Category Archives: Industry practice

genres, film cycles, and a reading cycle

A reading strand and how one text leads to another in both film production and academia… I recently read my Brunel University colleague Leon Hunt’s fascinating new book on Mario Bava, Mario Bava: The Artisan as Italian Horror Auteur (2022), … Continue reading

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Voices on indie exhibition

Interesting round-table of voices on Indiewire in response to one of the latest expressions of doom-and-gloom about demand for theatrical exhibition, particularly of indie and art films. This is a seemingly endless debate, often circling around the same issues, but … Continue reading

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Interview – in Portuguese

There’s a quite lengthy interview about indie film I’ve done for a Portuguese film website available below – although it’s in Portuguese, so might not be accessible to many! Geoff King: “o interesse da noção de independência resulta de ser algo … Continue reading

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A balanced account of ‘quality’ in Hollywood – and a shameless plug!

Here’s something of a novelty, a journalistic piece about contemporary Hollywood that for once adopts a balanced approach to the subject of whether or not the studios still make any of the kinds of films that are still critically lauded … Continue reading

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marketing departments in film and academic publishing

I’m working on a new book project that’s an analysis of the various ways in which art cinema is positioned as something of special cultural value. Among various other perspectives, I’m considering the marketing of such films. While marketing devices … Continue reading

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Indiewood riding high in Oscar nominations

Whatever assorted rows and debates might accompany this year’s Oscar nominations, they demonstrate again the continued strength of the Indiewood and indie sectors as far as scoring well in these commercially valuable prestige stakes is concerned. The nominees can be … Continue reading

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Focus pulled?

What, then, of the future of Indiewood, in the shape of the studio speciality divisions, now that Universal’s Focus Features has become the latest target for what looks like studio rationalisation? The news that James Schamus has been removed as … Continue reading

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‘Early electronic sell-through’, as studios continue to experiment with new release windows

Interesting piece in Variety on growing studio use of digital selling of films ahead of the DVD/Blu-Ray release, as Hollywood and indies continue to try to negotiate the increasingly uncertain relationship between the various post-theatrical windows – probably the biggest issue … Continue reading

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Spielberg and speculation

Far be it from me to doubt Steven Spielberg’s understanding of Hollywood, but his widely-reported prediction of a future in which we could shift to a system in which viewers pay much higher prices for blockbuster releases and pretty much … Continue reading

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The Sessions and indie ingredients

I liked The Sessions but when you step back at look at it, like so many indie films, it seems comprised of a number of components rather familiar to the territory. First, it offers us something marked as distinctly ‘uncomfortable’, in … Continue reading

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