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”
Tag Archives: German Cinema
The curious case of the Normaton patent
By Eleanor Halsall My working life began as a translator of patents, designs and trademarks with a London firm located near the original Patent Office in Southampton Buildings. Inside this venerable building, the vaulted, balconied library was crammed with books, antique and new, tracking the history of science, invention and discovery. Nevertheless, its dictionaries struggledContinue reading “The curious case of the Normaton patent”
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”
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”
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”
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”
Conference Report: Film Studios
By Steven Roberts The ‘Film Studios’ conference provided a forum for international research, looking beyond traditional geographical, historical, and methodological boundaries of studio research in keeping with the comparative STUDIOTEC project, which hosted the event in Bristol between 5-7 June 2023. Over three full days, the ideas of invited speakers flowed freely and were receivedContinue reading “Conference Report: Film 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 rats have eaten my set!’ Letters from a German film architect in 1930s India
By Eleanor Halsall On the 21st of March 1935, a young German stepped off the boat in Bombay. His name was Karl von Spreti and he had been offered a job managing set design at The Bombay Talkies, one of India’s newest film studios. ‘The task that awaits me is huge and I hope I willContinue reading “‘The rats have eaten my set!’ Letters from a German film architect in 1930s India”
Filmkinder: Children in German Films
By Eleanor Halsall Gerhard Lamprecht’s 1931 film Emil und die Detektive/Emil and the Detectives, is one of the most famous German children’s films. Adapted by Billy Wilder from the eponymous book by Erich Kästner, the film was greeted with enthusiasm in Germany where it was described as a ‘knockout’ by the Lichtbildbühne. Emil’s narrative was always likely toContinue reading “Filmkinder: Children in German Films”
Studiotec: Film Studios: Infrastructure, Culture, Innovation in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, 1930-60 