Publish: 10 May 2012

Last month (on the weekend of the 13th-15th April) I attended a fascinating conference in Bristol based around an exhibition and archive film screenings, which was called ‘The Spirit of Marc Karlin’, celebrating the work of the pioneering independent filmmaker. This was co-ordinated by Holly Aylett, Hermione Harris and Andy Robson. It was the one […]

Publish: 19 March 2012

In examining the contribution of Channel 4 (and, by extension, television as a whole) to British film culture, this project has a broad remit, which includes the institutional processes of film buying, programming and scheduling. Before the era of file sharing and Lovefilm, those people for whom the local Odeon had little to offer constantly […]

Publish: 27 January 2012

With the recently published Film Policy Review advocating greater investment in film on the part of broadcasters (see Variety), it seems like a good opportunity to take a look back at the history of cinema/TV relations, starting with the 1950s. This was an era in which the medium of television was in its ascendancy. The […]

Publish: 11 January 2012

Ahead of a visit to Pinewood Studios today, David Cameron has said that the film industry should support “commercially successful pictures”, in an attempt to prejudge the findings of Lord Smith’s review into the Government’s film policy, due out on Monday. To quote Mike Wayne (writing in 2002 in the print-defunct magazine Filmwaves, which has […]

Publish: 30 September 2011

With the critical and box-office success of Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (which is currently occupying the top position at the British box-office), the trend of creating film adaptations of television mini-series looks set to continue. Tinker, Tailor has, of course, consistently been measured against Arthur Hopcraft’s distillation of the John le Carré novel, […]

Publish: 12 July 2011

David Hare’s Page Eight, which premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival (on 18th June) before being shown soon after on BBC2 (28th August), presents us with the opportunity of looking at some aspects of television’s role in commissioning feature-length film that has the option of theatrical exhibition, partly using Hare’s own, frequently vented, opinions on […]

Publish: 14 June 2011

In the wake of the interest around Film4 productions such as Richard Ayoade’s Submarine and Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block, a recent Guardian article by Jane Graham identifies what she sees as a trend of innovative films made by “industry outsiders with little or no formal training [in filmmaking]”. According to Graham, the forays of […]

Publish: 16 February 2011

Are these ‘glorious’ times for the British film industry? At a recent debate at Goldsmiths College on the 3rd of February 2011, four panellists lined up to discuss this motion. Producer Robert Jones and Head of BBC Films Christine Langan argued for the ongoing success of the British film industry, while David Livingston of Working […]

Publish: 12 January 2011

In November 1982 I was working as Assistant TV Acquisitions Officer in the National Film Archive at the British Film Institute and freelancing for Time Out and a range of magazines and newspapers about film and TV. I hadn’t been involved in any of the lobbying for the new channel, but awaited it with some […]