Search Results

This chapter traces the migration of Bollywood from the ‘ghetto’ market of the Indian descent population in South Africa to the ‘crossover’ market of mainstream cinemas, the national television broadcaster, and pay-TV. Drawing on Rajadhyaksha's idea of Bollywood as a media assemblage, it sheds light on a number of activities attesting to Bollywood's presence in South Africa, such as the use of South Asian locations, influence of the Bollywood style of filmmaking on South-African filmmakers of Indian origin, and India-South Africa collaborations in film production.

Films are not merely works of art or cultural artefacts, but commercial commodities produced within an industrial system ruled by government legislation, financial constraints and market forces. Before analysing Neapolitan films in stylistic or thematic terms, it is necessary to examine their place within Italy's film industry. This chapter contextualises the New Neapolitan Cinema within the broader history of Neapolitan film production and examines some of the factors that have favoured filmmaking at the regional level. It also explores the mode of production employed by Neapolitan films in the 1990s and the role played by government intervention and legislation. In addition, it looks at how Neapolitan films have been distributed and exhibited, paying particular attention to any regional disparities. In this way, this chapter seeks to determine whether or not it is legitimate to talk about a ‘Neapolitan cinema’. Such a concept presupposes the existence of both a distinct film ‘industry’ in the region and/or a body of films aimed exclusively or primarily at Neapolitan audiences.

This chapter discusses the experiences of filmmakers and crews who worked on two international co-productions filmed in Japan: the film and TV series adapted from James Clavell's Shogun and Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation. Produced over 20 years apart, a period of radical global change separates these two films. Both projects were initiated by English-speaking producers and filmed entirely on location in Japan with different degrees of Japanese financial, technical, and creative participation. Through an analysis of how differently the Japanese and American filmmakers and crews experienced these two international film productions in Japan in each historical context, the chapter aims to illustrate the changes in the subjectivities of filmmakers and crews, as well as changes in filmmaking practices before and after the economic globalization that took place in the late 1980s and 1990s.

This chapter explores the notion of digital film production ‘time’ By examining the various different temporalities of film production. Drawing primarily upon the case-study materials of Ginger & Rosa, the chapter maps the 2012 moment of transition from working with film to working with data, and the hybrid practices and protocols that manifested as a result. It examines how the introduction of new technologies and digital processes challenged the orthodoxies of long-established film industry production practice including how workflow patterns were effected with the advent of the digital in film production. The chapter includes the proposition of a ‘Creative Core’ Structure of Production model with which to understand the determinants and impacts of on-set workflow, illuminating the emergence a specific aesthetic of production which is referred to as ‘workflow-warp’ and ‘workflow-weft.’ The former refers to the temporal bending of the traditional film structure and pace out of shape, and the latter – the process of weaving together a complex blend of the film and the digital into an inextricable tapestry.

This chapter examines the changing structures of the film industry in Mumbai, India. It proposes a historical model in which overlapping cultural and industrial systems resulted in changes in film-music production and the exploitation of music for maximum profit. It suggests that the gradual and seamless process of change in the Mumbai film industry consists of three rough historical periods. These include Studio Period from 1935 to 1950, Old Bollywood from 1950 to 1998 and New Bollywood from 1998 to the present.

This chapter discusses how Brooks did not just recycle Hollywood film, but hybridised film content together with a wide range of content from television. It is through hybridising film with television that Brooks made his reputation as a director with Blazing Saddles (1974) and Young Frankenstein (1974), and in doing so, contributed towards a cycle of television-film hybrids that continues today. The rise of television-film hybrids has been central to the production of what has come to be understood by critics as the parody film genre. Furthermore, it was, in part, Brooks's own apparent choice not to capitalise on television content to the same extent in his subsequent films Spaceballs (1987), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) that brought about the end of his career as a film director.

This chapter shows that classical norms were not fixed rules or structures, but set particular boundaries within which innovation could take place. In essence, classical film style rejected formal techniques that were purposely disruptive or jarring to the audience. While it is sometimes implied that classical norms emerged simultaneously with the studio system, it is important to note that the aesthetic principles of classical Hollywood cinema preceded the studio system. The development of film style in this sense (classical norms) did not emerge in the very same historical instant as the mode of production that gave it institutional shape (the studio system). Instead, the relation between the two would develop a gradual symbiosis, such that classical norms would become synonymous with the studio system as it emerged more fully after the First World War. The chapter also includes the study, ‘Mass-produced Photoplays: Economic and Signifying Practices in the First Years of Hollywood’ by Janet Staiger, which examines how production practices in the early 1910s influenced the way that films were developed and made.

This chapter focuses on post-independence filmmaking in four adjoining areas astride the Sahara: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and the fourteen independent states in francophone West Africa south of the Sahara. A number of general factors influenced filmmaking in all four geographic areas. Firstly, there was the persistence into the post-independence period of Western film dominance over African screens, a situation that African governments were largely unable to control. Secondly, the heritage of the colonial period played a key role in the structural organisation of African film production. Thirdly, in all four areas, filmmaking was initially regarded as first and foremost an affair of the state, which played a crucial role in fostering film production and ordering its financing. Fourthly, in virtually all four areas, the attitude of the state towards film production shifted radically in the 1980s and early 1990s, a move exemplified by the closing down of numerous state production organisations and the introduction of new schemes of aid in Morocco and Tunisia.

This chapter discusses the international scope and status of early cinema, and the particular significance of European production companies. While Europe dominated world film markets in the first decade of the twentieth century, the situation began to change as the business organisation of the American film industry was streamlined, and the Hollywood studio system developed. In the emerging history of Hollywood, the established powers of the Motion Picture Patents Company positioned themselves against a growing lobby of independent producers, distributors, and exhibitors in a fight for market control. It was from this struggle that the industrial and aesthetic dominance of the American studio system would emerge and come to assert itself in national and international terms. The chapter also includes the study, ‘The Perils of Pathé, or the Americanization of Early American Cinema’ by Richard Abel, which examines the means by which cinema became a contested site of Americanization.

This chapter disentangles the deeply ingrained celluloid practices of digital film production. Through the examination of embodied practices, onset processes and protocols, including considerations of filmmaking iconography in hardware design, software and interface aesthetics. The origins of the often perplexing film and celluloid skeuomorphs are also traced. The chapter considers the reasons for the persistence of these practices which conversely seek to simultaneously erase the analogue whilst at the same time mask the use of the digital medium. In its close textual examination of Digital Film Production Space, the chapter includes detailed considerations of the attendant ‘production apparatus’ of Ginger & Rosa (which is the same apparatus used by the film industry in a diversity of national contexts) and the manifestation of the film in digital and virtual representations – proposing a ‘Production Aesthetic’ which visually characterizes the making of the film. The chapter includes a consideration of ‘celluloid pedagogies’, and how the various practitioners on Ginger & Rosa learned their crafts, and how they describe them through material practices and tactile experience.

In the latter half of the 1960s Dearden and Relph worked on a number of big-budget films made for Hollywood companies operating in Britain. By contrast with much of their earlier productions, these films were aimed at the world market, were all made in colour and featured exotic locations and international stars. Khartoum (1966) is perhaps the best known of these films. This chapter discusses these films in detail and concludes with a brief account of Dearden's work on the television series The Persuaders!

This chapter discusses the film industry in the 1990s. The overseas market counted for half of the majors' theatrical income and generated an even greater percentage of revenue through home video and television. The development and exploitation of world markets, specifically the rich and densely populated regions of Europe and Asia, led to strategic concerns with the global dimensions of film. This not only included questions about cinematic form, but also had significant implications for production, financing and labour practice. This chapter also includes the study, Transnational Dragons and ‘Asian Weapons’: Kung Fu and the Hong Kong Diaspora by Leon Hunt, which examines the degree to which it is possible to imagine Hollywood yielding to other cinemas rather than simply imposing itself globally or appropriating talent and aesthetics from other regions. It focuses on the pivotal case of Hong Kong and examines how martial arts stars and choreographers fared in Western cinematic vehicles in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

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.

This chapter examines the development of amateur filmmaking interests among women teachers as independent producers working on their own and as professional women who found a niche for themselves in amateur filmmaking circles. The rise of cine interests among single teachers reflects specific social, economic and educational circumstances in Britain between the wars and discussion of how they filmed their pupils, colleagues, classroom and playground links to wider consideration of women's opportunities for paid employment, societal expectations and attitudes towards teaching as a legitimate extension of childcare. Films provide opportunities to explore historical representations of childhood and its archival significance. Teachers filmed school journeys and residential visits in and beyond Britain. Such material offers informal imagery of adolescence and adult companions in and away from classroom setting during years when Britain's educational system being redefined in response to the post-war raising of the school leaving age, intense debate on girls' education and the rise of youth culture. Teachers' films represent an under-explored wealth of personal and professional subjectivities and are reminders that while professional constraints limited individual ambitions for decades, filmmaking brought autonomy, challenge and recognition. Like their teaching, filmmaking also reflected their sense of service to others and teachers' enjoyment of what they did.

This chapter discusses the history of the American boxing film from the coming of sound to the end of the twentieth century. It characterizes the chief cycles of film production in order to explain the cinematic influences, film industry practices, and social trends that shaped the evolution of the genre.

This chapter begins with the discussion of the birth of the Films Division as Nehru’s brainchild and the hope Indian filmmakers placed in the power of the documentary medium to contribute to the project of development on the brink of Independence. It shows that in spite of what appeared to be a denunciation of colonial filmmaking by leaders of post-Independence India, the Films Division adopted production and distribution policies similar to those introduced by the British, including a compulsory exhibition scheme and an assembly-like production pipeline that suppressed the creative input of individual artists. A section on internal tensions brings out evidence from diaries, personal collections and FD record rooms proving that despite these strong continuities, FD was a “melting pot” of ideas about filmmaking and development as early as the 1950s. A separate discussion of FD’s Cartoon Film Unit is included, analyzing the role of animation in government film. The chapter concludes with an extensively researched compilation of views on FD expressed by Indian film critics and political commentators from the late 1940s up until the Emergency. These voices echo the book’s argument about colonial-postcolonial continuity while also hinting at the heterogeneity of voices within FD.

Chapter 6 returns to industry, and charts the re-emergence of Hammer Films, which, after thirty years, finally went back into film production in the 2000s. Drawing from primary sources such as the industry trade press and interviews, the chapter reflects on Hammer’s recent history, considering briefly the tumultuous 1980s and 1990s, before assessing the company’s market positioning between its re-launch in 2007 with the web serial Beyond the Rave (Matthias Hoene, 2008), through its theatrical success with the blockbuster The Woman in Black in 2012, up until the release of its lower-budgeted ghost story, The Quiet Ones (John Pogue) in 2014. Ultimately, taking into account Hammer’s prominence in much discourse around classic British horror, I use its millennial incarnation to assess its relevance (or not) to the identity of British horror in the twenty-first century.

This chapter considers the subject of this book: the work of a contemporary Spanish film director, Daniel Calparsoro, in auteurist terms. This study of Calparsoro discusses not only Calparsoro's films but also the Spanish cinema of today and the ways in which it is studied, written about and presented. It aims to make explicit some of the ways in which certain films and production processes are implicitly deemed more desirable, more worthy of attention by academics, critics and audiences. It offers an overall presentation of Calparsoro and his total corpus of work to date in relation to trends and traditions within Spanish cinema, serving to problematise these. Thus Calparsoro is discussed against the background of specific developments in Spanish cinema since 1995, how both the film industry and critics perceived these developments, and how perceptions changed after Spanish cinema arguably fell into crisis from 2002. Calparsoro's style makes the critics uncomfortable, suggesting that, regardless of his own putative roots in an earlier Spanish cinema, his deviation from the increasing convergence of Spanish cine social and slick commercialism has irritated the critics, indicating in turn that their expectations, if not his, have changed.