Beyond the Multiplex: Audiences for Specialised Film in English Regions

The aim of the project is to understand firstly how to enable a wider range of audiences to participate in a more diverse film culture that embraces the wealth of films beyond the mainstream; and secondly how to optimise the cultural value of engaging with those less familiar films, identified here as 'specialised' films. We will do this by investigating how audiences engage with and form around specialised films in four English regions. Audience formation is here understood as the processes of engagement with films that generate audience experiences. Drawing on industry definitions, specialised films are understood as films outside the mainstream, including small scale UK films, foreign language, documentary, archive and hard-to-pigeonhole films, and films with unconventional narratives, themes or cinematic techniques. Provision of mainstream film is good across England; however, provision of specialised films is low across the English regions outside London, which limits the opportunities for people to experience a more diverse film culture. We need to know more about the provision of specialised films in those regions, and how audiences form in relation to specialised film provision. Although audience reception studies have made audiences increasingly visible within academic debate and although the industry and policy makers also gather intelligence about audiences, little attention has been paid to the specific contextual relationships and interactions between media and people that generate and sustain audiences in English regions. Audience policy for specialised films takes a regional approach in attempting to improve provision and create a more diverse film culture. Our project aims to provide a firm evidence base for such policy developments by establishing a detailed understanding of how audiences form in their engagement with specialised films, the extent to which they are committed to film cultural diversity and the role that regional identity plays in that process. To achieve these aims requires an holistic approach that addresses the details of consumption and the opportunities to consume, namely the provision of film at a regional level, including online. The goal is both to advance scholarship and to provide concrete recommendations about how UK audience policies can be improved.

This focused, comprehensive and impactful project will explore the relationship between audiences and specialised films by examining the practices of venue-based and online film consumption, how different audiences experience specialised films, and the value of venues in the regional provision of film. It will also address the provision of specialised film by examining the industry processes of funding, production, distribution and exhibition (including online) of specialised films in four English regions. The audience research will involve a multilevel comparative study of audience formation in relation to specialised films in four English regions, collecting data that is in depth and at scale and using innovative digital humanities analytical methods. Following an earlier pilot study (http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/fhn), we have developed a highly experienced interdisciplinary team to undertake this project, comprised of academic experts in film studies, sociology, cultural policy, digital humanities and partners from film policy and the film industry. Through a partnership with the British Film Institute's (BFI) Film Audience Network and the Film Hubs (which organise provision of specialised film and foster audience participation regionally), the project is designed to have direct impact on the BFI's efforts to improve regional audience figures, widen film choice, and enhance the cultural benefits of specialised film. The project will therefore establish a strong relationship between the scholarly understanding of audiences and the development of official audience policies and industry practices in the context of regional provision.

We aim to achieve impact within the British film industry through a programme of research that directly supports the work of the British Film Institute (BFI) Film Audience Network (FAN). FAN is composed of the nine Film Hubs which cover the whole of the UK. The aim of FAN is to position 'specialised film' as a recognisable, valued and important part of people's cultural lives. FAN seeks to achieve this by a) developing a larger, more diverse and sustainable audience for specialised film and b) creating a more confident sector for the distribution and exhibition of specialised film. Our project will help FAN and the industry sector address these two objectives by providing evidence (raw data and research outputs), tools for conducting their own analysis of the data (the online interface), and a methodology for conducting similar audience studies involving quantitative and qualitative data (the ontology). If funded, the project is timely because its findings will feed in to the BFI's next round of planning for the continuation of FAN beyond 2017. Our pathway to impact is targeted at the strategic level and the applied level.

The project is thus designed to have a direct impact on the BFI's efforts to improve regional audience figures, widen film choice, and enhance the cultural benefits of specialised film. More generally, the project is designed to inform and influence the specialised film sector, industry leaders and stakeholders through a series of impact activities that make use of the audience data and the search and visualisation tools and assist them with their decision making processes at regional and national levels. One aspect of the impact plan will be to run a series of workshops that use the project's digital deliverables as part of a Delphi Methodology to influence policy development. The project will thus establish a strong relationship between the scholarly understanding of audiences and the development of official audience policies and industry practices in the context of regional provision.