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Carter's research into the life and work of the Hungarian film theorist Béla Balázs (1884-1949), and her collaboration with Rodney Livingstone (Professor Emeritus, Southampton) on the first English translation of his early works, provided the inspiration for a travelling exhibition, film screenings and website that showcased Balázs's early writing, and explored the connections between his film theory and contemporary film practice. Artist Zsuzsanna Ardó approached Carter to collaborate following the publication of an article on Balázs (Screen 2007), and worked with her to mount an exhibition at BAFTA and three Everyman Cinemas in London, accompanied by public talks and film screenings.
Roger Shannon's research on the legacy of the Birmingham Film and Video Workshop (BFVW) has fed directly into the curation and digitisation of previously neglected productions from this pioneering collective, which are now available for public exhibition at arts centres, cinemas, galleries and festivals. The specific examples of the public articulation of the impact include the Participation exhibition at the Vivid Gallery in Birmingham (2009), the digitisation of the original BFVW material, and the Hell Unltd/Traces Left event at the Glasgow Film Theatre (2013) which Shannon co-ordinated. He also worked closely with musician Kim Moore in her composition and performance to accompany the Hell Unltd event.
Three claims to impact stemming from Shannon's research are made here:
Dr Julie Brown's research on the sounds of `silent film' exhibition in Britain has had an impact well beyond academia. Her collaborations with film festivals and major film venues plus public lectures have brought about an enhanced public awareness of a lost media art. Through a practitioner/academic network and via practice-based activities involving professional musicians she has had a direct impact on musical practice, and also brought significant performances to the general public in well-attended public events and film festivals at major cinema venues in both Edinburgh and London. Her work has led to enhanced public understanding of the history of the sonic dimension of `silent cinema' in Britain.
Elliott, Haillay and Young are central to our research in film-making. Theirs is a socially-engaged but elegiac cinema of contemporary times. Elliott (writer and director), Haillay (producer) and Young (writer/producer) have, over the REF period, collaborated with one another, and with others, to create an influential body of work. The innovative approaches to narrative and the visual beauty of their cinematography have had an important impact on cinema audiences nationally, even more so internationally. They have participated in numerous international film festivals and won awards. With new productions currently at an advanced stage, the trajectory of their research is still upward. The standing of their backers and finance-providers attest to their growing international prestige, and audiences for their work continue to grow.
The MyStreet project explores a new collaborative anthropology by training and facilitating filmmakers in in using techniques some of which were inspired by study of Mass Observation. This is achieved through a competition and online film archive with a global audience, and the annual Open City Docs film festival which has led to new partnerships with private and community organisations, and inspired a similar project in Prague. Through DocinaDay, about 350 students and community groups from high-exclusion areas received training in filmmaking and a screening platform, with positive impacts on social cohesion and individual welfare.
Northern Lights was a University of Edinburgh research project that engaged members of the Scottish public in documenting their lives on camera. Its objective was to create a novel, multi-perspective documentary portrait of the Scottish nation in 2012. The project had enormous scope: press and media impact reached over 4 million people. Northern Lights made its impact by empowering the 1,500 individuals who contributed video portraits to explore issues such as addiction, disabilities and mental health. Northern Lights thus opened up a unique opportunity for participants to represent their experience, voicing, for themselves and for a wider, national audience, often poorly understood and neglected sectors of society.
This case study examines the impact of Catherine Wheatley's research into spectatorship, audiences, and critical contexts through engagement with the popular press and public-facing media institutions. It focuses on Wheatley's work with Sight & Sound, the monthly consumer magazine published by the British Film Institute, which reaches beyond academia to a cine-literate but non-specialist audience. Her research has influenced discussion and criticism of cinema for a large, interested cine-enthusiastic audience as well as contributing to broader public debate and cultural discussion of cinema through mass-media appearances. She has also judged a competition for budding female critics, encouraging more women to write thoughtfully on film, and nurturing a new generation of women critics through which her research has been able to influence the practice of film criticism more widely.
Elizabeth Cowie's scholarship centres on the intersections of art, politics and the cinema. The impact of her research lies in the challenges she makes to existing paradigms, challenges that resonate within and beyond the academy. Widely taught in Higher Education (HE) across Europe, North America, and Australia, her research on documentary is also particularly significant for its influence on artist filmmakers. Insights gained from her arguments on aesthetics, spectatorship, and political engagement have been taken up by artists whose own work seeks to explore complex ideas about art, politics, trauma and memory.
This research, led by Amy Hardie and the Scottish Documentary Institute from 2006 onwards, investigates the practice of communicating and engaging with science through creative documentary filmmaking, developing a screening strategy heralded as 'a completely different paradigm of cinema' (5.1). By drawing out human stories in award-winning, critically-acclaimed films, it has mainstreamed complex subject matter about stem cell research, redressing public and media misconceptions along the way. One film has been watched over 112,000 times in 190 countries, while behind the camera, it has forged cross-disciplinary collaborations between artists and biological scientists that have been discussed and admired by policy-makers in Brussels and Tokyo.
Conceived, directed and edited by Clio Barnard, The Arbor (2010) explores the life, work, and legacy of the playwright Andrea Dunbar. Among many other prizes and nominations, the film won the Grierson Trust Award for Best Cinema Documentary, and The Guardian First Film Award, both in 2011. It has achieved a wide-ranging and significant impact, informing public debate, transforming the lives of those depicted in and working on the film, bolstering cultural heritage in West Yorkshire, generating sustainable employment in the film industry, influencing fellow filmmakers and making a significant contribution to UK cultural life.