Browsing by Person "Dickson, Lesley-Ann"

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'Ah! Other Bodies!': Embodied spaces, pleasures and practices at Glasgow Film Festival
(Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 2015-05-01) Dickson, Lesley-Ann
Summary Over the past two decades film festivals have become an increasingly important area of scholarly interest, particularly within Film Studies. However, to date, much scholarly attention has focused on the industry, economic and/or political roles of film festivals with surprising little attention given to the significance and meaningfulness of these events to the general public who attend them in droves. Focusing on Glasgow Film Festival (GFF) - an event that defines itself as an 'audience film festival' - this article draws on empirical audience research to examine experiences and pleasures of film festival going, and the extent to which these may, or may not, differ from year-round cinema going. While acknowledging that the raison d'tre for film festivals is to screen films, it argues that festival audiences articulate their experiences primarily in spatial and corporeal terms, as opposed to textual terms (via specific films). Drawing on audience testimonies, I examine the ways in which experiential vocabularies suggest a more embodied cinematic practice and alternative mode of spectatorship within the festival context, which contrast with traditional notions of disembodiment and immersion in the cinema space, as well as the resilience of shared cinematic experiences. Key words: Film festival audiences; cinema audiences; spectatorship; cinema space; festival space; embodiment; community; Glasgow Film Festival
‘Beyond Film’ Experience: Festivalizing Practices and Shifting Spectatorship at Glasgow Film Festival
(Bloomsbury Academic, 2017-12-28) Dickson, Lesley-Ann; Atkinson, Sarah; Kennedy, Helen W.
As 'festivities' film festivals are characterized by temporal structures (a distinct beginning and end), which present audiences with a momentary departure from the norm, that is, from more routine, or habitual, modes of film engagement. Stringer has suggested that the film festival is an 'external agency that creates meanings around film texts' and one could argue that these events offer engagements with film that are more heightened - in experiential terms - than that of the year-round cinema visits1 or indeed other modes of domestic or mobile film consumption (2003: 6). Within said temporalities, the cinematic experience at film festivals is eventized - or 'festivalized' - through multilayered programming (introductions, after screening debates, drop-in salons, screenings in non-cinematic spaces) and by way of 'classic' liveness2 (physical co-presence of special guests, performers, festival curators, audiences), each of which is narrativized in the 'written festival'3 as a series of unique, one-off, temporal encounters by way of promotional motifs ('rarity', 'first-timedness', 'seeing it first','one-off moments', 'something different'). These components come together to form multifaceted experiences that reach beyond the typical screening and reception of film texts in cinema. While acknowledging that all cinemagoing is experiential on some level, the chapter argues that film festivals are true manifestations of the live cinematic event and offer fertile ground for exploring shifting modes of cinematic exhibition and spectatorship both in the festival context and in year-round event-led cinema.
Episodic volunteer management at festivals: The case of Valletta Film Festival, Valetta, Malta
(Routledge, 2018-10-10) Dickson, Lesley-Ann; Stevenson, David
A film festival now opens every 36 hours somewhere in the world (Archibald and Miller, 2011, p. 249). As argued elsewhere (Dickson, 2017a), the extraordinary rate at which the number of festivals has increased signals a growing appetite for consuming film in event contexts and points to the increasing importance of multi-layered events in an experience-led economy. Likewise, over the last five years, there has been mounting interest in film festivals as objects of study by film and media scholars who consider them crucial sites for understanding film economies, politics and cultures. While film festivals have been considered through a variety of lenses and conceptualisations – imagined as religious orders (Bazin, 1955/2009), geopolitical networks (de Valck, 2007), open systems (Fischer, 2013), public spheres (Wong, 2016) and social constructions (Dayan, 2000), within this growing body of work there appears to be common agreement that film festivals are both exhibition circuits for the film industry and channels for cultural exchange. In this regard, film festivals oscillate between commercial, cultural and aesthetic agendas as “unique institution[s], which straddle art, commerce and governance” (Rhyne, 2009, p. 10).
Film festivals on the small screen: Audiences, domestic space, and everyday media
(Palgrave, 2023-01-05) Vail, James; Heath, Theresa; Dickson, Lesley-Ann; Finkel, Rebecca; de Valck, Marijke; Damiens, Antoine
This chapter offers a conceptual framework to theorize film festival audiences as festivals have shifted to digital forms of exhibition as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that any account of online film festival audiences should take into consideration the relationship between film festival viewing and other media practices. From mediascapes (Alasuutari 1999) and media ecologies (Fuller 2005) to media convergence (Jenkins 2006) and transmedia studies (Guynes & Hassler-Forest 2018), a whole host of researchers have argued that media practices are best understood at the intersection between a constellation of technologies, platforms, and devices rather than in isolation. Accordingly, we suggest that existing film festival research on audiences can be enriched by perspectives from television studies and research on other domestic and everyday media.
Insider/outsider positions at Glasgow Film Festival: Challenges, issues and opportunities in industry-partnered ethnographic research
(Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017-01-01) Dickson, Lesley-Ann; Paz Peirano, Maria; Vallejo, Aida
In his seminal thesis, Julian Stringer calls for more ethnographic approaches to the study of film festivals (2003, 242).Stringer adds that the key to effective ethnographic inquiry is the researcher's access- to the particular festival of interest. Generally speaking, lack of access to objects/subjects of study can be deeply problematic for the researcher, resulting in tension between research aims and realistic methods. In contrast, access can allow the researcher to adopt methods that will [bridge] the broad spaces between questions that [he/she/they] want[s] to answer, and the pragmatics and possibilities of [his/her/their] research- (Egan and Barker 2006). In the context of film festival research, one could argue that access is in fact critical due to the often exclusive nature of these events. Indeed within the growing field of film festival studies a tacit view has emerged which suggests that research that does not go behind the velvet rope--gaining access to insider information and materials-is blatantly recognisable to festival insiders (practitioners and scholars alike).2 For practitioners in particular, there can be significant disparity between scholarly accounts of exhibitions and the actual practices taking place on the ground. Consequently, lack of access can lead to questions about the comprehension, depth and reliability of the work, which suggests a link between questions of access and questions of authenticity.3 Thus, research with access arguably emerges as the preferred methodological condition within film festival research. This chapter charts my experience of film festival research from a position behind the velvet rope. Between 2010 and 2013 I conducted ethnographic research at Glasgow Film Festival as part of an academic/industry collaborative project. Here, I reflexively present the methodological issues and opportunities I faced, with particular emphasis on the complexities of insider/outsider positioning. The chapter also addresses the challenges of conducting industry-partnered research in which both industry agendas (operational usefulness-) and academic agendas (intellectual contribution-) are in operation.