Research Seminar Series: Professor Rod Stoneman "Channel 4 & The Irish Film Board". Tues 29th 10am-12.

28 Jan 2019

Department of Film and Screen Media Research Seminar Series 2018–2019

Professor Rod Stoneman
"Channel 4 & The Irish Film Board"

Tuesday 29^th January 10am-12noon
Film and Screen Media Auditorium, Kane Building B10.B (Basement)

With extensive use of extracts Rod Stoneman discusses the experience of working in Channel 4 for the first 10 years of the station and then involvement in setting up (the second version) of Bord Scannan na hÉireann.

Founded in 1982, the first years of Channel 4 were an exhilarating period. The excitement and optimism of changing television – the ‘remit’ was an explicit rationale to experiment in the form and content of programmes, push the boundaries and to challenge the mainstream by introducing a wider range of distinctive alternative programmes. In many areas Channel 4 introduced diversity – new forms and genres of television, creating spaces where different ideas could meet their audiences.

Helping to set up the reconstituted Irish Film Board in 1993 connects with the Channel 4 experience - the same commitment to diversity and a desire to drive a progressive perspective through underlying structures, themselves in constant movement, persisted. The approach redeployed the talents of the nascent independent sector in Ireland in relation to the needs of the audience, the perceptions of the state and a renegotiation of market conditions at that time.

Professor Rod Stoneman is an Emeritus Professor Emeritus at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He was Director of the Huston School of Film and Digital Media, Chief Executive of Bord Scannán na hÉireann / the Irish Film Board until September 2003 and previously a Deputy Commissioning Editor in the Independent Film and Video Department at Channel 4 Television in the United Kingdom. He has made a number of documentaries, including Ireland: The Silent Voices, Italy: the Image Business, 12,000 Years of Blindnessand The Spindle, and has written extensively on film and television. He is the author ofSeeing is Believing: The Politics of the Image; Chávez: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised; A Case Study of Politics and the Media and the coeditor of‘The Quiet Man’… and Beyond: Reflections on a Classic Film, John Ford and Ireland (with Seán Crosson) andScottish Cinema Now (with Jonathan Murray and Fidelma Farley).