Creative Accounting: British Producers, British Screens
University of the West of England (Bristol), UK
Two day conference at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, UK
19-20 April 2011

This two day conference will investigate the role of the British screen producer as part of an AHRC-funded Research Project investigating the career of Michael Klinger (1960-1985).

The project is led by Andrew Spicer and Anthony McKenna in the Faculty of Creative Arts, Humanities and Education, University of the West of England, with support from project partners, the School of Creative Arts, Film and Media, University of Portsmouth.

The conference will work with a broad definition of “British” in order to encompass British producers working outside the British industry, and overseas producers working in the British industry. Contributors will not be restricted to cinema, but encouraged to discuss the producer’s role in television and new media. The overarching aim will be to re-examine concepts of agency within Screen Studies that have hitherto over-privileged the role of the director.

Keynote speakers
Tony Klinger (TV and Film Producer)
Vincent Porter (Emeritus Professor, Film and Communication, University of Westminster)
David Sproxton (Aardman Animations)

Abstracts:
Detailed programme and speakers’ abstracts

Papers:

• No ordinary showmen: a study of the contrasting ways in which Michael Balcon in the 1930s-1950s, and David Puttnam in the 1980s, confronted the problems posed by a British film industry
Janet Moat, former head of BFI Special Collections, 1992-2008.

• Balcon’s folly: the manufacture and assessment of 'Man of Aran'
Andrew Thomas Croft