Research Seminar - Transferring Below-the-line Skillsets Across Creative Industries in Early Television

Transferring Below-the-line Skillsets Across Creative Industries in Early Television​

Presented by Dr Alex Bevan

Date: Friday 24 May, 2019
Time: 3:00pm-4:00pm
Location: Digital Learning Space (Room 224, Level 2), Joyce Ackroyd Building (#37) 

Abstract:

The article makes use of an, as yet, unpublished archive that documents the process of unionisation between the early television industry in the mid-1950s and the primary entertainment union at the time, the Australian Theatrical and Amusement Employees’ Association. The article uses this archive to explore intersections among the creative production industries of radio, film, and theatre, and how this network responded to the entrance of Australian television. Lastly, it uses these findings to argue for more pervasive historical patterns that involve the entrance of disruptive media technologies, industry standardisation and professionalisation, immigration, cultures of creative labour, and trade unions. These findings present a fruitful understanding of how new technology affects the nature of creative work and its organisation.

Presenter:

Alex Bevan is a Lecturer in Digital Media at the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland. Her book, The Aesthetics of Nostalgic TV (Bloomsbury 2019) studies the aesthetic politics and creative process behind the television production design and art direction of shows that reference the American baby boomer period. Her areas of expertise are industry studies, design history, gender, ethnography, labour, and television history. She has published in Convergence, Cinema Journal, Television and New Media, Adaptation and Feminist Media Studies, among others.