Through a series of case studies, this book tracks the inventive distribution and exhibition initiatives developed over the last 40 years by an array of small companies on the periphery of the beleaguered UK film industry. That their practices are now being replicated by a new generation of digital distributors demonstrates that, while the digital ‘revolution’ has rendered those practices far easier to undertake and hugely increased their scope, the key issues in securing a more diverse moving image culture are not technological. Although largely invisible to outsiders, the importance of distributors and distribution networks are widely recognized within the industry and Reaching Audiences is a key contribution to our understanding of the role they both do and can play.
Through a series of case studies, this book tracks the inventive distribution and exhibition initiatives developed over the last 40 years by an array of small companies on the periphery of the beleaguered UK film industry. That their practices are now being replicated by a new generation of digital distributors demonstrates that, while the digital ‘revolution’ has rendered those practices far easier to undertake and hugely increased their scope, the key issues in securing a more diverse moving image culture are not technological. Although largely invisible to outsiders, the importance of distributors and distribution networks are widely recognized within the industry and Reaching Audiences is a key contribution to our understanding of the role they both do and can play.
Reaching Audiences: Distribution and Promotion of Alternative Moving Image
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Overview
Through a series of case studies, this book tracks the inventive distribution and exhibition initiatives developed over the last 40 years by an array of small companies on the periphery of the beleaguered UK film industry. That their practices are now being replicated by a new generation of digital distributors demonstrates that, while the digital ‘revolution’ has rendered those practices far easier to undertake and hugely increased their scope, the key issues in securing a more diverse moving image culture are not technological. Although largely invisible to outsiders, the importance of distributors and distribution networks are widely recognized within the industry and Reaching Audiences is a key contribution to our understanding of the role they both do and can play.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781841506029 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Intellect Books |
| Publication date: | 05/27/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 306 |
| File size: | 624 KB |
About the Author
Julia Knight is a reader in media and cultural studies at the University of Sunderland.
Peter Thomas is an independent scholar, visiting lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire and a member of the Exploding Cinema collective.
Julia Knight is professor emerita at the University of Sunderland. Between 2002 and 2009 she conducted a series of AHRC funded research projects exploring artists’ and independent film/video distribution in the United Kingdom, which have produced the book Reaching Audiences: Distribution and Promotion of Alternative Moving Image (2011, co-authored with Peter Thomas), a series of journal articles, and the online Film&Video Distribution Database: http://fvdistribution-database.ac.uk.
Peter Thomas is senior lecturer in Academic Writing and Language for the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries at Middlesex University. His research interests include the generative role of writing in creative practice; academic literacies; interdisciplinarity and collaboration; and practice as research.
Read an Excerpt
Reaching Audiences
Distribution and Promotion of Alternative Moving Image
By Julia Knight, Peter Thomas
Intellect Ltd
Copyright © 2011 Intellect LtdAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84150-602-9
CHAPTER 1
DIY, Counterculture and State Funding: London Film-Makers' Co-op
The London Film-Makers' Co-op, The Other Cinema, London Video Arts, Cinema of Women and Circles were all set up by or with the close involvement of the artists and filmmakers themselves. In each case the enthusiasm, commitment and energy of a small group of individuals was absolutely central to the activity being initiated, and they provided an essential base of volunteer labour that sustained the activity in its formative years. While distribution generated some income, this was deeply variable and most of the organisations remained heavily dependent on volunteer labour to cover the full costs of the distribution operations. However, because it is difficult to grow an area of cultural activity on a voluntary workforce and trade earnings alone, state funding was sought fairly early to support or develop particular aspects of their work - print acquisition, catalogue production, equipment purchase and exhibition. Most groups also later accessed revenue funding to pay for what were then transformed into staff positions. Since it changed their nature and the way they operated, this transition from volunteer-activist origins to grant-aid dependence is a crucial stage in the histories of these organisations. While the specifics vary from organisation to organisation, this chapter uses a case study of the London Film-Maker's Co-op (LFMC), between its founding date of 1966 and the early 1980s, to explore the kinds of changes that occur and their ramifications for a distributor. It is during this period that the LFMC shifted from a wholly independent, volunteer supported organisation to one substantially if not wholly dependent on grant aid for its continued existence. At the same time, a number of funders - including the Arts Council of Great Britain, the British Film Institute and Channel 4 - also made their own interventions directly into the realms of distribution and exhibition, with varying outcomes for the independent distributors. Although further examples will be explored in later chapters, this chapter's focus on the LFMC enables an examination of the impact of the Arts Council's promotional initiatives during the 1970s, alongside the British Film Institute's annual funding of the Co-op from 1975 onwards.
Underground Origins and the Co-operative DIY Ethos
In the 'swinging' London underground of 1966, October was a significant month: on the 11th, an underground newspaper called The International Times (IT) was founded by, amongst others, John 'Hoppy' Hopkins and Jim Haynes. It had an editor but no editorial policy - whatever was sent in was printed. As the paper was not expected to pay for itself, a bootstrapping operation was devised whereby a series of benefit raves supported the paper and publicised its existence, while the paper publicised the raves. At the first of these, the IT launch party held on the 15th at the Roundhouse in North London, a band called Pink Floyd received its first public notice. This is where the London Film-Makers' Co-op (LFMC), officially formed two days earlier, held its first film show.
The LFMC had been set up at Better Books, a bookshop on New Compton Street, where manager and poet Bob Cobbing had already been screening underground films among the performances, readings and other events he regularly staged at the shop. Founding members included Cobbing, Simon Hartog, Ray Durgnat, Steve Dwoskin, Andy Meyer and Harvey Matusow. Although an early draft constitution included 'encouraging the making of independent non-commercial films', and IT announced the Co-op would aid filmmakers 'by making available equipment and technical advice', both Dwoskin and frequent Better Books visitor David Curtis have observed that there were in fact very few British underground filmmakers or films around. While there was a hope to stimulate specifically English production - and over 20 people attended two planning meetings earlier in the year - the impetus for setting up the Co-op came mostly from those interested in seeing, showing and writing about experimental film. Indeed, the initial constitution included distinct membership levels for filmmakers and non-filmmakers. An important third party to the prehistory of the LFMC was The (New York) Film-Makers' Cooperative (FMC). In a letter to FMC filmmakers in May 1966, Jonas Mekas wrote that
we have a huge pile of letters from various corners of Europe asking to send them programmes of Avantgarde (Underground) cinema. We couldn't do anything about it because of the costs & time involved. London is our solution.
He suggested producing $2000 worth of prints to send to London, where FMC filmmaker and provocateur Barbara Rubin was involved with local activists and expatriate Americans (such as Dwoskin, Meyer and Matusow) in setting up a new Co-op. Thus the LFMC could begin life as more of an open access distributor and freewheeling exhibitor, whose primary function was to promote such work and guarantee its availability, prior to the onset of substantial local production.
In the following month, November, the LFMC staged its first major film series, the 'Spontaneous Festival of Underground Film', which received four pages of coverage in IT (written, of course, by LFMC members). The six-day festival screened 'just about every piece of experimental film that was available in London' and was followed by a further six nights of open screenings at Better Books - screenings where anything that turned up on the night was projected. Towards the end of the month, Matusow wrote to Mekas, celebrating their achievements so far:
In the past three weeks we have had an 'opening festival' of films, and have screened over seventy (70) new films. Over half of them had never been seen before here in London. ... Within six to eight weeks we should have our catalogue out. ... We have over one hundred requests for film programs from all over England.
Open and programmed screenings at Better Books filled the rest of the year and, according to Dwoskin, were attended by increasingly large audiences. At Christmas the IT raves shifted to a fixed venue, the UFO Club in nearby Tottenham Court Road. Dwoskin describes the UFO as part of an attempt to turn London into an all-night city like New York, and alongside its lightshows, bands, jugglers, performance artists and food stalls, Curtis regularly provided projections of avant-garde film work until the venue closed in October 1967. Although -as noted in our Introduction - Sylvia Harvey traces the origins of the modern independent film movement to the founding of the LFMC in 1966, the LFMC's own origins were firmly rooted in a far wider anti- authoritarian and countercultural movement. As Durgnat has asserted, the '[founding] generation LFMC (including Dwoskin) had something in common with the bohemian-beatnik-hippie traditions'.
By mid-1967, IT co-founder Jim Haynes was working with others to found the first UK Arts Lab, designed to be a forum in which to foster new ideas about the arts and art practice. When it opened in September in London's Drury Lane, it included a theatre, restaurant, gallery and cinema. Around the same time the LFMC lost its first home when the new owners of Better Books halted all Cobbing's cultural activities and gave him notice. Although there was some discussion about the LFMC moving to the new Arts Lab, in the long run it was deemed neither possible nor desirable. In the meantime, the LFMC's film collection and distribution function moved to various members' homes, while Curtis started running the Arts Lab cinema, programming a mixture of camp and classic feature films, open screenings and a once a week co-op show'. The feature films generated the larger audiences and hence much needed income, while the open screenings were a strategy to help nurture, and indeed locate, home-grown filmmaking talent. As Curtis wrote:
Our aim is to assist new film-makers at all stages of their work. We show not just all the available films by established Independent Film-makers (as the I.C.A. does) ... but show ANY film by ANY new film-maker. (I have never refused to screen a film).
Curtis conceded that this meant the programming was liable to 'extreme fluctuation in quality', but viewed that as 'healthy' and argued that on the whole it meant anyone could get their film shown at a few hours notice.
While the LFMC remained without an official home, a group of filmmakers started using the Arts Lab as a base and Curtis was given plans for a 'film processing set up'. Two filmmakers who had screened work at the Arts Lab - Malcolm Le Grice and Bennett Yahya - constructed the equipment, which was then to be made available for co-operative use. As this started to duplicate one of the Co-op's envisaged roles, discussions began about amalgamating the two groups. At a Film-Makers' General Meeting in March 1968, the two groups agreed that 'the future Co-operative should be solely a provider of services and facilities for film- makers', but differed on how the Co-op should be run. Although there was insufficient space at the Arts Lab, Le Grice and Curtis in particular were keen to establish a production workshop, or 'film laboratory' as they termed it, in addition to the already established distribution and exhibition functions. Although it took 18 months or so for the differences to be ironed out -mainly through the gradual departure of the founding Better Books community - the merger of the two groups finally brought together production, distribution and exhibition in the same organisation, and resulted in a new constitution drawn up by Le Grice and Hartog. While they still had to find a home for the Co-op - one that could accommodate the new workshop activity - a new activist philosophy was propounded whereby, in an attempt to break down the alienating effects of the film industry's division of labour, the filmmaker would operate in and be responsible for all areas of film work - just as the Co-op now was.
A central aspect of this period was that many artist filmmakers not only made films, but also built and maintained equipment, shared expertise, helped each other, and organised and promoted shows. A number of Co-op members and workers have since recalled this DIY and mutual support ethos as a key characteristic and strength of the Co-op. Later they knocked holes in walls to get equipment out of difficult buildings, performed DIY renovations on new premises and lobbied for funds. As Malcolm Le Grice has observed:
While ideas, concepts and enthusiasm were essential you needed at least twice as much, if not more - tenacity, obstinacy, tolerance, patience, the ability to type (two fingers would do), to lay breeze blocks, mend pavements, pull cable through conduit, improvise plumbing and then later, teach people to use somewhat temperamental equipment, plan screening schedules ... and even later prepare proposals to con money from individuals or government agencies.
The new LFMC was a resource for the activist community that had created it to answer their own needs. Its growing distribution library became an important resource for emerging and veteran programmers and event managers, guaranteeing the availability of films that might otherwise have sat dispersed with their various makers or simply been unavailable in the UK. Once the LFMC acquired their own dedicated space, their cinema exposed the work, and an equipment collection was created in a production workshop. The LFMC continued to exist and grew in those early years because it was to the advantage of its activist membership that it did so. At the point when the Arts Lab filmmakers group and the LFMC merged in 1968, it was made clear that the future LFMC was to be a filmmakers organisation - owned and run by, and for the benefit of, filmmakers. While some operational details would later be revised, the key principles governing the Co-op were identified:
1. That the Co-op should be a service run by film-makers (and film-makers only.) [...] all decisions should be rejected or endorsed by reference to the film-makers, as a) there are no policy decisions to make - the Co-op is a service
b) there are no 'taste' decisions - ALL films submitted will be accepted [...]
2. [..] Should any controversy arise, a vote will be taken at a meeting.
Although these radically democratic principles are clearly marks of the countercultural movement, the emphasis on the/j/mmaker marked the beginning of a shift away from that wider movement in which the LFMC had originated, and towards the assertion of film as an arts practice in its own right. If this emphasis on filmmaking tended to subordinate the LFMC's distribution function, the distribution library could still play a key role - film rentals could offer filmmakers an income (even if only a modest one) which could in turn be reinvested in future production work. Since the Co-op was a resource for its members and functioned as a service, it returned as much of those film rentals as possible to the filmmakers. Members had to supply the prints of their films themselves, but they retained ownership of those prints and could withdraw them at any time, subject to honouring any pre-existing bookings. Hence the Co-op did not purchase prints, nor particular distribution rights in a title and thus issued no contracts. While the Co-op promoted the distribution library as a whole, the filmmakers were expected to undertake the promotion of their own films and were left free to determine their own rental fees.
Initially, however, the distribution library largely consisted of overseas work. While Matusow had complained in February 1967 that the Co-op library was still very small, by 1968 Curtis and American artist Carla Liss were compiling the organisation's first proper catalogue, listing around 100 films. Liss's involvement with the Co-op gave distribution a significant boost since, as a friend of Jonas Mekas, she was finally able to negotiate the acquisition of a substantial number of FMC prints - the greater part of P. Adams Sitney's travelling New American Cinema Exposition. Curtis and Hartog had arranged for Sitney and his Exposition to tour 12 universities in England following a week-long presentation of the New American Cinema programmes in April 1968 at London's National Film Theatre. The tour was the first major showing in England for filmmakers such as Mekas, Bruce Baillie, Stan Brakhage, Robert Breer, Ken Jacobs, Peter Kubelka, Gregory Markopoulos, Ron Rice, Harry Smith, Jack Smith, Warren Sonbert and Andy Warhol. While opinion is divided on the precise extent of the tour's impact - and Sitney himself was apparently disappointed by its reception - the Co-op's acquisition of the films in the wake of the UK tour allowed it to significantly increase the college and film society markets for its films. A long time coming since 1966, in October 1968 Liss convinced Mekas to persuade the American filmmakers to donate tour prints to the LFMC as 'a permanent library' in order to help raise awareness of US work in Europe and the UK. The quid pro quo of this agreement was that Liss, as the Co-op's first paid employee, would be handling their distribution. The imperative to secure American underground prints had already sent the LFMC to another US distributor, the Creative Film Society, and was strong enough to tip the LFMC into a major faction battle. Cobbing resigned over the issue - the imposition of a paid employee that the Co-op could ill afford - and Hartog and Dwoskin both left within the year, but the crux remained that the US filmmakers were not prepared to send their films to someone they did not know.
The distribution library grew as indigenous production started to build. By 1975, the Co-op reported that they had approximately 500 titles, split roughly 50-50 between foreign and British films. Most of the British films were made through the Co-op and represented the 'bulk of British Independent cinema production (very little work in this area having been produced before 1967)'. While a significant proportion of the library's business continued to be with university film societies and art colleges, the LFMC had also organised or supplied the films for over 60 events at festivals, galleries and museums across the world - including the Tate in London, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Berlin and Oberhausen Film Festivals in Germany, New York's Museum of Modern Art and regular slots at both London's National Film Theatre and the Edinburgh Film Festival, as well as providing all the films for a 1974 British Council film package for Belgium. The latter resulted in the Belgian Film Archive purchasing works by a number of Co-op filmmakers. Thus, the LFMC, as an organisation run by and for filmmakers, had made a significant contribution to exposing and developing awareness of experimental and avant-garde film, and to building an international presence for UK work.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Reaching Audiences by Julia Knight, Peter Thomas. Copyright © 2011 Intellect Ltd. Excerpted by permission of Intellect Ltd.
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