gained and lost by RED as it has embarked on this global strategy, a strategy that becomes all the more urgent as the industrial landscape of British television is transformed by the importance of international export markets and the growing power of subscription video on demand (SVOD) services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix.

From Conan the Barbarian to Gunan il guerriero: Re-contextualizing spaghetti sword and sorcery

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfio Leotta
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
Sword And Sorcery ◽  
Italian Film ◽  
The Aesthetic

The release of Conan the Barbarian (1982) played a crucial role in the emergence of the sword and sorcery film, a subgenre of fantasy cinema featuring muscular heroes in violent conflict with wizards and other supernatural creatures. Italian genre filmmakers attempted to capitalize on the international popularity of sword and sorcery by quickly producing a number of low-budget films, which emulated the stylistic and narrative features of Conan. Over a period of six years, between 1982 and 1987, the Italian film industry produced almost two dozen sword and sorcery films, which achieved mixed results at the box office. Although recently an increasing number of international film scholars have focused on the critical examination of Italian genre cinema, to date, little attention has been devoted to the study of Italian sword and sorcery. By examining the aesthetic features of four Italian sword and sorcery films (Gunan il guerriero [1982], Ator l’invincibile [1982], Hercules [1983] and The Barbarians [1987]), as well as their modes of production and distribution, this article proposes the first comprehensive critical examination of this filone.

Global and local rhetorics at a public-facing private company: Studiocanal and French cinema

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-327
Author(s):  
Christopher Meir
Keyword(s):  
International Market ◽  
International Markets ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Home Market ◽  
French Cinema ◽  
Private Company ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
Made In

This article utilizes Canal+’s film production and distribution subsidiary Studiocanal as a way to understand both companies’ impacts on French cinema since the formation of the subsidiary in the early 1990s. As such, the article is structured as a chronology and an analysis of the major films made in French and financed by Studiocanal in terms of their critical and popular reception. The article also examines the talent relationships underpinning this production and the trajectories of the various stars, writers, directors, and producers who worked on the films as well as the executives who oversaw them. Finally, the article analyzes the corporate rhetoric that was advanced by both Studiocanal and Canal+ over the years to position itself in the French and international markets. Synthesizing these branches of the analysis and noting certain cyclical patterns, the article argues that Studiocanal’s relationship to French cinema has been complex and changeable, at times limited in favor of pursuing the international market, at times devoting ample amounts of rhetoric and resources to pursuing success in its home market. Moreover, the article demonstrates that the company’s production activities have helped to mold a generation of French filmmakers and industry executives who have in turn gone on to influential careers. Looking forward, the article concludes by arguing that by virtue of its size and scale as a producer and distributor, Studiocanal will always be a significant player in French cinema.

British film production and the horror genre

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johnny Walker
Keyword(s):  
Horror Films ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Home Video ◽  
Horror Genre ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
Distinctive Aspect ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Audience Demographics ◽  
New Millennium

Chapter 2 contemplates why British horror was revived at the dawning of the new millennium, and also considers some of the reasons why British horror films produced in the 2000s and 2010s can be viewed as constituting a distinctive aspect of contemporary British cinema. I discuss the establishment of the UK Film Council (UKFC) in 2000 and contextualise the contemporary British horror film in the international film marketplace, drawing parallels between British horror and British film production more broadly, British horror and international horror production, and the audience demographics targeted by distributers and film production companies. This involves examining British horror’s shift from a theatrical genre to one associated primarily with the home video and online market.

‘It’s Just a Matter of Time’

2018 ◽  
pp. 13-18
Author(s):  
Michael Blyth
Keyword(s):  
Film Production ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Previous Decade ◽  
New Ideas

This chapter discusses the cinematic horror landscape at the time John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness was first released, explaining why the film was so unfairly neglected in 1995. It is often acknowledged among horror fans that the early 1990s was not the strongest period in the genre's history. In fact, it has been argued that the first half of the decade represented one of the most significant lulls that US horror cinema has been witness to, with the volume of film production, box office takings, and overall audience interest hitting an all-time low. Of course, such lulls can only ever really come after a boom, and the previous decade had been a highly prolific and profitable time for the genre. But while the 1980s were littered with innovative horror classics, it is also recognised as the era of the sequel, a time when the franchise reigned supreme and horror cinema became less about striving for new ideas than the increasingly cynical (but lucrative) expansion of those which had come before. Ultimately, not only did In the Mouth of Madness debut during the closing moments of this significant horror depression, it came at a time when no one was expecting great things from its director.

An Attempt of the Commercial Film Production Support System Based on the Image Rhetoric of Commercial Film

2016 ◽  
pp. 118-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoji Kawamura
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Support System ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Provider Type ◽  
Product Function ◽  
Willingness To Buy ◽  
Mise En Scene ◽  
Information Engineering ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
Basic Image

This chapter describes the concepts behind a Commercial Film Production Support System (CFPSS) in terms of related studies in the areas of advertising, image techniques and rhetoric, cognitive science, and information engineering. The chapter then analyzes the structure of commercial films to establish and describe an information system that is tested with a viewing experiment. The proposed system reflects the environment by implementing basic image techniques to create commercial films through an interaction between the users and the system. The experiment uses commercial films for beer with 55 participants. The results show that evaluations for image types related to the advertising story generate the most interest and high evaluations for the provider type of rhetoric stimulates willingness to buy. In terms of technique, mise-en-scène and editing attracts interest, and the advertising story associated with the product function and the supporting production and distribution stimulates willingness to buy.

scholarly journals POST-SCRIPT FROM FILM STUDIES: Whose choice? Watching non-English language films in the UK

Multilingua ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 619-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Griseldis Kirsch
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Country Of Origin ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
The Uk

Abstract In a market dominated by Hollywood, it is easy to overlook that the number of films (and televised productions) which are not in English is actually by far greater than those in English. However, although some non-English language film industries are vast, only a comparatively small number of productions are screened outside of their country of origin. Therefore, before being translated and brought to screens for us to watch, already a filter applies, as the films are chosen by curators of film festivals or the industry. For that reason, films that are perhaps less representative but more interesting, or by a well-known director may be chosen over others that may have been more successful in their country of origin, but are made by a less-well know director or perceived to be less interesting for ‘foreign audiences’. The choice of what we watch is thus never entirely ours. Using Japan, Germany and the UK as example, I will offer some thoughts on what impact such a filter might have on the consumption, and therefore the perception, of a film outside of its country of origin and what challenges this poses for audiences and researchers.

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