Learning on ScreenWomen and Media Histories
Connie Willis (seated, left) working as continuity ‘girl’ on the set of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956), directed by Alfred Hitchcock (standing next to the camera) and co-starring Doris Day (standing, right). Photo courtesy of The Cinema Museum.
Challenges and progress to date
The majority of the membership forms are hand-written paper applications in varying states of repair. Some of the material from the 1930s is particularly fragile, misspellings and inconsistencies occur and the application form itself underwent a number of format changes. These anomalies have presented the research team with a number of questions and challenges. To what extent should inconsistencies be ‘regularised’ or misspellings corrected? Should a controlled vocabulary be created across the employer field to regularise different variants of e.g. ‘BBC’ (B.B.C.; British Broadcasting) or ‘Pathe’ (Pathe Labs; Pathe Labs Ltd)? To what extent does regularisation introduce new hierarchies into the collection? Thinking about users of the resource and balancing their anticipated needs against the archival principles of record preservation have been a central part of the research team’s discussions.
Other outputs and developments
Alongside the digital resource are the more conventional academic outputs which will include journal articles, conference papers and a monograph Behind the Screens: Women in British Film and Television Production, 1933-1989. The project’s website will include case studies and blogs reflecting on the experience of producing a history of women’s work, and the materials and methods deployed in the process. On 24 October 2014 the research team will be hosting an oral history symposium at Newcastle University to discuss some of the issues germane to the project such as narrative interviewing, memory and visual cultures. Speakers include Professor Lynn Abrams (Glasgow) and Dr Penny Tinkler (Manchester). A CD of extracts from the oral history recordings will be published in 2016 to promote the project and enhance understanding of the history of women’s work in the industries. The project team will also work closely with BECTU’s Training and Diversity officers to develop training tools around the oral history interview material, integrating it into a resource to be used in training workshops. Current industry practitioners face a range of issues and challenges in their professional lives and engaging with the experiences of past employees through the spoken word has proven an effective mechanism for generating discussion of, and reflection on, issues of equality and diversity in the workplace. Finally the project will host a major international conference in May 2016 which will draw together academics, archivists, curators, industry groups and policy-makers to debate key issues relating to women in film and television production both past, present and future.
For more information about the project please see the project website (http://research.ncl.ac.uk/womensworkftvi/). For information about the Oral History symposium or any other enquiries relating to the research, please contact Dr Melanie Bell (melanie.bell@ncl.ac.uk).
Dr Melanie Bell-Williams
BUFVC update
The BUFVC’s role in this project is to manage the digital workstream, from assessing the collection in storage through digitization to development final online resource.
We are currently in the final stages of digitising the 67,000 union application forms along with the transcription of seven fields: gender, employer, salary, position – department and grade, date of application (or acceptance into the union if blank) and membership number. These will then be exported into a database and incorporated into our beta search interface. During the autumn we will work with the research team to refine this and develop a series of dynamic data visualisations.
The collection has presented a series of challenges particularly in regard to the personal nature of the material. We have had to balance the demands of data protection with online publication and this has necessitated some compromise with regard to access. Our agreement with BECTU only allows for access from higher & further education institutions in the UK with publication only possible with redaction of personal data such as the address.
Although we are just in the initial stages of development, the digitisation process has revealed the existence of different types of applications from probationary and ‘war emergency’ forms to those designed specifically for companies such as Kodak or areas of work, such as cable television. Indeed the changing format of the form from 1933 to 1989 reveals much about the evolving nature of the film and television industries and the role of the union within them.
Linda Kaye
BUFVC Head of research
