Drawing, dancing and dreaming: fifty years of innovation in British music videos
Introduction
The University of West London has been awarded a Follow on Funding grant by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to take curated programmes of British Music Videos on a world tour.
In a series of screenings in galleries and cinemas across the world, Professor Emily Caston will publicise British talent and creative innovation in music and film in the UK.
The central aim of the project is to extend and enhance the international public impact of the research and resources produced by the AHRC-funded project Fifty Years of British Music Video (AH/M003515/1), 2015-2018.
The follow-on-funding project runs for ten months to September 2018. Programme notes and meta-data will be supplied from its existing research.
The events will be lead by the Principle Investigator Professor Emily Caston and Co-Investigator Professor Justin Smith and will involve leading British music video directors and producers. The project is being run in collaboration with the British Council and the British Film Institute.
Project description
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project Fifty Years of British Music Video (AH/M003515/1) has been notable for its achievements in engaging the British music video industry in answering its central research questions about the cultural value and historic importance of music video as a commercial art form and discrete audio-visual practice.
This project seeks to engage new international audiences, beyond the scope of our original pathways to impact on that project, where international engagement was limited to academic communities. It represents a significant new partnership with the British Council, which builds on and extends our existing stakeholder relationships with the British Library and the British Film Institute.
Details
Professor Emily Caston will curate the digital packages. The licence clearances, masters sourcing and prepared copy production will be completed by a full-time Research Administrator based in London at the University of West London. The digital screening packages will be prepared by a post production house in London’s Soho using material supplied by the research team. They will be stored on solid-state drives. The Research Administrator will also organise the two overseas trips to Spain and Cuba.
The project will fund the travel costs, accommodation and subsistence of UK creative talent to accompany screening events and lead workshops, cover venue hire and local transportation and event management.
We held our first international events in Spain at the Ibiza Music Video Festival October 19-21st October 2017. The digital screening package centred on gender identities and the art of portraiture in British music videos. It was curated by the PI Emily Caston in consultation with award-winning producer – and previously Head of Music Video at Academy Films, and prior to that Head of Music Video at Island Records – Liz Kessler. The package was edited by Thomas Brigden at Final Cut. Founded in 2013 IMVF is a online & interactive music video festival, competition & awards’ ceremony celebrating all aspects of music video production hosted in Ibiza. It runs over two days and includes panels, seminars, Q&A sessions, and production events for filmmakers. Attendees and participants come from across the world. The PI Emily Caston and Liz Kessler served as Judges for the 2017 event.
Between 2nd and 9th April 2018, a screening, panel discussion and workshop will be held at the School for an audience not only of EICTV’s students but for the general public and filmmakers across Cuba. The events will focus on the crafts of music video production, direction, cinematography and editing. The Escuela Internacional de Cine y TV abbreviated EICTV - (The International Film and TV School) - was founded on December 15, 1986, by Columbian journalist and writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Each year around 40 students from Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe are selected to complete the Curso Regular (Regular Course). During this intensive three-year period, each student specialises in Documentary Direction, Fiction Direction, Sound, TV & New Media, or Screenwriting.
Along with Caston and Smith, the British film director WIZ will participate in these events. W.I.Z. is a British film director who has directed acclaimed videos for Kasabian, The Chemical Brothers, Oasis, Dizzee Rascal, Massive Attack, Oasis and Marilyn Mansun among others. Many of WIZ’s videos are based around a narrative and carry a political or social message. His seminal 1992 video for Flowered Up’s Weekender is a landmark in British music video history. Running at 13 minutes and shot on 16mm, it is legitimately described as a short film rather than a video. It follows the band Flowered Up and displays the hedonistic side of club and drug culture and was screened on Channel 4 in Britain. WIZ’S video for Disclosure’s Voices (2013) was filmed in Cuba with the Danza Contemporánea de Cuba.
Research team
- Principal investigator: Professor Emily Caston
- Co-investigator: Professor Justin Smith
- Project consultants: WIZ, Liz Kessler
- Research assistants: Mariam Kauser
Further information
Watch the directors’ cut of the video on Vimeo.
The events and screenings in Cuba will be filmed and edited into a short documentary as a record of impact and engagement for wider cultural dissemination and educational use. The documentary will be a British-Cuban co-production. The footage will be edited and mastered by our post-production houses in Soho, London, with local film crew from Cuban production company Island Pictures.
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