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From Film Practice to Data Process: Production Aesthetics and Representational Practices of a Film Industry in Transition
To what extent have digital innovations transformed the UK film industry? What new practices and processes are emerging within the contemporary UK filmmaking landscape? What impact is this having upon filmmaking professionals? 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. By focusing on the pivotal year of 2012, and by considering the input of every single contributor to the process, this book illuminates how this period of analogue to digital transition is impacting upon working practices, cultures, opportunities and structures in the industry, and examines the various causative forces behind their adoptions and resistances. With an in-depth case study of Sally Potter’s 2012 film Ginger & Rosa , and drawing upon interviews with international film industry practitioners, From Film Practice to Data Process is a groundbreaking examination of film production in its totality, in a moment of profound change.
288 pages, Paperback
Published August 7, 2019
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November 16, 2020
In 2012 analogue technologies are rapidly phased out from all sectors of the British film production chain. Media and creative industries scholar Sarah Atkinson chronicles how the continuities and discontinuities brought about by the transition from celluloid to digital are reflected in the traditions and work rituals of filmmakers. Through interviews and participant observation the author tracks the making of Sally Potter’s film Ginger & Rosa, drawing attention to how obsolete analogue-era jargon and vestigial industry lore express the cautious hopes and ample fears of an industry in transition. No longer a physical artefact, celluloid nomenclature nonetheless maintains a persistent aesthetic presence, bringing about questions about how digital tools will soon transform the hierarchies and structures of the British film industry and its cultures of production. Through the prism of one film, Atkinson focuses on this very geographically particular and fleeting historical moment, as the transition to digital technologies in the UK is just about over. This moment is but a part of a continuum of transitions where the interactions between film practice and process, “are not unique to the intervention of the digital, indeed there has been a constant friction between ‘practice’ (as it relates to creativity) and ‘process’ (as it relates to the logistical aspects of film production) since the birth of cinema” (Atkinson 2). A rich array of analytical perspectives supports the book’s deceptively unassuming research question: what are the characteristics of this temporally circumscribed moment of transition, as the traditions of “film practice” give way to the procedural routines of “data process”?
This book is an excellent object lesson in applied production research and ethnography. It offers a way of looking at films with a greater appreciation for the materiality of production processes, without sacrificing the analytical rigour that comes with film and media industry theories and cultural studies. Here, Atkinson presents an abundant variety of approaches to inspire future work. The book is well researched and helpfully references a wide theoretical terrain, which can be useful in graduate and, with some adaptation, undergraduate classes. Chapter 5, for instance, contains a comprehensive history of the self-reflexive film industry genre. In expanding the scope of her work on Film Industry Studies and the Digital Humanities with a host of related approaches, the author demonstrates the flexibility and potential of Production Studies.
Conversely, the attempt to focus the expansive perspectives of Production Studies and other attendant fields to a single case-study demonstrates some of the book’s challenges. There is a quantifiable breadth of references and background research, yet such wide coverage should be approached cautiously if we want to avoid continuously re-surveying film industry and production studies as forever emerging fields. Occasionally, the discussion of digital processes belies an imagined familiarity with good old analogue, ignoring the highly protected industrial barriers and proprietary methods of chemical development, copying, distribution, as well as barriers to entry into the profession that were analogue-era realities. The book could have benefitted from more examples drawn from interviewees’ other work, as well as a wider international scope to match its own theoretical aspirations. The Practitioner Filmography section at the end is an attempt to remedy this situation however discussing other projects directly into the text would have yielded a more useful comparative discussion.
A close ethnographic survey like the one presented here is untenable for most film projects, and Atkinson effectively demonstrates the importance of this approach in establishing meaning in a data-saturated mediascape. Digital information accumulates quickly can become unwieldy, which makes historical research difficult. One way around this problem is to rely on testimony and direct observation. With this book, the author demonstrates how ethnographic methods can give meaning and direction to documents that, on their own, remain a static collection of shapeless data.
This book is an excellent object lesson in applied production research and ethnography. It offers a way of looking at films with a greater appreciation for the materiality of production processes, without sacrificing the analytical rigour that comes with film and media industry theories and cultural studies. Here, Atkinson presents an abundant variety of approaches to inspire future work. The book is well researched and helpfully references a wide theoretical terrain, which can be useful in graduate and, with some adaptation, undergraduate classes. Chapter 5, for instance, contains a comprehensive history of the self-reflexive film industry genre. In expanding the scope of her work on Film Industry Studies and the Digital Humanities with a host of related approaches, the author demonstrates the flexibility and potential of Production Studies.
Conversely, the attempt to focus the expansive perspectives of Production Studies and other attendant fields to a single case-study demonstrates some of the book’s challenges. There is a quantifiable breadth of references and background research, yet such wide coverage should be approached cautiously if we want to avoid continuously re-surveying film industry and production studies as forever emerging fields. Occasionally, the discussion of digital processes belies an imagined familiarity with good old analogue, ignoring the highly protected industrial barriers and proprietary methods of chemical development, copying, distribution, as well as barriers to entry into the profession that were analogue-era realities. The book could have benefitted from more examples drawn from interviewees’ other work, as well as a wider international scope to match its own theoretical aspirations. The Practitioner Filmography section at the end is an attempt to remedy this situation however discussing other projects directly into the text would have yielded a more useful comparative discussion.
A close ethnographic survey like the one presented here is untenable for most film projects, and Atkinson effectively demonstrates the importance of this approach in establishing meaning in a data-saturated mediascape. Digital information accumulates quickly can become unwieldy, which makes historical research difficult. One way around this problem is to rely on testimony and direct observation. With this book, the author demonstrates how ethnographic methods can give meaning and direction to documents that, on their own, remain a static collection of shapeless data.
Displaying 1 of 1 review