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: film history
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”
German Film Studios of the Imagination
By Tim Bergfelder and Eleanor Halsall Although STUDIOTEC’s focus is on the physical spaces that existed during the period 1930-60, a compelling question emerges about studios that were planned, but never, or only partially, realised. Work in the archives continues to reveal such proposals, which range from relatively modest plans that were briefly considered before disappearingContinue reading “German Film Studios of the Imagination”
Somewhere between animal and mineral: the precarious life of the film extra
By Eleanor Halsall Film historiography is rich with tales of movies boasting casts of thousands, the hyperbole contributing to a film’s renown. Gandhi (Attenborough, 1982) is credited by the Guinness Book of Records as having had the largest ever crowd scenes involving 300,000 extras, a feat achieved long before computer generated imagery (CGI) altered the score. War and Peace (Bondarchuk, 1965)Continue reading “Somewhere between animal and mineral: the precarious life of the film extra”
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”
Touring the French studios
By Morgan Lefeuvre Closed to the public – which gave them a dose of mystery and enhanced their appeal – the French studios welcomed throughout the period (and particularly in the 1930s) many representatives of the press, but also of political, economic or social circles. The studio visits, often reported in detail in the press,Continue reading “Touring the French studios”
‘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”
Silence, ça tourne! The first sound shootings in French studios
By Morgan Lefeuvre Casting in the Tobis Studios in 1929 – The director communicates with the sound engineer using a telephone. Coll. Cinémathèque française. ‘Cinema speaks, but not for long! It’s too complicated, too scientific! […] Do you realise that if talking pictures were to last, we would all have to change jobs?’ (Pagnol: p. 18).Continue reading “Silence, ça tourne! The first sound shootings in French studios”
Studiotec: Film Studios: Infrastructure, Culture, Innovation in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, 1930-60 