Film Workshop Research Articles

Ken Jacobs, Alchemist

KEN JACOBS, ALCHEMIST Optic Antics: The Cinema of Ken Jacobs edited by Michele Pierson, David E. James, and Paul Arthur. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. 312; 48 photographs. $99.00 cloth, $39.95 paper, 26.99 E-book.Ken Jacobs may be the most important cinema magician since George Melies. Though he remains most famous for his groundbreaking 1969 found-footage film Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son, and for the vital leadership role he played in the formally experimental and sexually permissive Underground cinema that flourished in New York City in the early 1960s, Jacobs has been a consistent innovator for six decades. Stretching and dilating the capacity of the projected image to enable new ways of seeing, Jacobs is one of the most important American artists-working in any medium-of the postwar period. The fact that his work is not more widely known to the public testifies not only to the continued marginalization of nonindustrial cinema practices, but to Jacobs's own uncompromising and relentlessly anticommercial vision.Optic Antics is the first complete volume to be dedicated to an exploration of Jacobs's career. This eagerly awaited, richly illustrated monograph promises to expand our understanding of this indispensable artist and make his work more accessible for future generations of media students. Optic Antics is a revelation from front to back. Starting with the magnificent cover image-a photographic mise-enabyme of Ken Jacobs and his wife, and lifelong collaborator Flo, taken by fellow avant-garde filmmaker Michael Snow-the book promises to reflect Jacobs from a variety of angles. The volume benefits from the editorship of three leading scholars in the field of avant-garde cinema studies: David James, Michele Pierson, and the late Paul Arthur. They have done an excellent job of bringing together film scholars, filmmakers, visual artists, playwrights, fellow instructors, friends, and former students to meditate on the different aspects of Jacobs's long career.Jacobs's contributions to film culture have included vital roles as artist, teacher, and organizer. An early champion of experimental cinema, Jacobs debuted many now classic experimental films, including the work of George and Mike Kuchar, at his loft. In 1963, he was arrested, along with Florence Karpf and Jonas Mekas, for showing Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures (1963); the trial that ensued has become the stuff of Underground legend. Founder of the still extant Millennium Film Workshop, Jacobs helped to create a utopian, nonhierarchical space of independent, low-budget filmmaking in stark contrast to the profit-driven excesses of corporate cinema. As a professor at Binghamton University from 1969 to 2002, Jacobs's unconventional pedagogy had a profound influence on generations of students, many of whom went on to become internationally renowned filmmakers, critics, scholars, and curators. Well balanced in its focus, Optic Antics pays homage to all of these incarnations, giving a more realistic sense of the integration of these roles in the life of the artist.The essays are remarkably diverse in tone. Ranging from rigorous interpretations of Jacobs's work to personal remembrances by friends, fellow filmmakers, and colleagues, the book fuses criticism with intimacy, making for a wonderfully readable volume. The book benefits from its contemporary perspective; with the exception of a fragment of Paul Arthur's posthumously published piece, none of the essays have been printed before. Many of the artificial distinctions that marked the original reception of Jacobs's work have collapsed, allowing for a fuller recognition of his contributions. As an artist who routinely explodes the boundaries between high and low, the present and the past, performance and cinema, Jacobs's work demands to be thought outside of the box or, in his case, the frame. Mapping the artist's intertexts from Busby Berkeley to Henri Bergson, Optic Antics contextualizes Jacobs's simultaneous orientation as a constructivist, materialist, postmodern historiographer, cine-mystic, and alchemist of the moving image. …

‘What We’re Trying to Do is Make Popular Politics’: The Birmingham Film and Video Workshop

This article explores the origins and work of the Birmingham Film and Video Workshop (BFVW). Addressing absences in accounts of UK screen practice, the article places the BFVW in the UK’s socio-political context of the 1970s and 80s, as part of the workshop movement and its relationship with the establishment of Channel Four Television. It asks: what were the workshops and how are they to be understood in this landscape? What kinds of work did they produce and how is it to be assessed? What was the particular nature of the BFVW in this wider context? What was the significance of its work, if indeed it was significant at all? What happened to such workshops as organisations and indeed to the work that they produced? The article explores a variety of BFVW films in terms of their aesthetic qualities and contexts of production. It draws upon archival materials as well as a series of interviews with key workshop personnel, suggesting that the re-inscription of the work of BFVW to the wider account of the workshop movement is important for understanding the structuring of this field and the history of independent production in film and television.

Between the state and the kino: Amateur film workshops in the Soviet Union

ABSTRACTFilm workshops were the most visible part of Soviet amateur film movement that has never been associated with home movies in the first place. Two distinct features of this movement were its high degree of institutionalization and close collaboration with professional film-makers. This article shows the impact of both conditions on the Soviet film workshop movement. It seeks the roots of Soviet amateur film culture in the 1920s avant-garde, and links the development of this culture to historic events and shifts in the Soviet official paradigm. The system of state funding for amateur film workshops created due to the efforts of professional film-makers in 1957 provided support, but was ideologically restrictive. Referring to examples from the 1970s and 80s, such as the studio Lomofilm in Leningrad, Iug-Film in Buguruslan, and underground film movements, such as the Necrorealist group, I will argue that that despite the dependence of film workshops on state funding, being on service of state ideology was neither the only choice nor the primary motivation for creation of Soviet amateur film workshops.

Film workshops in Spain: Oppositional practices, alternative film cultures and the transition to democracy

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the development of film workshops in Spain. In particular, it examines their importance in Spanish film culture during the last years of Franco's dictatorship and follows them up until the early years of the democratic regime. Thus, the essay undertakes three tasks: first, to map out the development of film workshops in Spain during the 1970s, trying to trace their fragmentary and highly-dispersed history; second, to examine the film practices of La Central del Curt and the Cooperativa de Cinema Alternatiu as main examples of these organizations and, third, to contextualize these proposals in the uneven field of transitional cultural practices, considering them a challenge to theoretical and methodological questions in the study of minor cinemas.

The cultural policies of minor cinema practices: The Swedish film workshop during its first years 1973–76

ABSTRACTThe essay is a description of the first years of the Stockholm film workshop, Filmverkstan, founded in 1973. The activities of the workshop are put into the framework of the new cultural policies of Sweden and the question of cultural democracy, as well as alternative ways of producing and distributing film. The output of the early years is set into generic and film historical contexts, connected to the problems of amateur film and minor cinema. One key topic is how this new venue for alternative film production was able to function together with other agencies, for example, the Swedish Film Institute, the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation and the FilmCentre coop. The essay offers an analysis of the implementation of state cultural policies within an alternative production context, the avant-garde and the alternative as a modified state apparatus.

Before YouTube and Indymedia: Cultural memory and the archive of video collectives in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s

ABSTRACTCollective film-making practice in Germany is still a blind spot in film historiography. During the 1970s and 1980s independent film and video workshops established a nationwide network to provide ‘counter information’ (Negt/Kluge) in order to challenge dominant media representations. Therefore, the works of the video collectives can become a relevant source for historians and journalists alike. While the videos can be perceived as an important contribution to left-wing cultural memory, this memory of the various media practices of the last decades is currently fading away. The videotapes slowly disintegrate and as digitization is costly and time-consuming, many video productions will not survive. This has consequences not only for historiography, but also for the visual iconography of cultural memory. This article focuses on the archival practice of three workshops in Hamburg, the stronghold for German independent film-making after 1968: the Medienpädagogikzentrum (Centre for Media Pedagogy, 1973–), bildwechsel (1979–), the umbrella organization for women in media, culture and art, and die thede (1980–), an association of documentary film-makers. The examples show how archival practice can be conceptualized not only as part of the hegemonic national archive alone, but also as an act of counter-memory.

Yumi Piksa – Developing a community-responsive way of filmmaking in Melanesia

This article explores the collaborative application of media and arts-based research practices involving students from the University of Goroka (Papua New Guinea) as co-researchers. It critically examines the processes of developing a community-responsive approach to filmmaking in order to challenge preconceived notions of media and research practice in Papua New Guinea. The analysis draws on results from a film workshop run at the University of Goroka over a duration of six weeks through which a team designed a Melanesian approach to filmmaking practice. The research study found that stereotypical perceptions and understandings of Papua New Guinea communities could be challenged by respectful and community-responsive ways of making films involving local community members. It presents filmmaking as creating a meaningful space for exploring community relations and practices. Papua New Guinean co-researchers acted to bridge dialogue between rural communities, media technologies and the national and transnational media sphere.

Film Workshops as Polyvocal Public Spheres: Minor Cinemas in Sweden

La culture de l’atelier de cinéma est un phénomène négligé dans l’histoire et la recherche en cinéma. Cet article propose l’idée que les ateliers qui ont proliféré dans les années 1960, 1970 et 1980 ont souvent constitué des espaces publics au sens qu’Habermas, Negt ou Kluge donnent au terme. Portant attention à l’atelier de cinéma suédois Filmverkstan (1973-2001), cet article démontre que les films issus d’ateliers étaient en résonance avec les « modes de vie concrets » d’un public (Lebenszusammenhang) plutôt d’être des produits visant pour un marché spécifique. De plus, les ateliers offraient un accès à la réalisation à diverses personnes. Cette recherche sur les ateliers de cinéma en tant qu’espace public, comme culture de polyvocalité et comme pratique mineure du cinéma réagit de façon productive aux approches téléologiques et textuelles qui ont prévalu en études cinématographiques.

The Unrealized Potential of Cultural Diplomacy: “Best Practices” and What Could Be, If Only…

ABSTRACT At a time when cultural knowledge and understanding lie at the heart of every foreign policy challenge (and of many economic ones), and the Internet and the global economy have flattened the world to such a degree that young people everywhere need to become global citizens to succeed, the United States, effectively, conducts cultural diplomacy with the equivalent of one hand tied behind its back. Without a coherent strategy, interagency and public-private coordination, and increased funding from public and private sources, the potential of the world's most influential commercial creative sector and the most vibrant and varied independent arts sector to impact how the world views the U.S. and how Americans view the world, will never be realized. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, or for government to create content. Hundreds of effective programs—ranging from a dance and music academy that unites dif-ferent factions in Iraq (American Voices) to arts management programs at the Kennedy Center, to film workshops (Sundance Institute) and schools (Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts Jordan), to a myriad of international performing arts festivals—have been developed despite limited budgets and infrastructure. But their impact could be so much greater. The lack of a coherent, public-private, interagency strategy for cultural exchange and cultural diplomacy, symptomatic of a general marginalization of arts, culture, and media by policymakers and the philanthropic community, limits the potential of existing programs. It may be that in order for cultural diplomacy to thrive, it should be housed in an organization indirectly linked to the State Department but operating at an arm's length (as is the case with the British Council). If fully funded, and part of an interagency, public-private coordinated strategy, such an entity might be able to demonstrate to the world that the U.S. understands that “civilizations don't clash, they interact,” and that it is important that we facilitate these interactions (September 20, 1785).

The Interface of Documentary and Fiction: The Amber Film Workshop and Regional Documentary Practice

Regional workshop film-makers of the 1970s and 1980s appropriated the theory and aesthetics of British documentary cinema in specific ways in their attempt to construct a politically and culturally progressive cinema practice, representing both a change and a continuation in the values and practices of the British documentary tradition. What determined these changes and how the documentary tradition, founded in the 1930s by John Grierson, was taken up and deployed will form the basis of the argument of this paper. This will be explored through an analysis of the films and film-making practices of the Amber Film Workshop, the first, most significant and longest surviving regional film workshop (up to the point where Theresa Fitzgerald argues that they ‘established a model and a working practice to which all other . . . workshops [were] being obliged to conform’ (1988: 169)). Amber was formed by a group of students who met while studying film at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London in 1967. The original members were Murray Martin, Graham Denham, Peter Roberts and Lorna Powell, all university graduates from working-class backgrounds, and Sirkka Liisa Konttinen from Finland. The group relocated to Newcastle in 1969 out of a desire to work outside the structures of the London-based industry in a region that had a strong sense of its own identity (Amber 2005: 1). Amber’s stated purpose was to

A tantalising taste of the timeless transcendent: An adaptation of the Zen tea ceremony for use with enhanced care service users within the National Health Service

During three years (2003–2006) of working with enhanced care service users within the NHS it was noted that every session began with the boiling of water, the pouring of tea and the consumption of biscuits. Equipped with the anthropologist’s methodology of ‘making the strange familiar and the familiar strange’ (and having recently returned from a month’s stay in Kyoto, Japan) I sought to formally ritualise this act by first studying and then adapting the traditional Zen tea ceremony.Transforming the start of sessions from a casual gathering into an intentional ritual brought a tangible quality of mindfulness and a sense of the sacred to this previously automatic, seemingly mundane activity of ‘having a cup of tea’. Following sessions the clients consistently reported experiencing reduced levels of anxiety, greater ability to focus and enhanced creativity. This was explored further in subsequent Haiku and film workshops.

Time with Terence Chang

Abstract Born in Hong Kong, producer Terence Chang is known in film circles for his business savvy and artistic acumen. After studying architecture at the University of Oregon and film at New York University, he returned to Hong Kong and worked as a production manager on two films before joining Rediffusion Television (RTV, now ATV). By the mid-1980s, he was in charge of distribution at D&B Films, successfully launching the careers of Michelle Yeoh (he later became her manager) and Brandon Lee. As general manager at Film Workshop, he was in charge of The Killer, Swordsman, Spy Games, Love and Death in Saigon, A Chinese Ghost Story 2, and Gunmen. During this time, he and John Woo became business partners, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The ‘Cultural Burden’: regional film policy and practice in England

This article looks at the development of film policy and practice in the English regions. It asks: how has the ‘territorialization’ of film policy and funding affected regional modes of film production? And further, how is film as a cultural practice manifested in contemporary regional film production? The article is divided into two sections. The first outlines the development of regional film policy and practice from the 1970s, paying particular attention to the model of regional filmmaking that emerged from the film workshop movement and the changes in regional film policy instituted by the New Labour government since 1997. After this broad historical framework has been established, the second section analyzes regional film policy and practice through a case study of the East Midlands region. It is argued that, while ideas concerning cinema as a cultural practice are still present at a rhetorical level, commercial interests have become ascendant in regional film funding policy, restricting the space for creative autonomy that once defined regional production sectors.

Ghosts of a Better Tomorrow: Looking Back on the Formalism of Late 1980s Film Workshop Productions

Does anyone recall The Exploded Form (1980), James Mellard's book about modernism? Surprising how it isn't more widely cited. The main thesis is as bold as it is simple: granted, says Mellard, mode...

Jim Welsh: In Appreciation of a Pioneer

We do not believe film should be used merely illustrate classics of literature. This was James M. Welsh setting tone for a day-long 1977 Rockefeller Foundation invitational conference entitled Film and Humanities. A humanities course that takes as its substance cinema of Ingmar Bergman, he continued, to take one unassailable example, makes as much sense as one concentrating on plays of Shakespeare or Eugene O'Neill. As historians committed study of film and television in context of our own discipline, we of Film & History could not have agreed more. At that point, in mid 1970s, both Film & History and Literature/Film Quarterly, journal Welsh had co-founded several years before, were just beginning help shape their emerging fields of study. Our efforts were within context of American Historical Association, often through Historians Film Committee. Welsh and his journal worked within Modern Language Association (MLA) and brought many litterateurs cause of visual literacy. The current issues of journals are now in their thirty-fourth year of publication with libraries world-wide subscribing and sending manuscripts for consideration by these peer-reviewed publications. Now, as he approaches retirement from his long and productive teaching career, we need recognize Jim Welsh's considerable contributions work we all seek do well in classroom, in archives, and in broader public realm urging all viewers appreciate film and television as more than an evening's entertainment. In early 1970s, straight from graduate training at University of Kansas, Welsh joined English Department at Maryland's Salisbury State College (now Salisbury University), what was then referred as the little college on shore. There he found a colleague, Tom Erskine, who had also spent some time at Kansas. With a start-up grant from university they were able establish journal which filled for literature studies same function Film & History was trying supply for its discipline. It became a support network for literature professors integrating film into their scholarship and teaching and also provided an outlet for their work, which was largely spurned by existing journals. Along way, he shared many projects with John Tibbetts. John C. Tibbetts, who later edited American Classic Screen for National Film Society and coordinated film workshops and conferences with Jim Welsh, met Welsh in 1968 at University of Kansas, where they both became involved in KU Film Society, a series that brought campus filmmakers ranging from Jonas Mekas King Vidor Jean-Luc Godard. (Steve Allen, Kevin Brownlow, and Tony Palmer would follow later.) Tibbetts and Welsh first collaborated on His Majesty American: The Cinema of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. (A.S. Barnes, 1977) before going on later collaborate on The Cinema of Tony Richardson: Essay s and Interviews (SUNY Press, 1999) and several other projects for Facts On File Publishers, starting with The Encyclopedia of Novels into Film (first published in 1998, with an expanded and revised version scheduled for publication in 2004). Tibbetts, a skilled illustrator as well as an editor and teacher, provided many covers for LFQ over years, as well as interviews and essays, such as Opera on Film, lead piece for first issue of LFQ in 2004. John Tibbetts has been a wonderful working partner Welsh over years while maintaining his own publishing interests in area of film music; he is a popular teacher at Kansas State University and a trusted correspondent for a number of film groups around world. Mrs. Anne Welsh deserves much credit for success of most ventures listed in this encomium. With her experience in publication, Anne has been invaluable continued production of LFQ over past 20 years. In addition overseeing state bidding process and being responsible for subscription renewals as Business Manager, she also took care of layout and design (working closely with editor) and even handled many general mailings. …

Inside and OutsideThe Insider: A Film Workshop in Practical Ethics

The film The Insider offers an interesting story of leaking inside information by one character and clear whistleblowing by another. In both cases moral considerations are involved on a personal, professional, organizational and public level. As such the film can be used as an inviting cinematic introduction to applied or practical ethics. Three models of practical ethics are introduced. In the film workshop these models are the framework for the film analysis. A set up of the workshop is sketched, including selected scenes, basic questions and a timetable. Also a sketch is given of the results that can be expected.

'You've got mail': a film workshop

'You've got mail': a film workshop

Ain't Nothin' Like The Real Thing: Hollywood Comes to New York

W5T V 7 hen Robert De Niro's production company, Tribeca Films, announced its plans for a major film festival, there were murmurs of concern, if not outright consternation. For one thing, film festivals can take years to put together, and Tribeca Films claimed that their festival would be up and running in four months; another claim was that the Tribeca Film Festival would rival Cannes in its stellar quality. The purpose of the festival, of course, was the promotion of the downtown Manhattan area, so hard hit after the events of September 11, 2001. Could a major festival be organized in four months? From January 2002, when the announcement was made, to the beginning of May, could an entire festival be created? Would motion picture industry heavyweights (De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, Martin Scorsese, et al.) be able to delegate responsibility effectively, in order to ensure effective facilitation of day-to-day festival management? The downtown Manhattan area already had played a significant role in the dramatic history of independent filmmaking in the United States; right now, many individuals and organizations important to independent filmmaking are domiciled in lower Manhattan, and one question was whether the true independent filmmaking community would be allowed some visibility in the industry-oriented Tribeca Film Festival. (Examples of independent film organizations in lower Manhattan would include the Filmmakers Coop, Anthology Film Archives, the Millennium Film Workshop, the Association of Independent Video and Film, Film/Video Arts, MIX, and The New Festival.)

Visual anthropology in the Nordic countries—a look into the present the future … and the past1

The Nordic Anthropological Film Association has existed for fifteen years. It has made considerable achievements in promoting visual anthropology as a discipline in the Nordic countries. The article explores the variety of activities that have taken place in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland during this time. NAFA arranges yearly anthropological film festivals and workshops. It is also the owner of an anthropological film archive that possesses seventy films. Members of NAFA have strong visions for the future. That is where the article starts, in the future …

Enhancing the Managerial Effectiveness of Heads of Departments through Trigger Film Workshops

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsJ. P. Powell∗∗Dr J.P. Powell is Acting Director of the Tertiary Education Research Centre, University of New South Wales. ∗Dr J.P. Powell is Acting Director of the Tertiary Education Research Centre, University of New South Wales.