Andrew Spicer on the film- and television producer

Andrew Spicer, professor of Cultural Production aan dat the University of the  West of England, will talk about the misunderstood and frequently caricatured role of the film and television producer. He will discuss why producers have been neglected in academic discussion and, using a range of examples from the British film and television industries, analyse the nature of their role and its importance. He will reflect on sources and methodology and discuss the importance of contextual and historically situated studies.

Andrew Spicer is Director of Research for the Faculty of Arts and Cultural Industries, Creative Industries and Education. His principal research interests are British cinema, cultural constructions of masculinity, film noir and production cultures and he has published widely in each of these areas. His books include Film Noir (2002), Typical Men: The Representation of Masculinity in Popular British Cinema (2003), Sydney Box (2006), Historical Dictionary of Film Noir and, with A.T. McKenna, Get Carter: Michael Klinger, Independent Production and British Cinema, 1960-1980 (2013). He has edited or co-edited several editions of journals and European Film Noir (2007), A Companion to Film Noir (2013) with Helen Hanson, and Beyond the Bottom Line: The Producer in Film and Television Studies (forthcoming, 2014) with Christopher Meir and A.T. McKenna. He is working on a monograph about Sean Connery for the BFI/Palgrave ‘Film Stars’ series, for publication in 2015. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of British Cinema and Television and Screenwriting. He was principal investigator on an AHRC funded project about the British film producer (2010-12) and is currently a member of a European project, ‘Success in the Film and Television Industries’ (SiFTI).