I Screen Studies

Just back from a marvellous (literally) conference in Toronto. Despite some uncertainty on the part of conference organiser Greg Elmer about whether this was a conference, workshop, symposium, earth-shattering event, Migrating Media at Ryerson University was a hugely enjoyable and stimulating meeting of researchers from Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand working on aspects of media globalisation, particularly the local impacts of growing volumes of itinerant media production.

The conference was exquisitely timed, coinciding with both the last few days of the Toronto International Film Festival and the shooting of a major action sequence for The Incredible Hulk. The starwagons lined up along Church Street could be seen through the windows behind every presenter, while the walk to the conference venue from the hotel passed through the preparations for the shoot which would close Yonge Street for three nights. It was surreal but spookily appropriate to watch hundreds of crew putting up facades over buildings, changing store names and telephone numbers on billboards and awnings, and installing fake subway entrances to convert Toronto into Harlem. The parking lot across the road from our hotel was filled with New York buses, taxis and cars waiting to be smashed by the jolly green giant.

Against this background we convened at Oakham House for two days of presentations, discussion and planning for future research collaboration. Following the official welcome by Anastasios Venetsanopoulos, the Vice President of Research at Ryerson, the conference began with a presentation by Professor Greg Elmer, Bell Globemedia Research Chair and Director of the Ryerson University Infoscape Research Lab, entitled ‘Global Locations in LA: The Promotion of New Cinematic Spaces’. Greg’s talk focused on the annual Locations Expo in Los Angeles at which the many film commissions from around the world gather in the centre of the Anglophone audiovisual world to compare notes and sell their locations to filmmakers. As part of the presentation Greg deconstructed some of the promotional material provided by various film commissions, including Buffalo-Niagara Film Commission’s efforts to capitalise on its image as a ‘post-industrial city in decline’ and sell the possibilities of filming in an old railway station that ceased operation in 1979 but which has been lovingly preserved by an army of volunteers and can now double for stations like Grand Central in New York. Of particular interest to those of us from this part of the world was a map ‘depicting’ the variety of locations that Australia can double for: My favourites are either Emerald or Barcaldine for Bordeaux, and Kalgoorlie for the Moon. You couldn’t make this up.

The second paper of the day was by Professor Charles Davis also of Ryerson U who has been researching media firms in Canada and presented recent work on the prospects for growth in the Canadian independent production sector. Davis was followed by the first American speaker, Professor Susan Christopherson of Cornell University, who presented an admittedly American-centric paper on ‘Producer Strategies in a Changing Media Industry’. This paper explored in part the range of incentives offered by US states to attract film production, ranging from tax credits in Louisiana (a process now shown to have been corrupted by state officials) and most startlingly the offer of cash-in-hand from another state.

After lunch, a former colleague of mine from Griffith University, Professor Albert Moran, presented recent work on the localisation of television formats. Albert has published extensively on this subject and is perhaps the preeminent scholar in this emerging area. This paper discussed recent work with Michael Keane of QUT which uses concepts from translation studies to analyse adaptation of television formats in particular markets. Albert was followed by Professor Janine Marchessault of York University in Canada who presented a paper entitled ‘The Montreal Apartment: Cinematic Interiors and Global Cinema’. Janine discussed the nostalgic sense of the local in two films which make use of the iconic space of the Montreal apartment, the French-language Quebecois film Maurice Richard directed by Charles Binamé, and the Dreamworks Pictures/Red Hour/Smart Entertainment hit comedy Blades of Glory. The last paper in this panel was presented by Jennifer VanderBurgh of Queens University, Canada. Entitled ‘Toronto’s Turf War: The Look of Rival Film Policies’, Jen’s paper discussed the appearance and disappearance of the ‘Toronto aesthetic’, with a particular focus on a much-awarded independent Canadian film Monkey Warfare.

I spoke in the last panel of the day which was grouped around the politics of new mediated spaces. First up was Associate Professor Serra Tinic (University of Alberta) who spoke about film (and television)-induced tourism in Canada with particular reference to Anne of Green Gables (which is hugely popular in Japan and draws large numbers of Japanese tourists to Prince Edward Island each year, despite the fact that the series was actually filmed in Ontario) and The Beachcombers (the longest running drama in the history of Canadian television, which despite the fact that the series finished in 1990 continues to attract many tourists – especially Germans – to locations in British Columbia).

I was up next, fighting raging jet-lag and anxiety at speaking on the same bill as so many major international figures in the study of global media production. My paper entitled ‘If You Build It, Will They Come?’ described and interrogated the motivations behind construction of production infrastructure and in particular studios around the world, many of which are heavily supported by the public purse. I began with a joke which fell as flat as the plains of Saskatchewan, but bravely soldiered on with lame puns and jokes at my own expense. I was followed by one of my collaborators on an ARC grant, Susan Ward (University of Queensland), who ably filled in for Tom O’Regan who was unable to attend. Sue presented work that she and Tom have been doing on creative networks on the Gold Coast. The last paper in the panel was presented by Associate Professor Barry King (Auckland University of Technology), ably standing in for Sean Cubitt, who presented research on the ‘Event Film’ with a particular focus on the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The second day of the conference began with a panel on ‘Labour and New Avenues of Distribution’. Assistant Professor John McCullough (York University, Canada) led off with a paper entitled ‘Saskatchewan Television Labour, Global Hollywood and the Representation of Canadian Space’ which discussed the representation of Regina, Saskatchewan, and two television productions which have taken advantage of incentives for regional production in Canada: Corner Gas (filmed in the town of Rouleau, set in the fictional town of Dog River, tagline ‘Forty kilometres from nowhere, and way beyond normal’), and Moccasin Flats, a series made by an entirely Indigenous cast and crew. The second presentation in this panel was given by Assistant Professor Nitin Govil (University of California, San Diego) on ‘Transnational Spatial and Temporal Practices of Indian Film Industries’. This was a fascinating presentation which discussed the new corporatism of the Hindi film industry, and the decline of the unenumerated informal sector in the Indian film industry as globalisation brings Hollywood accounting practices to India. The last presentation in this session was given by Associate Professor Tamara Falicov (University of Kansas), on Hollywood studios’ incursions into the film industries of Mexico and Argentina. This was another enjoyable and enlightening presentation which detailed the growing importance of companies like Disney subsidiaries Buena Vista, Miravista and Walt Disney Latin America, and the Spanish telcos Telefonica Media and Admira in these industries.

The conference concluded with a roundtable discussion of research activity and possibilities. Another conference next year in Australia was proposed, with North American colleagues pooh-poohing my concerns about the effects of the looooooooooooong trip on their health and sanity. Having just done this trip twice in six days, I’d advise making a decent trip of it. Like six months at least. I’m going up to Brisbane in a week or so to talk to Tom O’Regan about the possibility of hosting another conference. In the meantime, this conference will produce at least one book in the next six months or so, and possibly more. It certainly achieved its aims of connecting researchers from around the world working on media globalisation and the spread of international production, and I was very glad to have been invited to participate.