This round table discussion with the editorial board of Screenworks, an online peer-reviewed publication of screen media practice research, will focus on the journal’s evolving editorial approaches. Using Screenworks as a case study, we will explore the dialogic relationship between written statement and practice, critically examine the peer review process (from both sides of the experience) and outline the journal’s journey to becoming more accessible and inclusive. We will also explore Screenworks’ role in academic publication of the emerging field of videographic film criticism. The discussion will take as its jumping off point an MPE article by Editors Charlotte Crofts and Alex Nevill (2017) and explore how the journal has since developed, with the recent expansion of the editorial board.
Crofts, C. and Nevill, A. (2017) Publishing screen media practice research: evolving processes of contextualisation, peer review and future proofing in Screenworks in Media Practice and Education Volume 19, 2018 – Issue 3: Filmmaking in the Academy, pp. 283-297.
Participants: Screenworks Editorial Board
The discussion will take the form of a structured conversation led by Associate Editor Will DiGravio (also host of The Video Essay Podcast), with ample opportunity for participants to engage and share their own experience.
Dr Charlotte Crofts is Associate Professor of Film at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), she co-founded Screenworksin 2006 with Jon Dovey and has been Editor in Chief since 2011. She is co-convenor of the UWE Moving Image Research Group (MIRG), co-convenor of the BAFTSS Practice Research SIG and was the first MeCCSA Practice Section Chair (2007-9). She was on the Advisory Board of the AHRC Filmmaking Research Network and is a member of REF Panel D as an output assessor for sub-panel 33 and an impact assessor sub-panel 34. Her research spans traditional publication, practice and knowledge exchange, including filmmaking (both documentary and narrative), pervasive media (award-winning locative heritage apps) and curatorial practice. She has led impact case studies for REF14 and REF21. She is on the steering committee of UNESCO Bristol City of Film, is director of the Cary Comes Home Festival (established 2014). She is co-founder of the Angela Carter society and is currently developing a feature film adaptation of Angela Carter’s ‘Flesh and the Mirror’ which has been supported by the BFI Development Fund.
Will DiGravio is a writer, podcaster, and video essayist. He currently hosts The Video Essay Podcast and writes the weekly newsletter Notes on Videographic Criticism. In 2020, he co-curated the Black Lives Matter Video Essay Playlist, which was named the best video essay project of the year by the editors of Sight & Sound. His video essays have screened at academic conferences and film festivals, including most recently at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. He holds an M.Phil. from the Centre for Film & Screen at the University of Cambridge and has been on the editorial board of Screenworks since the fall of 2019. His personal website is www.willdigravio.com.
Dr Catherine Gough-Brady is an early career academic and an award-winning documentary producer and director. She has published parts of her PhD, on the relational nature of documentary production, in Screenworks, Media Practice and Education, [In}transition, The International Journal of Creative Media Research, and Cultural Geographies. She has written a chapter for the Routledge Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video on the emergent use of video as a method of academic discourse. She is currently co-editing an edited book of essays on the intersection between creative practice and theory. Alongside her research work, Catherine Gough-Brady has produced and directed six ABC TV documentary series, including Legal Briefs (2016) and Ethics Matters (2017). Catherine created 11 radio features for ABC Radio National. She is in pre-production for her latest TV series The Human Environment, which examines how humans connect with their environments. www.catherinegough-brady.com
Dr Alex Nevill is a cinematographer, filmmaker and Senior Lecturer in the School of Art & Design at Nottingham Trent University. He has photographed several independent feature films as well as award-winning short projects. In conjunction with his practice, Alex is the author of a short monograph Towards a Philosophy of Cinematography (forthcoming, Palgrave) and has published work in the Journal of Artistic Research, the Journal of Media Practice and Alphaville Journal of Film and Screen Media. Alex studied filmmaking at the Screen Academy Scotland and completed a PhD in the Digital Cultures Research Centre at UWE Bristol with a scholarship through the AHRC 3d3 Centre for Doctoral Training. Before joining NTU, Alex taught in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University and prior to that Ravensbourne University London. He joined the Screenworks team as an Associate Editor in 2016. www.alexnevill.com
Shweta Ghosh is a National Award-winning documentary filmmaker and researcher from India. She is Lecturer in Screen Practices and industries and a PhD candidate at the Department of Film, Theatre & Television, University of Reading, UK. Her work explores filmmaking processes, onscreen representation, identity and creative practice in India and the global South. Shweta’s ongoing PhD practice research explores disability and film/video expression, and the socio-cultural contexts of accessibility and equity that circumscribe filmmaking by people with disabilities in contemporary urban India. A key outcome of the project is a feature documentary titled We Make Film (80 mins, HDV) to be released in 2021. Shweta has previously explored a range of subjects through her documentaries and written work, such as disability and sexuality (Accsex), culinary culture, identity and memory (Chatkorichya Athavni/A Slice of Memory) and tea consumption cultures in India (Steeped and Stirred). Her debut film Accsex was awarded the President of India’s National Film Award. As a part-time member of staff at FTT, Shweta teaches on and convenes a range of practical modules on film production, creative industries and pathways, along with critical modules based on her specialisms in disability and Indian cinemas. www.shwetaghosh.com
Dr Matthew Hawkins is a Senior Lecturer in Film Practice, London South Bank University. Matthew specialises in film practice as research working across fiction film, documentary, ethnography and experimental film. His work engages with grassroots communities, belonging, migration, and the everyday. His PhD, entitled The Concept of Affective Tonality and the Role of the Senses in Producing a Cinematic Narrative, is focused on the concept of affective tonality and the potential of using affect as a tool to produce and conceptualise narrative (in) film practice. His theoretical work draws on the empiricism of Gilles Deleuze, and the wider field of film philosophy. Matthew’s practice has received funding from the National Lottery and Channel 4, The Arts and Humanities Research Council, The Leverhulme Trust, Team London GLA (Mayor of London), and The Capital Foundation Trust: Grassroots Fund.
Dr Estrella Sendra Fernandez is a researcher, filmmaker, festival curator and journalist. She is currently working as Senior Teaching Fellow in Film and Screen Studies at SOAS, University of London and Lecturer in Global Media Industries in Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. Estrella has been developing a regional area of expertise in Senegal, with a PhD thesis on ‘two-tier festivals’ in the country, funded by the Department of African Languages at SOAS, University of London. Her research interests include festival studies, global screen media, African cinema, audiovisual representations of migration, gender, youth and digital media. She engages with artistic research and pedagogy, notably through the implementation of video essays as creative assessment methods. She has been involved in numerous festivals in Spain, Senegal, South Africa and the United Kingdom. For more information about her work, please visit her personal website www.estrellasendra.com