About the Book
This is the first collection of original critical essays devoted to exploring the misunderstood, neglected and frequently caricatured role played by the film producer. The editors' introduction provides a conceptual and methodological overview, arguing that the producer's complex and multifaceted role is crucial to a film's success or failure.
The collection is divided into three sections where detailed individual essays explore a broad range of contrasting producers working in different historical, geographical, generic and industrial contexts. Rather than suggest there is a single type of producer, the collection analyses the rich variety of roles producers play, providing fascinating and informative insights into how the film industry actually works. This groundbreaking collection challenges several of the conventional orthodoxies of film studies, providing a new approach that will become required reading for scholars and students.
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction – Andrew Spicer, A.T. McKenna and Christopher Meir
Part I – Theoretical and Historical Contexts
2. Joe Kember, University of Exeter, UK, “A Judge of Anything and Everything”: Charles Urban and the Role of the “Producer-Collaborator” in Early British Film
3. Audun Engelstad and Jo Sondre Moseng, Lillehammer University College, Norway, Mapping a Typology of the Film Producer – Or, Six Producers in Search of an Author
4. Andrew Spicer, University of the West of England, UK, The Independent Producer and the State: Simon Relph, Government Policy and the British Film Industry, 1980-2005
5. Paul Long, Birmingham City University, UK and Simon Spink, UK, Producing the Self: The Film Producer’s Labor and Professional Identity in the UK Creative Economy
6. Pauline Small, Queen Mary, University of London, UK, Producer and Director? Or, “Authorship” in 1950s Italian Cinema
7. Mark David Ryan, Ben Goldsmith, and Stuart Cunningham, Queensland University of Technology, Australia, and Deb Verhoeven, Deakin University, Australia, The Australian Screen Producer in Transition
Part II – Media and Genre Contexts
8. Donna Kornhaber, University of Texas at Austin, USA, The Producer in Animation: Creativity and Commerce from Bray Studios to Pixar
9. Brett Mills and Sarah Ralph, University of East Anglia, UK, “Trying to Ride a Naughty Horse”: British Television Comedy Producers
10. Sonia Friel, Norwich University of the Arts, UK, Keith Griffiths’ Poetics of Production
11. James Lyons, University of Exeter, UK, The American Independent Producer and the Film Value Chain
Part III – National and Transnational Contexts
12. Constanza Burucúa, Western University, Canada, Lita Stantic: Auteur Producer/Producer of Auteurs
13. A.T. McKenna, University of Nottingham, China, Beyond National Humiliation: Han Sanping and China’s Post-Olympics Historical Event Blockbusters
14. Gertjan Willems, Ghent University, Belgium, The Producer in Belgian Cinema(s): The Case of Jean (and Jan) Van Raemdonck
15. Christopher Meir, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, Post-Imperial Co-Producers: Emile Sherman, Iain Canning and Contemporary Anglo-Australian Cinema
About the Author :
Andrew Spicer, Professor of Cultural Production at the University of the West of England, UK, has published widely on British cinema, masculinity and film noir, most recently The Man Who Got Carter: Michael Klinger, Independent Production and the British Film Industry, 1960-1980, co-authored with A.T. McKenna. He is currently working on a study of Sean Connery.
A.T. McKenna teaches Media and International Communications at the University of Nottingham in Ningbo, China. His work has appeared in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Journal of British Cinema and Television, and the Journal of Popular Film and Television. He is currently working on a monograph on Joseph E. Levine.
Christopher Meir is Lecturer in Film at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago. He edited a special issue of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television on film marketing and has published on Jeremy Thomas. He is currently completing Scottish Cinema: Texts and Contexts.
Review :
A pioneering and timely volume emphasizing historical and transnational perspectives, Beyond the Bottom Line brings the myths and realities of the producer’s many roles into clear focus. Offering well developed case studies and conceptual clarification, the contributors deepen and extend the ongoing conversation about practitioner’s agency in thoughtful and productive ways.
This will prove an invaluable book, both to students and to those wishing to learn more about the film and media industries. Its spread is broad, making comparisons between different countries, practices and genres, and yet its intellectual focus is precise and well-conceived. The work of the producer has received scant attention in the past, and this important book rectifies that, and in a thorough, sophisticated and approachable way. Not to be missed.
This long-overdue scholarly collection represents an important step forward in the study of the role of the movie producer. Beyond the Bottom Line is a welcome addition to the burgeoning literature of production and industry studies. Its broad range of critical case studies will be a valuable resource to researchers and students alike.
