Sarah Atkinson
Professor Sarah Atkinson’s work is focused upon new models of audience engagements in digital storytelling, industrial filmmaking process, evolving models of labour in transmedia production, and digital archiving. She deploys both practice-based and empirical methodologies in her research and teaching.
Sarah is Professor of Screen Media in the department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries at King's College, London.
Following her practice-led PhD Telling Interactive Stories in which her own interactive film Crossed Lines was exhibited internationally, Atkinson has gone onto produce an interactive featurette for the Ginger & Rosa (2012, Dir: Sally Potter) Blu-ray by Artificial Eye (UK) and DVD, Lionsgate (USA).
Sarah has received grants from the Higher Education Academy, JISC and the Open University to undertake both research and teaching initiatives, her most recent awards from the AHRC have funded the DEEP FILM Access Project and the TRI-PACT (Tracking Intellectual Property Across the Creative Technologies) Project - for both of which for she is the Principal Investigator.
Sarah is Professor of Screen Media in the department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries at King's College, London.
Following her practice-led PhD Telling Interactive Stories in which her own interactive film Crossed Lines was exhibited internationally, Atkinson has gone onto produce an interactive featurette for the Ginger & Rosa (2012, Dir: Sally Potter) Blu-ray by Artificial Eye (UK) and DVD, Lionsgate (USA).
Sarah has received grants from the Higher Education Academy, JISC and the Open University to undertake both research and teaching initiatives, her most recent awards from the AHRC have funded the DEEP FILM Access Project and the TRI-PACT (Tracking Intellectual Property Across the Creative Technologies) Project - for both of which for she is the Principal Investigator.
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Books by Sarah Atkinson
To what extent have digital innovations transformed the UK film industry? What new practices and processes are emerging within the contemporary UK filmmaking landscape? What impact is this having upon filmmaking professionals?
The business of conventional feature filmmaking is like no other, in that it assembles a huge company of people from a range of disciplines on a temporary basis, all to engage in the collaborative endeavour of producing a unique, one-off piece of work. By focusing on the pivotal year of 2012, and by considering the input of every single contributor to the process, this book illuminates how this period of analogue to digital transition is impacting upon working practices, cultures, opportunities and structures in the industry, and examines the various causative forces behind their adoptions and resistances. With an in-depth case study of Sally Potter’s 2012 film Ginger & Rosa, and drawing upon interviews with international film industry practitioners, From Film Practice to Data Process is a groundbreaking examination of film production in its totality, in a moment of profound change.
These investigations reveal new cultures of reception and practice, new experiential aesthetics and emergent economies of engagement. This collection brings together fifteen contributions that together trace the emergence of a vivid new area of study. Drawing on rich, diverse and interdisciplinary fields of enquiry, this volume encapsulates a broad range of innovative methodological approaches, offers new conceptual frameworks and new critical vocabularies through which to describe and analyse the emergent phenomena of Live Cinema.
Through analyses of narrative, text, process, apparatus and audience this book traces the metamorphosis of an emerging cinema and maps the new spaces of spectatorship which are currently challenging what it means to be cinematic in a digitally networked era.
Table of contents:
Acknowledgements
Preface
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Extending Cinema
Chapter 3: Mobile Cinema
Chapter 4: Socially Layered Cinema
Chapter 5: The Ethics of Emerging Cinema
Chapter 6: The Business of Emerging Cinema
Chapter 7: The Grammar of Emerging Cinema
Chapter 8: Epilogue
Filmography
Bibliography
Reviews:
“This is a thought-provoking and fascinating book for all those engaged in navigating and understanding emerging and expanded forms of 'cinema'. We're faced daily by a dizzying new media landscape, to be sure, and Atkinson shows us some compelling ways through it which usefully draw and build on existing film studies conceptualisations.” – Catherine Grant, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of Sussex, and editor of REFRAME.
“Beyond the Screen offers a fascinating and insightful study into the way that technology is changing the relationship between moving image and audience and how these changes are reshaping the very meaning of cinema. Combining historical, narratological, industrial and audience research of case studies ranging from major studio releases to experimental mobile films and ARGs, Atkinson’s book offers essential reading for anyone wanting to understand what cinema is becoming.” – Elizabeth Evans, Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, Nottingham University, UK.
“Beyond the Screen is a welcome and refreshing investigation of the art form we call cinema. However, this century-old form of screen-based storytelling has vaulted over the antiquated definitions of it that we have customarily used, and Dr. Atkinson examines the new world of cinema in all of its many forms. She investigates transmedia storytelling, audience sourced stories, stories told on iPads and many other emerging genres. To help the reader grasp the various concepts she discusses, she not only works out a new grammar for the field but also offers numerous case histories, some of which might already be known to the reader but a number of which are sure to be unfamiliar but fascinating.” – Carolyn Handler Miller, author of Digital Storytelling, Third Edition: A Creator’s Guide to Interactive Entertainment."
Journal Articles by Sarah Atkinson
Drawing on research and insights from media and film studies and on examination of selected live hosting packages produced by the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House, this article reveals how the presentation and framing of this content brings to light the tensions inherent in the attempt to combine theater and film. Taking account of the wider economy of “liveness” and experiential media, the article pays particular attention the “live” aesthetic that emerges within these medium-specific paratextual materials.
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.
Book Chapters by Sarah Atkinson
To what extent have digital innovations transformed the UK film industry? What new practices and processes are emerging within the contemporary UK filmmaking landscape? What impact is this having upon filmmaking professionals?
The business of conventional feature filmmaking is like no other, in that it assembles a huge company of people from a range of disciplines on a temporary basis, all to engage in the collaborative endeavour of producing a unique, one-off piece of work. By focusing on the pivotal year of 2012, and by considering the input of every single contributor to the process, this book illuminates how this period of analogue to digital transition is impacting upon working practices, cultures, opportunities and structures in the industry, and examines the various causative forces behind their adoptions and resistances. With an in-depth case study of Sally Potter’s 2012 film Ginger & Rosa, and drawing upon interviews with international film industry practitioners, From Film Practice to Data Process is a groundbreaking examination of film production in its totality, in a moment of profound change.
These investigations reveal new cultures of reception and practice, new experiential aesthetics and emergent economies of engagement. This collection brings together fifteen contributions that together trace the emergence of a vivid new area of study. Drawing on rich, diverse and interdisciplinary fields of enquiry, this volume encapsulates a broad range of innovative methodological approaches, offers new conceptual frameworks and new critical vocabularies through which to describe and analyse the emergent phenomena of Live Cinema.
Through analyses of narrative, text, process, apparatus and audience this book traces the metamorphosis of an emerging cinema and maps the new spaces of spectatorship which are currently challenging what it means to be cinematic in a digitally networked era.
Table of contents:
Acknowledgements
Preface
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Extending Cinema
Chapter 3: Mobile Cinema
Chapter 4: Socially Layered Cinema
Chapter 5: The Ethics of Emerging Cinema
Chapter 6: The Business of Emerging Cinema
Chapter 7: The Grammar of Emerging Cinema
Chapter 8: Epilogue
Filmography
Bibliography
Reviews:
“This is a thought-provoking and fascinating book for all those engaged in navigating and understanding emerging and expanded forms of 'cinema'. We're faced daily by a dizzying new media landscape, to be sure, and Atkinson shows us some compelling ways through it which usefully draw and build on existing film studies conceptualisations.” – Catherine Grant, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of Sussex, and editor of REFRAME.
“Beyond the Screen offers a fascinating and insightful study into the way that technology is changing the relationship between moving image and audience and how these changes are reshaping the very meaning of cinema. Combining historical, narratological, industrial and audience research of case studies ranging from major studio releases to experimental mobile films and ARGs, Atkinson’s book offers essential reading for anyone wanting to understand what cinema is becoming.” – Elizabeth Evans, Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, Nottingham University, UK.
“Beyond the Screen is a welcome and refreshing investigation of the art form we call cinema. However, this century-old form of screen-based storytelling has vaulted over the antiquated definitions of it that we have customarily used, and Dr. Atkinson examines the new world of cinema in all of its many forms. She investigates transmedia storytelling, audience sourced stories, stories told on iPads and many other emerging genres. To help the reader grasp the various concepts she discusses, she not only works out a new grammar for the field but also offers numerous case histories, some of which might already be known to the reader but a number of which are sure to be unfamiliar but fascinating.” – Carolyn Handler Miller, author of Digital Storytelling, Third Edition: A Creator’s Guide to Interactive Entertainment."
Drawing on research and insights from media and film studies and on examination of selected live hosting packages produced by the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House, this article reveals how the presentation and framing of this content brings to light the tensions inherent in the attempt to combine theater and film. Taking account of the wider economy of “liveness” and experiential media, the article pays particular attention the “live” aesthetic that emerges within these medium-specific paratextual materials.
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.
unlock latent opportunities that exist within the big and complex
data sets generated by industrial digital film production.
The project is developing a methodology for the integration of
the data and metadata generated through film production, by
capturing, archiving and making accessible the diverse range
and levels of expertise which exist within filmmaking. As a
proof-of-principle, the project uses the entire corpus of Sally
Potter’s 2012 film, Ginger & Rosa, providing an emblematic
example of an industrial digital feature film production in
contemporary Britain which features the work of a number of
renowned and prolific practitioners in the UK and international
film industry. Our initial focus is on a case-study of materials
associated with a single scene from the film.
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
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.