Filming for Television: How a 16mm Film Crew Worked Together

Authors

  • John Ellis Royal Holloway University of London Media Arts Department

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18146/2213-0969.2019.jethc167

Keywords:

film production, television history, production studies, media archaeology, 16mm film, Éclair, BBC, history of technology

Abstract

A media archaeology project reveals how film crews worked together. By reuniting analogue equipment with the professionals who used to use it, the ADAPT project is able to unpack the professional routines and relationships of both people and technology that are at the core of television production. This detailed study of a film crew setting up 16mm equipment reveals the constraints and affordances that defined analogue television material. To study working practices in a historical setting also reveals that there is an absent area in contemporary production studies: the work of ‘content acquisition’.

Author Biography

John Ellis, Royal Holloway University of London Media Arts Department

John Ellis is Professor of Media Arts at Royal Holloway University of London and an editor of VIEW. His books include Visible Fictions (1982), Seeing Things (2000) and Documentary: Witness and Self-revelation (2012). Between 1982 and 1999 he ran Large Door, an independent production company making TV documentaries www.largedoorltd.com. He is also chair of Learning on Screen and a visiting professor at the University of Bergen, Norway.

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Published

2019-10-27

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 15 (2019): Material Histories of Television

Section

Explorations

License

Copyright (c) 2019 The Author(s)

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