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”
Tag Archives: British Cinema
‘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”
‘Who wouldn’t want to have a peek?’ Studio Tours in Britain and Germany
Sarah Street and Eleanor Halsall Inspired by our visit to the Bottle Yard Studios, we wanted to know more about previous occasions when film studios opened their doors to outsiders. Studios entertained important guests such as film executives, financiers, critics, members of the civil service, royalty etc., but some visitors had less obvious importance to business,Continue reading “‘Who wouldn’t want to have a peek?’ Studio Tours in Britain and Germany”
The studio as star: Teddington
By Richard Farmer Many film studios appear in films. Of these, some feature as film studios, such as when MGM-British was transformed into the home of Commonwealth Pictures in The Intimate Stranger (1956) or Denham’s similarly pseudonymised cameos in both Thursday’s Child (1943) or We’ll Smile Again (1942). More common, though, are cases where parts of studios are passed off as other kindsContinue reading “The studio as star: Teddington”
The Royal Mint at Pinewood
By Richard Farmer The Royal Mint has been tasked with producing Britain’s coinage since the 9th century, and throughout its long history it has been acutely sensitive to the possibility of counterfeiting and forgery. It is therefore ironic that during the Second World War the site chosen for the erection of a subsidiary Mint wasContinue reading “The Royal Mint at Pinewood”
‘Where are the British Shirley Temples?’ The employment of children in British film studios
By Richard Farmer The issue of exploitative child labour in Britain might bring to mind images of Victorian chimney sweeps and six-year-old factory hands, and might almost as easily be dismissed as having been tidily resolved by a series of mines, factories and education acts passed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which eventually prohibitedContinue reading “‘Where are the British Shirley Temples?’ The employment of children in British film studios”
British film studios and the 1947 fuel crisis
2022 marks the 75th anniversary of the fuel crisis that partially paralysed Britain at the start of 1947. Our researcher Richard Farmer explores the impact that the crisis, and the exceptionally harsh winter that accompanied it, had on British film studios. 1947 proved to be a particularly challenging year for Britain, a country still recovering fromContinue reading “British film studios and the 1947 fuel crisis”
Studios in the Festive Season
As the nights draw in and 2021 approaches retirement, this STUDIOTEC bumper blog 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 of Munich’s Emelka andContinue reading “Studios in the Festive Season”
Britain’s temporary post-war studios
By Richard Farmer In the years following the Second World War, Ealing Studios was going places. Its experiment in making films in Australia had got off to a successful start with The Overlanders (1946) and would continue for another four films over the next decade or so (Morgan 2012), whilst significant parts of Another Shore (1948) were filmed in Dublin, and WhereContinue reading “Britain’s temporary post-war studios”
Studiotec: Film Studios: Infrastructure, Culture, Innovation in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, 1930-60 