By Richard Farmer Ming the panda on set at Marylebone studio. The Sphere, 3 June 1939, p. 384 Here at STUDIOTEC we’re very interested both in the spaces of film production and those that work in them. While this usually means humans, we have not ignored the role that animals have played filmmaking, and dedicated more timeContinue reading “Pandamonium at Marylebone studio”
Tag Archives: British Cinema
Studios in Virtual Reality
By Sarah Street As part of our STUDIOTEC project we’ve created parts of the studios we’ve been researching in VR. This has been an exciting experience, giving participants access to studios in their heyday, introducing the main buildings and peeking inside to see how films were made, and hearing about the people who worked inContinue reading “Studios in Virtual Reality”
Getting plastered in British studios
By Richard Farmer Cigarette card showing the plasterers’ shop at Shepherd’s Bush studio. The model of the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster was made for Friday the Thirteenth (1933) When visitors were shown around film studios and the curtain was lifted on how films were actually made, they came to understand some of the processes thatContinue reading “Getting plastered in British studios”
Shepperton world of adventures: Sound City Zoo and Wonderland
By Richard Farmer Norman Loudon In late 1938, Norman Loudon, Managing Director of Sound City (Films) Ltd., issued an underwriting prospectus in the hope of drumming up £125,000 to invest in a new venture at his company’s studios at Shepperton (Williams 1938). Loudon had been the driving force behind the creation of the Sound CityContinue reading “Shepperton world of adventures: Sound City Zoo and Wonderland”
Studios in the Festive Season
This STUDIOTEC bumper blog (first published in Dec 2021), expanded with a couple of new images, looks at how the festive season was acknowledged by film studios in Germany, France, Italy and Britain. In Germany Seasons’ Greetings regularly appeared in film magazines listing a studio’s biggest films. Here are two examples from 1930, illustrating the significance ofContinue reading “Studios in the Festive Season”
Hauntings on and off screen
A Studiospectre Production by Richard Farmer, Eleanor Halsall, Morgan Lefeuvre and Carla Mereu Keating Hallowe’en, literally the evening before All Hallows Day (1 November) and All Souls’ Day (2 November), is the time of year when thoughts turn towards the darkness, death and the belief that briefly, the door between heaven and earth is open, or atContinue reading “Hauntings on and off screen”
‘A red glow filled the sky’: Fire at Elstree Studios, 1936
By Sarah Street On Sunday 9th February 1936 film producer Herbert Wilcox lay awake in the early hours of the morning at his home located high up on Deacons Hill Road overlooking the British and Dominions’ Imperial Studios he’d founded at Elstree in 1930. He recalled with horror: ‘I could not sleep. I got up andContinue reading “‘A red glow filled the sky’: Fire at Elstree Studios, 1936”
Creating Miniature Worlds
By Sarah Street The appeal of ‘tiny things’ has long been recognized to satisfy ‘our desire for mastery and elucidation’. Film studios were perfect environments to demonstrate their usefulness in ‘bringing scaled-down order and illumination to an otherwise chaotic world’ (The Guardian, 4 Nov 2018). This was particularly the case in post-war Britain, as the studiosContinue reading “Creating Miniature Worlds”
‘Philippa’ arrives at Pinewood
By Richard Farmer The summer of 1946 was an exciting time at Pinewood. The studio had just reopened after the war, de-requisitioned after being used for a variety of filmmaking and non-filmmaking purposes during the conflict. Visitors to the site would have found a studio seeking to face up to the challenges of the post-war world, eager toContinue reading “‘Philippa’ arrives at Pinewood”
Southall studio at war
By Richard Farmer Southall studio Southall studio in west London was built on the site of, and possibly converted from, a former aircraft hangar. It opened in 1924, remained largely unused until 1928, and was converted for sound production in the early 1930s (the vagueness of some of these dates is indicative of the relative paucityContinue reading “Southall studio at war”
Studiotec: Film Studios: Infrastructure, Culture, Innovation in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, 1930-60 