Context
Between 1930 and 1960, the European film industry flourished in Britain, France, Germany and Italy. However, a knowledge gap exists on the factors that affected the sector due to war circumstances and post-war events, which included political changes, the labour movement, and the introduction of new technologies. The EU funded STUDIOTEC project suggests a new methodology based on the comparison of empirical data and transnational processes. The project has studied film studios as both artistic and entrepreneurial structures and has evaluated how the transnational movement affected creative acts. The research was based on interconnected issues including the studio’s infrastructures, artistic creativity, the role of politics, the economy and labour relations.
Objective
This project investigated film studios across four major European production sites: Britain, France, Germany and Italy, 1930-60. During these years studios were transformed as they responded to challenges including wartime disruptions, post-war fragmentation, movement of labour and the introduction of new technologies. While these countries have attracted their own historical literatures, this project proposed for the first time their comparative analysis from the perspective of film studio tectonics, cultures and practices. The project was underpinned by the idea of tectonics as a metaphorical way into understanding the studios’ multiple, stratified, shifting experiences as architectural spaces, diverse working environments and locations for innovation. The study of film studios has been dominated by the centralized Hollywood ‘system’, and local studio histories are typified by discrete, linear and undertheorized approaches. This project proposed a more dynamic materialist methodology, linking empirical data with comparative, transnational developments which occurred during a major period of change within the four key production sites. Using historical research and a range of spatial analysis, 3D and VR tools, the project has created new understandings of how the collaborative and material environments of studio spaces and technologies shaped film production and cultures.
