Digital disruption and its implications in generating ‘impact’ through film and television Practice-as-Research

ABSTRACT

Both research funding bodies and the Research Excellence Framework (REF) are increasingly looking at ‘impact’ as an important measure of project success. For those involved in film or television practice-as-research, demonstrating impact beyond the academy and measuring ‘reach’ has often been considered through the public visibility of their projects. Yet, even for industry professionals it is becoming more difficult to reach target audiences due to the disruption caused by the emergence of on-demand distribution. This has resulted in reduced access to theatrical and broadcast exhibition and led to new challenges in gaining visibility in an increasingly crowded market space that affects commercial and academic projects alike. This paper considers issues faced by professional independent producers in this disrupted environment and examines strategies that have been developed to succeed within it. We argue that lessons learned by independent producers can be adapted by academics involved in film or television practice-as-research to enhance visibility of their own projects and demonstrate ‘impact’.

KEYWORDS:

• Practice-as-research
• research impact
• digital disruption
• independent film production
• independent television production
• research excellence framework

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

John Mateer has been working in film and TV for over 30 years and as an academic for over 15. He recently worked on feature films The Knife That Killed Me (Universal Pictures UK) as Executive Producer and Macbeth (GSP Studios) as Visual Effects Producer. He was a founding member of the department of Theatre, Film and Television at the University of York and helped to establish its industry engagement strategy.

Samm Haillay is Lead Producer at Third Films as well as a film academic at Teeside University. He has eight feature credits, four fictions and four documentaries, to his name including co-productions with Sweden, Germany and Australia and all eight have had red carpet premieres. His most recent film Island of the Hungry Ghosts won the best Documentary prize at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018. He is a member of BAFTA, EAVE and ACE.

ORCID

John Mateer http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5088-0868

Notes

1 The third component of the REF, assessment of the research environment, is not directly relevant to this paper and thus is not considered here.

2 There has long been a divide between research in classical arts subjects (e.g. visual arts and music) and those that are performance-driven (e.g. theatre, film and television). The latter have often been seen as ‘inferior’ given a seemingly vocational focus and an emphasis on practice that many scholars feel lacks academic rigour (see Nelson 2013).

3 Aggregators are companies that, for a fee, will arrange exhibition on VoD platforms that would not normally deal directly with individuals or small companies. They are effectively film ‘sales agents’ but solely for online distribution.

4 ‘Four Walling’ refers to hiring a cinema for a limited period of time effectively purchasing tickets for all seats and then reselling them directly to audiences (Wasser 1995)

5 The name of the company is being withheld due to commercial sensitivities as of the time of writing.

6 Hickman reports that these networks typically have a follower base of 1,000 to 3,000 people.