Abstract
The North East of England became known in the 1980s as an important place in the ‘workshop movement’ of independent film collectives producing formally and politically challenging work—some gaining a platform on television as a result of a ‘franchise’ from the new Channel 4 station. This chapter considers the differing output, activities and methods of the North-East workshop groups Amber, Trade, Siren, A19 and Swingbridge. Using a range of examples, it illustrates how these groups sought to communicate the perspectives of communities in the North East, document regional histories of labour and industry, and challenge prevailing representational trends. The chapter then contextualises the decline of the workshop movement in the early 1990s as a result of various political and industrial developments.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For a detailed analysis of Amber’s work see Leggott (2020).
- 2.
Some of the biographical information in this chapter relating to A19, Siren, Swingbridge and Trade is indebted to research and unpublished material by Paul O’Reilly. I am extremely grateful to him for this help.
- 3.
Following We Make Ships, Tom Pickard continued his exploration of the impact of de-industrialisation in the North East with the television documentaries Tell Them In Gdansk (1989), which picked up the story of shipyard redundancies on Wearside, and The Shadow and the Substance (1994), a reflection on the history and future of labour.
- 4.
Mackinnon quotations are from an unpublished interview with Paul O’Reilly, 21 September 2008.
- 5.
This quotation, and the next, is taken from the Press Notes for the film, accessed via the Trade archive at the North East Film and Television Archive.
- 6.
Davis quotations are from an unpublished interview with Paul O’Reilly, 2 September 2008.
- 7.
For more on the development of the North East Film and Television Archive, founded in Trade in 1983, and the basis of the collection now known as the North East Film Archive, see Davis (2014).
- 8.
It was broadcast as part of the Channel 4 series The Lie of the Land, which also included David Eadington’s The End of the Pier (Perry 2020: 62–63).
- 9.
Woolcock recalled these accusations in a 2013 episode of BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking series (first broadcast 20 November 2013). Evidence of the critical standing of the film can be found in its privileged place as an extended case study in John Corner’s The Art of Record: A Critical Introduction to Documentary (1996: 139–154), and its inclusion in 100 British Documentaries (Russell 2007).
- 10.
Press statement accessed via the Trade archive at the North East Film and Television archive.
- 11.
Woolcock speaking in BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking. See also Woolcock (no date).
- 12.
According to Jan Worth, who began working for the NEMTC in 1987: ‘The North-East is saturated with romantic images of its industrial past. Not only are these images fostered by a predominantly male, middle-class culture, the rich diversity of the region, as in most northern regions, is simply excluded from the history of representation’ (Worth 2001: 117).
Bibliography
Collingwood, R.G. 1938. The Principles of Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Corner, John. 1996. The Art of Record: A Critical Introduction to Documentary. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Davis, Bob. 2014. Thirty Years On: A footnote on the history of the regional film archive. North East History. 45: 29–42.
Ellis, John. 1992. Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video, 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge.
Fairley, Maureen. 1988. Penny Takes a Bite of Success. The Journal. Date Unknown. Accessed via the Trade archive at the North East Film and Television Archive.
Fountain, Alan. 1982. New Independents on Four. London: Channel 4 Television.
Hebert, Hugh. 1984. Ends and Means. The Guardian. 19 June. Accessed via the Trade archive at the North East Film and Television Archive.
James, David. E. 1996. For a Working-Class Television: The Miners’ Campaign Tape Project. In The Hidden Foundation: Cinema and the Question of Class, ed. David E. James and Rick Berg, 193–217. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
Lamb, Ben. 2020. Assessing Changes to the Welfare State: An Investigation into the Effects of Regional Media on Local Media on Local Services and Recipients of Care in 1980s North East England. In Discourses of Care: Media Practices and Cultures, ed. Amy Holdsworth, Karen Lury and Hannah Tweed, 172–192. New York: Bloomsbury.
Leggott, James. 2020. In Fading Light: The Films of the Amber Collective. New York, NY: Berghahn.
Newbury, Darren. 2002. Documentary Practices and Working-Class Culture: An Interview with Murray Martin (Amber Films and Side Photographic Gallery). Visual Studies. 17 (2): 113–128.
Newsinger, Jack. 2009. The “Cultural Burden”: Regional Policy and Practice in England. Journal of Media Practice 10 (1): 39–55.
Petley, Julian. 1989. Background and Development of Film and Video Workshops. London: British Council.
Petley, Julian. 1995. Crisis in the Northeast. Vertigo 1 (5) (Autumn/Winter), https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/volume-1-issue-5-autumn-winter-1995/crisis-in-the-northeast/.
Perry, Colin. 2020. Radical Mainstream: Independent Film, Video and Television in Britain, 1974–1990. Bristol and Chicago: Intellect.
Russell, Patrick. 2007. 100 British Documentaries. London: BFI.
Stoneman, Rod. 2020. When Channel 4 was Radical: A Sketch of Political and Cultural Alternatives. Culture Matters. 9 June, https://www.culturematters.org.uk/index.php/culture/tv/item/3402-when-channel-4-was-radical-a-sketch-of-political-and-cultural-alternatives.
Southwell, Alan. 1988. Steel Town Film “A Stab in the Back”. Evening Chronicle 23 (September). Accessed via the Trade archive at the North East Film and Television Archive.
Woolcock, Penny. No Date. When the Dog Bites, https://pennywoolcock.com/whenthedogbites.
Woolley, Benjamin. 1984. Making Waves. The Listener. 14 June, 35.
Worth, Jan. 2001. Interrogation or Conformity: Journeys in Film Production Education. Journal of Media Practice. 2 (2), 114–125.
York Film. 1981. Reel Practices: A Directory of Independent Film From the Northeast. York: York Film.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Leggott, J. (2021). The Workshop Movement in the 1980s: Alternative Visions of the North East. In: The North East of England on Film and Television. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69146-2_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69146-2_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-69145-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-69146-2
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)