Papers by helen kennedy
Game Studies: International Journal of Computer …, 2002
Helen W. Kennedy School of Cultural Studies, University of the West of England. Lara Croft: Femin... more Helen W. Kennedy School of Cultural Studies, University of the West of England. Lara Croft: Feminist Icon or Cyberbimbo? On the Limits of Textual Analysis. by Helen W. Kennedy. Available online: http://www.gamestudies.org/0202/kennedy/. ...
Games and Culture, 2009
This article introduces and situates the ensuing collection of four essays on the theme of games ... more This article introduces and situates the ensuing collection of four essays on the theme of games and technology. It argues the need for videogame studies to develop a more rigorous and focused perspective on the theorization of technology as it relates to research into games and culture. The ``and'' in games and culture cannot begin to be understood comprehensively without
Conference papers by helen kennedy
During the recent lead-up to a Secret Cinema event a compelling conflict played out between the c... more During the recent lead-up to a Secret Cinema event a compelling conflict played out between the creators and the audience in public social media space. Secret Cinema, founded in 2007 delivers live, immersive, participatory cinema-going experiences and is shaping a new and highly profitable event-led-distribution-model. Prometheus made more money as a Secret Cinema event than at the premiere and Grand Budapest Hotel’s No1 box office position was largely attributable to the £1.1m generated by Secret Cinema. These commercial successes mark a notable shift in both the organization’s approach and the type of audiences they are starting to attract. The events, which have previously been marketed in a highly clandestine way via word of mouth and social media where knowing participants are instructed to ‘tell no one’ are now being launched through high-profile press releases. This has inevitably led to tensions between the expectations of an early adopter ‘hipster’ elite and this much broader public.
These ‘events’ begin their life online via social media channels weeks before the physical event and it is these online spaces that are the key site of our analysis. Crucially, it is these spaces that both the audience members and organisation have sought to shape, control and influence in conflicting ways.The latest Back to the Future event has spawned an unprecedented extension of the fictional world into these online spaces in which the fictional community of ‘Hill Valley’ has been recreated in meticulous detail across social media and in numerous in-fiction websites.
A dichotomy has emerged as Secret Cinema use these spaces to build audience narrative engagement whilst also deploying these same sites to market, sell and instruct their audience in key preparations for the event, as well as issuing requests for audience-generated content to be taken down. A confusing communications strategy which interchanges between fiction and non-fiction registers has manifested in what Phillip’s would refer to as ‘badly-drawn play space’.
Through a close textual analysis of the Back to the Future event and its constituent social media streams, this paper illuminates the conflicts, tensions and re-negotiations of control embedded in both the experience and surrounding anti-fan discourses, in which the event and organization is dismantled in public view and we argue that the audience reclaim both the social media spaces and the filmic text of Back to the Future as their own.
Call for Papers by helen kennedy
Call for Papers for a Special themed issue of Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Stu... more Call for Papers for a Special themed issue of Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies
Inside-the-scenes: The rise of experiential cinema
Guest Editors: Sarah Atkinson and Helen Kennedy
Journal Articles by helen kennedy
The Live Cinema Conference held at King’s College London on 27 May 2016 was the culmination of re... more The Live Cinema Conference held at King’s College London on 27 May 2016 was the culmination of research the authors of this report have undertaken to date into the emergent field of live and experiential cinema.
It launched four key interventions: the Live Cinema Network, the Live Cinema in the UK Report, the Participations Journal themed section and the world’s first collaboration between event and live cinema: Hangmen Rehanged. Forty-six speakers and over two hundred participants were either present or connected online for the duration. Representatives attended from across the film industry, the film exhibition sector, arts and cultural organisations, funding bodies and the academy. An interdisciplinary steering group of academics and professionals working within the event and live cinema domains developed and curated the programme with the explicit intention to stimulate and advance thinking and practice in this nascent field. The day-long conference was comprised
of one keynote (Professor Martin Barker, Aberystwyth University), three panels, two masterclasses, two workshops, an interactive film exhibition—including ROAD (Nick Driftwood, 2015) and fabulous wonder.land (National Theatre, 2015), a networking space and the immersive theatrical screening of Hangmen Rehanged.
This report focuses on the insights and outcomes from the panels and the two masterclasses, while also offering a discussion of the state of our research in this domain. The brief to the panellists was to identify and discuss the critical challenges facing this sector, with selected participation bringing together a diversity of actors in this field. Presenters were asked to discuss a range of topics, including shared and disputed terminology, participation and engagement, marketing and audience development, intellectual property issues, training
and education needs, funding and other economic challenges. On analysis of the panel transcripts, we have also identified some further thematics, valuable insights and avenues for future research.
This is the introductory article to the Themed Section of Participations. The section focusses on... more This is the introductory article to the Themed Section of Participations. The section focusses on the growing trend toward the creation of a cinema that escapes beyond the boundaries of the auditorium whereby film-screenings are augmented by synchronous live performance, site-specific locations, technological intervention, social media engagement, and all manner of simultaneous interactive moments including singing, dancing, eating, drinking and smelling – what we are describing as the broader field of experiential cinema.
Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, May 27, 2016
In 2014, Secret Cinema Presents … Back to the Future …, tensions emerged within a section of the ... more In 2014, Secret Cinema Presents … Back to the Future …, tensions emerged within a section of the audience who were not invested in the rules of engagement of the secret cinema brand. The secret location of the screening, the requirement to surrender mobile devices on entry to the venue, and subsequently to adhere to the explicit instruction to Tell No One confused, and frustrated some, many of whom were core fans of the Back to the Future franchise. In 2015, in the Secret Cinema Presents … Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back, both the pre-event and main event experiences were imbued with themes drawn directly from the film and from the wider Star Wars storyworld – that of secrecy and rebellion. In this article we argue that the widespread acceptance and compliance with Secret Cinema's rules of engagement within this particular experience can be attributed to the evolution of the specific formula such that the chosen film affords a specific mode of engagement. The motifs of rebellion and secrecy central to the film fitted perfectly with the Secret Cinema rubric, and thus this ethos was supported and celebrated by audience members across the multiple online and offline spaces. We pay specific attention to experience design and scenographic strategies in these spaces – with a particular focus on narrative spatialisation – and explore how these configurations shaped the audience behaviour. We argue that Secret Cinema deploy an increasingly well tooled formula through which to both guide and develop audience literacies relevant to these novel experiences. There at least three literacies being called upon here to negotiate this form – the ludic literacy of navigating interactive environments, narrative comprehension of complex multi-stranded storyworlds and a meta cinematic awareness of film's construction.
During the build-up to the Secret Cinema Presents… Back to the Future event, a compelling conflic... more During the build-up to the Secret Cinema Presents… Back to the Future event, a compelling conflict played out on social media between the creators and the audience. In this article we retell the story of how that drama unfolded in the lead-up to the opening night of the event, and how the surrounding social media communications became a site of audience engagement and participation. We also outline the way in which these channels made visible a proliferation of divergent fan and anti-fan practices and contested viewing pleasures.
Taking Secret Cinema as its site for analysis, this article engages with the question what is lud... more Taking Secret Cinema as its site for analysis, this article engages with the question what is ludic at the cinema. Secret Cinema delivers live, immersive, participatory cinema-going experiences and is a complex interaction between film, game, theatre and social media. Through the expansion and reimagining of a film’s milieu in both virtual and real spaces, Secret Cinema experiences encourage spectatorial performativity and ludic participation. Through the use of multiple methods, this article presents the formation of a dramatic and playful community in which the impact of game cultures and a ludic aesthetic upon cinematic audience spectatorship is illuminated. Cross-disciplinary in its approach, this article connects the registers of both game and film studies in order to account for this emerging playful engagement with cinematic texts. Through its use of empirical methods, we move towards a fuller understanding of audience experience and affective engagement.
Interviews by helen kennedy
The soon-to-be-released Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens is tipped to be the box office... more The soon-to-be-released Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens is tipped to be the box office success of 2015. Hardly surprising given that fans have been waiting ten years since the last installment.
A lot has changed in how films are produced and promoted in the intervening decade. Last summer, for example, there was a huge Secret Cinema Star Wars event. Their immersive The Empire Strikes Back experience sold a staggering 100,000 tickets, generating over £6 million at the box office.
Running over four months, the event brought to the fore a new form of immersive cinematic entertainment which exploded in the UK over the summer of 2015. In addition to Secret Cinema’s event, the largest season of Open Air Cinema concluded its 125 outdoor screening run. In fact, a dizzying number of organisations now turn cinema into events: in the UK these include Sneaky Experience, Floating Cinema, Sing-alonga, Rooftop Film Club and Nomad Cinema.
There is a growing trend toward cinema-as-event – where film screenings are augmented by synchronous live performance, site-specific locations, technological interventions, social media engagement, and all manner of simultaneous interaction including singing, dancing, eating, drinking, even smelling.
Uploads
Papers by helen kennedy
Conference papers by helen kennedy
These ‘events’ begin their life online via social media channels weeks before the physical event and it is these online spaces that are the key site of our analysis. Crucially, it is these spaces that both the audience members and organisation have sought to shape, control and influence in conflicting ways.The latest Back to the Future event has spawned an unprecedented extension of the fictional world into these online spaces in which the fictional community of ‘Hill Valley’ has been recreated in meticulous detail across social media and in numerous in-fiction websites.
A dichotomy has emerged as Secret Cinema use these spaces to build audience narrative engagement whilst also deploying these same sites to market, sell and instruct their audience in key preparations for the event, as well as issuing requests for audience-generated content to be taken down. A confusing communications strategy which interchanges between fiction and non-fiction registers has manifested in what Phillip’s would refer to as ‘badly-drawn play space’.
Through a close textual analysis of the Back to the Future event and its constituent social media streams, this paper illuminates the conflicts, tensions and re-negotiations of control embedded in both the experience and surrounding anti-fan discourses, in which the event and organization is dismantled in public view and we argue that the audience reclaim both the social media spaces and the filmic text of Back to the Future as their own.
Call for Papers by helen kennedy
Inside-the-scenes: The rise of experiential cinema
Guest Editors: Sarah Atkinson and Helen Kennedy
Journal Articles by helen kennedy
It launched four key interventions: the Live Cinema Network, the Live Cinema in the UK Report, the Participations Journal themed section and the world’s first collaboration between event and live cinema: Hangmen Rehanged. Forty-six speakers and over two hundred participants were either present or connected online for the duration. Representatives attended from across the film industry, the film exhibition sector, arts and cultural organisations, funding bodies and the academy. An interdisciplinary steering group of academics and professionals working within the event and live cinema domains developed and curated the programme with the explicit intention to stimulate and advance thinking and practice in this nascent field. The day-long conference was comprised
of one keynote (Professor Martin Barker, Aberystwyth University), three panels, two masterclasses, two workshops, an interactive film exhibition—including ROAD (Nick Driftwood, 2015) and fabulous wonder.land (National Theatre, 2015), a networking space and the immersive theatrical screening of Hangmen Rehanged.
This report focuses on the insights and outcomes from the panels and the two masterclasses, while also offering a discussion of the state of our research in this domain. The brief to the panellists was to identify and discuss the critical challenges facing this sector, with selected participation bringing together a diversity of actors in this field. Presenters were asked to discuss a range of topics, including shared and disputed terminology, participation and engagement, marketing and audience development, intellectual property issues, training
and education needs, funding and other economic challenges. On analysis of the panel transcripts, we have also identified some further thematics, valuable insights and avenues for future research.
Interviews by helen kennedy
A lot has changed in how films are produced and promoted in the intervening decade. Last summer, for example, there was a huge Secret Cinema Star Wars event. Their immersive The Empire Strikes Back experience sold a staggering 100,000 tickets, generating over £6 million at the box office.
Running over four months, the event brought to the fore a new form of immersive cinematic entertainment which exploded in the UK over the summer of 2015. In addition to Secret Cinema’s event, the largest season of Open Air Cinema concluded its 125 outdoor screening run. In fact, a dizzying number of organisations now turn cinema into events: in the UK these include Sneaky Experience, Floating Cinema, Sing-alonga, Rooftop Film Club and Nomad Cinema.
There is a growing trend toward cinema-as-event – where film screenings are augmented by synchronous live performance, site-specific locations, technological interventions, social media engagement, and all manner of simultaneous interaction including singing, dancing, eating, drinking, even smelling.
These ‘events’ begin their life online via social media channels weeks before the physical event and it is these online spaces that are the key site of our analysis. Crucially, it is these spaces that both the audience members and organisation have sought to shape, control and influence in conflicting ways.The latest Back to the Future event has spawned an unprecedented extension of the fictional world into these online spaces in which the fictional community of ‘Hill Valley’ has been recreated in meticulous detail across social media and in numerous in-fiction websites.
A dichotomy has emerged as Secret Cinema use these spaces to build audience narrative engagement whilst also deploying these same sites to market, sell and instruct their audience in key preparations for the event, as well as issuing requests for audience-generated content to be taken down. A confusing communications strategy which interchanges between fiction and non-fiction registers has manifested in what Phillip’s would refer to as ‘badly-drawn play space’.
Through a close textual analysis of the Back to the Future event and its constituent social media streams, this paper illuminates the conflicts, tensions and re-negotiations of control embedded in both the experience and surrounding anti-fan discourses, in which the event and organization is dismantled in public view and we argue that the audience reclaim both the social media spaces and the filmic text of Back to the Future as their own.
Inside-the-scenes: The rise of experiential cinema
Guest Editors: Sarah Atkinson and Helen Kennedy
It launched four key interventions: the Live Cinema Network, the Live Cinema in the UK Report, the Participations Journal themed section and the world’s first collaboration between event and live cinema: Hangmen Rehanged. Forty-six speakers and over two hundred participants were either present or connected online for the duration. Representatives attended from across the film industry, the film exhibition sector, arts and cultural organisations, funding bodies and the academy. An interdisciplinary steering group of academics and professionals working within the event and live cinema domains developed and curated the programme with the explicit intention to stimulate and advance thinking and practice in this nascent field. The day-long conference was comprised
of one keynote (Professor Martin Barker, Aberystwyth University), three panels, two masterclasses, two workshops, an interactive film exhibition—including ROAD (Nick Driftwood, 2015) and fabulous wonder.land (National Theatre, 2015), a networking space and the immersive theatrical screening of Hangmen Rehanged.
This report focuses on the insights and outcomes from the panels and the two masterclasses, while also offering a discussion of the state of our research in this domain. The brief to the panellists was to identify and discuss the critical challenges facing this sector, with selected participation bringing together a diversity of actors in this field. Presenters were asked to discuss a range of topics, including shared and disputed terminology, participation and engagement, marketing and audience development, intellectual property issues, training
and education needs, funding and other economic challenges. On analysis of the panel transcripts, we have also identified some further thematics, valuable insights and avenues for future research.
A lot has changed in how films are produced and promoted in the intervening decade. Last summer, for example, there was a huge Secret Cinema Star Wars event. Their immersive The Empire Strikes Back experience sold a staggering 100,000 tickets, generating over £6 million at the box office.
Running over four months, the event brought to the fore a new form of immersive cinematic entertainment which exploded in the UK over the summer of 2015. In addition to Secret Cinema’s event, the largest season of Open Air Cinema concluded its 125 outdoor screening run. In fact, a dizzying number of organisations now turn cinema into events: in the UK these include Sneaky Experience, Floating Cinema, Sing-alonga, Rooftop Film Club and Nomad Cinema.
There is a growing trend toward cinema-as-event – where film screenings are augmented by synchronous live performance, site-specific locations, technological interventions, social media engagement, and all manner of simultaneous interaction including singing, dancing, eating, drinking, even smelling.