Publish: 16 September 2013

Following on from Ieuan Franklin’s excellent blog which discussed such mind-bendingly psychedelic Films on Four as Born of Fire (Jamil Dehlavi, 1987), Shadey (Phillip Saville, 1987) and Silent Scream (David Hayman, 1991), I felt that a blog needed to be dedicated to one of the channel’s most interesting commissions; Richard Stanley’s Dust Devil. The film […]

Publish: 11 September 2013

Branding and Sponsorship within Britain’s Premier Horror Festival A Guest Blog by Simon Hobbs, PhD Research Student at the University of Portsmouth This year’s Film4 FrightFest marked my first venture to the festival. A lifelong fan of horror cinema with an academic interest in paratextual branding, a trip to the Film4 FrightFest provided the perfect […]

Publish: 4 July 2013

With the recent unprecedented multi-platform release (5th July 2013) of Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England, which has been variously described as “a psychedelic Western” (Sound on Sight), “a psychedelic Civil War-era chiller” (Movie Mail) and “a psychedelic trip into magic and madness” (Film4), it seems like a good opportunity to take a trip back to reassess […]

Publish: 16 May 2013

In September 1992 Channel 4 put an ad in Broadcast calling for a production company to run their latest scheme for attracting new, young talent to the Channel – a film competition, aimed at young writers and directors to be sponsored by Lloyds Bank and commissioned by the Youth Department. I was running a fledgling […]

Publish: 23 November 2012

Innovation and Feature Films So does Channel 4’s interest and involvement in an initiative like Northern Film & Media’s The Artist’s Cut represent evidence of a renewed enthusiasm on the part of the channel for artists’ film? This is undoubtedly too bold or premature a claim to make at this early stage but there are […]

Publish: 23 October 2012

The Artist’s Cut On 12th October Northern Film & Media & Channel 4 previewed the first fruits of the Artist’s Cut initiative (see Part 1 of this article) – two new shorts by contemporary visual artists Matt Stokes and Cecilia Stenbom, entitled Two Thieves and How to Choose respectively – at the Arts TV Forum […]

Publish: 17 October 2012

The closing plenary of our conference will take the form of a debate about the support from broadcasters (particularly Channel 4) for regional film production in the North East. One of the case-studies of this plenary will be The Artist’s Cut, a development initiative led by Newcastle-based creative industry development agency Northern Film & Media […]

Publish: 9 October 2012

Michael Darlow is a television director, writer and producer, who has also worked in theatre and film. He writes about television, theatre and film and also about rare breed Soay sheep. We interviewed Michael on 9th December 2011. Biography: Michael Darlow has directed, written and produced award-winning documentaries, arts, music and drama programmes for the […]

Publish: 30 May 2012

With Channel 4’s recent announcement that an additional £1m will be invested in the development of new British comedy films under the Film4 banner, it seems like a good opportunity to reassess the Channel’s record in this area. In a future blog we will revisit and chart 30 years of funny Films on Four, but […]