I am a graduate of York St John, having received a BA in Drama, Film and Television in 1997. Subsequently, I completed a research MLitt in 2000 and received my PhD, on performance in the films of Hal Hartley, from The University of Aberdeen in 2007. My principal teaching interest is film form and the relationship between history, cultural theory and the aesthetics and structure of film. Prior to my return at York St John in 2007, I was a teaching assistant at The University of Aberdeen, where I taught widely about film. I am a former student filmmaker and have practical experience working with the BBC and MTV. Furthermore, I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
My teaching focuses largely on the intersections of history, industry, cultural change and film practice. I've taught widely across a number of degree programmes, including Film and TV Production, Film Studies, Journalism and Media Production. Several of my modules look at critical and analytical skills for students, embedding research skills and introducing first years to academic study. Further teaching is research-led and draws on my work on independent cinema and transnational cinemas, with a key interest in diverse storytelling and widening the taught canon beyond that previously established in the film studies and production disciplines. I also lead independent project and research modules at third year undergraduate and postgraduate level.
I also teach film practice, particularly short film drama and directing performances, providing students with insight into how to work with actors. With a particular focus on problem-based learning in production, I advocate both for experiential learning and blended approaches to theory and practice that I believe enrich both sides of a falsely constructed binary. My work also extends to engaging with film and television industries, largely through the Screen Industries Growth Network, to engage with ways in which students can enrich their experiences of HE by engaging with industry. In 2022, I organised a symposium that explored how HE curricula could provide both training for future careers and balance the needs of more traditional HE outcomes of critical thinking, research skills and soft skills that enable the leaders of the future to transform industries.
I have served as external examiner at Solent University for the BA in Film and TV Production and was previously an external at Bangor University for BAs in film and media and MA film-making. More recently, I have been an external for MA Documentary at Liverpool John Moores University. Furthermore, I have served as a member of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ Teaching Committee, who promote the development of pedagogy in film and media studies programmes internationally.
I have published broadly on a range of topics relating to American independent cinema and cult Japanese cinema. I am the author of Performance in the Cinema of Hal Hartley and have also published several journal articles and book chapters on Hartley’s films and actors associated with his work. In 2018, my book Transnational Cinema: An Introduction was released, giving an overview of how cinema has changed in the era of globalisation and the intensification of border-crossing. Other published work covers issues relating to the reception and promotion of Japanese cinemas in the UK, especially the films of Takashi Miike and the kaiju eiga (monster movie). My most recent books look at the global spread of the monster movie, from Godzilla to the cycle of Legendary Monsterverse films, and transnational monstrosity. They chart shifts in global cultural power and the ways in which popular cinema engages with tropes of transnational anxiety.
Along with Martin Hall and Lauren Stephenson, I was co-investigator on the Cinema and Social Justice Filmmaking project. Funded by the Screen Industries Growth Network, the project investigates how cinema engages audiences with questions of social justice and how young people understand faces that aim to challenge the status quo. The project also aims to inspire students to tell stories of their own experience with social justice topics. As part of the project, I co-executive produced the film Cost of Living. Commissioned by the project and made by the Yorkshire and North East Film Archives, the film reveals our collective memories of past economic crises, and the cries for social and economic justice that continue to ring so loudly in our ears today. The research project was nominated the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Practice Research Award in 2023 and the film has played multiple film festivals across the UK. The film has also been featured on BBC’s Look North, ITV Calendar, BBC Radio York and in a number of regional and national publications, and won a FOCAL International award for Best Use of Archive in a Short Film.
I have worked as peer reviewer for over a dozen journals and academic publishers. In 2011, I was the academic co-ordinator of an international conference exploring the partnership between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann. I also convened a conference in 2018 about transnational monstrosity in popular culture. In addition, I have presented many masterclasses and panels at the Aesthetica Short Film Festival with a range of organisations, including multiple film festivals, the British Film Institute, and several BAFTA and Oscar winners.
My research supervision has included PhDs on: spectacle in contemporary documentary; digital cellphone cinema; Hans Zimmer’s film music; transnational cultural flows in British Taiko drumming; transnational and transmedia narratives in The Witcher; representations of Jewish women in contemporary TV comedy; post-millennial teen and coming of age cinema; Native American and First Nation visual and performance artists. While I have also supervised MAs by research on video game adaptation and mythology, contemporary genre television and gender, British social realism, Killing Eve and queerness, Grunge design, the Hollywood studio system, and the films of Alfred Hitchcock. My other research interests include: Independent American Cinema; crowdfunding and transformations in film production processes; the relationship between Japanese, South Korean and Hong Kong cinemas and contemporary Hollywood; transnational cinema and genre; film acting; quality TV, technology and post-broadcast environments. Furthermore, I have examined several research degrees at UK institutions. I am keen to invite queries about studying for research degrees on any of these topics.
Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7908-8249
Recent publications
External research funding
- 2023: North Yorkshire County Council, ‘The Workforce Gap in North Yorkshire Screen Industries: Perceptions of Skills and Inclusion Gaps Amongst Screen Industry Employers’, Project Lead, £15000
- 2022: Screen Industries Growth Network, Cinema and Social Justice Filmmaking, Co-PI, £17500
Consultancy
- 2023: North Yorkshire County Council, ‘The Workforce Gap in North Yorkshire Screen Industries: Perceptions of Skills and Inclusion Gaps Amongst Screen Industry Employers’
- 2019: Guild of Media Arts, ‘The Need for Film Production Services in York’
Awards
- 2023: Winner, FOCAL International Awards, Best Use of Archive in a Short Production (for Cost of Living)
- 2023: British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies, Practice Research Award, Nominee (with Martin Hall and Lauren Stephenson), Cost of Living. Special Mention.
Film credits
- Executive Producer, Cost of Living, 2022
- Commissioned by The Cinema and Social Justice Project, funded by Screen Industries Growth Network, produced by Yorkshire and North East Film Archive
- Nominee, FOCAL International Awards, Best Use of Archive in a Short Production
- Project details and press (Sunderland Echo, BBC Online, The Big Issue, The Film Magazine, Newcastle Chronicle, Yorkshire Post, BBC Look North, ITV Calendar): https://filmfreeway.com/projects/2595044
View film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23gNHStA5Cw
