April 18th-19th, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, LONDON NW1 5LS (opposite Baker St Tube station), in Chiltern Hall.
Organisers:
Dr. Christopher Hogg – C.Hogg@westminster.ac.uk (University of Westminster)
Dr. Douglas McNaughton – D.Mcnaughton@brighton.ac.uk (University of Brighton)
Registration:
Overview:
Design is a key element of all sorts of television, but frequently neglected in academic studies. In 2003, Piers D. Britton and Simon J. Barker wrote ‘No serious, sustained examination of the role of scenic or costume design in the medium has been attempted’ (p.1). Almost 20 years later, Britton wrote ‘Scholarly analysis of almost any form of design for the screen… is still a relatively new phenomenon’ (2021: 10). This conference seeks to examine various aspects of television design, including set design, set dressing, redressing locations, connections between real space and onscreen place, relationships between set design and costume design, and the interpersonal relationships and institutional structures which inform design for television.
The organisers feel that input from professionals is vital to understanding how television design works, and therefore there will be at least one panel of industry practitioners to discuss their experience of television design. In addition, in collaboration with the University of Brighton Design Archives, which holds the papers of the pioneering television designer Natasha Kroll (1914-2004) among others, the organisers hope to stage an accompanying exhibition of documents, artefacts and costumes related to television design.
LIST OF PRESENTATIONS ACCEPTED
Rooms within Rooms within Rooms: Designing the Television Afterlife
Helen Wheatley
The Beginnings of Scenic Design on British Television, 1928-1939.
John Wyver
The Designer’s Story – a model for the analysis and appreciation of screen design.
Jane Barnwell
Upstairs Downton: The Class Boundary When Filming in Stately Homes
Rosemary Alexander-Jones
Layers of ‘lost’ New York: Production design and period drama’s spatial imaginary
Faye Woods
‘How to produce by a false thing the effects of a true’: asyndetic spaces in The Mayor of Casterbridge (1978/2003)
Douglas McNaughton
Irma Vep’s Spectral Mutations: The Black Catsuit and Its Implied Vampiric Attributes.
Juan Miguel Pardo Garrido
Creating Characters and Priming Performances: The Under-appreciated Role of Costume and Make-up Workers in UK Television Production 1950-2000
Vanessa Jackson
‘You’re not progressive enough for this!’: Queer codes and costume for Sex and the City/And Just Like That’s Miranda.
Kate McNicholas Smith
Interior Makeover Programmes: Strategies Behind the Camera
Neville Knott
In front of a live studio audience: Authenticity, authority, and liveness in production design for non-fiction television.
Geraint D’Arcy
Designed for Women? The aesthetics of domesticity in early (pre- and post-war) British television made for women
Kevin Geddes and Mary Irwin
Front Row: The French Chef and its Kitchen Counter
Verena Mund
Shifting the Scenery. Natasha Kroll: “display man” and set designer
Lesley Whitworth
Predicting Set Production Limitations and Possibilities through Production Practices: A comparison of South Korean and Egyptian television
Maria Andrea Etienne
Dirty walls and peeling paint: the set design of public hospitals in the Brazilian television series Under Pressure
Mariana Schwartz
Set Design as Involuntary Memory Cue: Pushing Daisies, WandaVision, and 1970s Sitcoms
Jennifer Gillan
Design and Reflexivity in Irwin Allen’s 1960s Adventure Series.
Jonathan Bignell
Q&A with the members of the Production Design Research & Education Network (PD-REN)
Banner images from the F H K Henrion, Natasha Kroll and Design Council Archive, University of Brighton Design Archives
