News

On the first of December, the department's Karl Schoonover will speak on the opening plenary of the three-day international conference at the Università di Torino, called "Intorno al Neorealismo: voci, contesti, linguaggi e culture dell’Italia del dopoguerra" ["In and around Neorealism"]. His talk is entitled, "Gli sguardi del dopoguerra: neorealismo e altri" ["Postwar gazes: Neorealist and otherwise"].

The Department is pleased to announce that we have been ranked first in the category of Dance, Drama and Cinematics by The Complete University Guide 2016, an independent guide to third level education in the UK. For more information, and to see how the results are calculated, CLICK HERE.

Andy Taylor, will in the Department at 1pm today (Friday 20^th Nov) to talk to us about his work. He will talk about his job bringing films and games to life for a young audience of millions. Andy set up the ‘When Chris Stark met Mila Kunis’ interview which went viral on YouTube. He produced the ground-breaking ‘Radio 1 Rescores: Drive’ collaboration with BBC3 and Zane Lowe. He negotiates with the major film studios and publicists to deliver A-list movie stars to the airwaves. Andy is also a radio producer and documentary maker, and is currently directing and producing an iPlayer film about Star Wars.

Andy will be talking about working with film stars (the highs and the lows), how media providers must adapt their content and delivery as their audience’s habits change (for example Radio 1 now produces a vast amount of visual content as well as radio shows), the challenges of making content for young audiences, the under-representation of Gaming in popular mainstream media… and what employers are looking for in the next generation of production and presenting talent.

Andy will also be joined by Lucy Kent, Publicity Manager for Universal Pictures who will talk about her role and her route into film marketing.

Andy will also introduce a piece of Movie content for Radio 1 he is working on next year - he’s looking for new young people who can talk passionately about film on the radio. Whilst this is a one-off project, there is a chance that this could lead to further film reviewing work for BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra. This is your chance to meet him and put yourself forward to take part.

The talk will take place at 1pm in 028. Andy and Lucy will then be happy to talk to people individually about either taking part in the Radio 1 film reviewing project or going into film marketing in 026 after the talk.

As part of Flatpack Film Festival's Celluloid City Weekend at mac Birmingham several members of the research team working on the AHRC funded research project The Projection Project will give talk about their work, and trace a century-spanning history of projection and projectionists, from fairground showmen to contemporary projection mapping. Dr. Jon Burrows and Dr. Michael Pigott will speak on Saturday the 21st at 4pm, and Claire Jesson will introduce a screening of Wim Wenders' Kings of the Road on Sunday at 2pm.

More information here: http://macbirmingham.co.uk/event/the-projection-project/

And to find out more about The Projection Project, click here: https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/film/research/current/theprojectionproject/

On Wednesday, the 18th of November, Schoonover will give a talk at King's College London entitled, 'Dario Argento's Refuse and Its Refusals'. His lecture will examine the politics of waste in the Italian director's most famous horror films from the 1970s and early 1980s, including Suspiria,4 mosche di vellluto grigio, Inferno, Profondo Rosso, and Tenebre. Argento's fixation on waste proposes an alternate materiality, departing from conventional understanding of the period as a moment of unparalleled economic opportunity and prosperity for Italy.