Shadow Sites, Peripheral Spaces, Embodied Places: the 48-hour film challenge as a locus for film industry project networks

One of the great things about virtual conferences is that the presentation in the form of a video is no longer ephemeral. For good or bad it is something that can be shared beyond the conference panel. Sometimes you present what has been a lot of work to a few people for ten minutes and then we move on. So in celebration of that benefit here is the Besides the Screen 2021 paper that (I literally) just dropped on their YouTube and then participated in a very productive Q&A.

I like to proceed from abstract, to conference paper, to written article and a few of the questions have given me some extra areas to develop for my research now. In particular the tension between a the 48 hour film challenge as gifting economy in which a ritual celebration of coming together empowers participants. In tension with the way in which the 48 hour film challenge might be reproducing undesirable labour practices typical of the film industry or reproducing certain kinds of representational issues. If the 48 hour film challenge is a step up into the film industry then who gets that step up is clearly an issue that is worthy of consideration. Diversity and inclusion has never been a topic that DVMISSION as an organisation/event has really drilled into but maybe the time has come.

Shadow Sites, Peripheral Spaces, Embodied Places: the 48-hour film challenge as a locus for film industry project networks

ABSTRACT

The article argues for a break with the notion of cinema as temporally located space and reconceptualises it as an embodied place. A shadow site, mirroring elite forms of cinema in microcosm, a locus for communities of practice that intersect primarily through project networks. A case study of a long running 48 Hour Film Challenge in the UK asks how identity formation contributes to an embodied sense of place within peripheral production communities. Identity formation is crucial to the acculturation of entrants into a community of practice. The socialising process that confers membership provides a basis for the development of relationships that cement the interconnectivity of a peripheral project network. The research draws on a rich mixture of auto-ethnographic reflection, observation and qualitative data gathered over a four-year period via video recordings, surveys and semi-structured interviews. The paper evidences the contribution that place as an embodied locus for project networks within a peripheral film industry can make to the evolution of a regional creative economy. It attests to the ways in which participation in a filmmaking and screening activity such as a 48-hour film has value for early career filmmakers through an engagement with their own personal narratives.