A recent YouGov survey suggesting that 69% of the British population want more interactivity with mainstream television, demonstrated by the ability to influence dramatic narratives through digital interfaces or online resources, also revealing the vast majority of audiences use social networking media whilst simultaneously viewing the more traditional television broadcasts, was reacted to with outright disgust by some commentators – a depressing poll on The Guardian website saw 92% of its readers against the idea, and the comments section on the same article revealed the contemptuous attitude many practitioners (both established and upcoming) have toward their audiences – but this indignation is both misplaced and damning. The barrier between creator and consumer must be broken down for the mass audio-visual media to escape the hierarchical and inhibiting cul-de-sac into which it has firmly encamped itself, and outlooks that belittle the audience are unacceptable.

The rationale behind this sickening reaction comes from the largely misinformed notion that many viewers want input solely through the digital function of their television sets – but to give the audience a multiple choice option through their remote controls, choosing from a list of predetermined plot developments, is just as patronising and elitist as not given them any choice at all. Let’s remember Channel 4′s failed experiment with Dubplate Drama (2005-2009), an otherwise interesting urban character piece belittled by its producers’ insistence on adding a desperate attempt at interactivity: at the conclusion of each episode viewers were encouraged to choose from two options, the decided of which would play next week. But the YouGov survey reveals that viewers want more input than this system offers them – they want to be an active part of making dramatic, non-factual programmes, and desire more from the experience than simplistic ‘red button’ choices.

Technology alone does not limit the extent of interactivity audiences have with the broadcast image, rather the manner in which it is utilised. To give viewers the full interactivity they crave through their handsets or laptops alone would be conventionally impossible – resources and coordination preclude real-time viewer influence on programmes unless all content is live, and their responses filtered through an impartial mediator – therefore, if this demand is to be met – and, contrary to the negative attitudes present in the UK at this time, it should be – then viable, executable alternatives need to be found. In order to be truly effective, these must take into consideration not only modern consumer technologies, including social networking, but also alternative media practices, which will allow audiences greater access to a programme than they have at the moment.

For a preliminary model, let’s suggest how an interactive programme – the initial premise of which is developed in the conventional manner, by commissioning editors and independent producers to suit mainstream channel guidelines and ambitions, and piloted successfully with a strong audience share and viewer appreciation – may be guided on broadcast not by the media professionals behind its inception and production, but by a responsive and proactive audience throughout its run – and in strict contrast to the test screening practices of modern cinema, where a single audience are asked to make decisions on largely predetermined factors. Constant consultation with the programme’s audience, through a chain of communication that facilitates this accessibility, would allow ideas to develop in an egalitarian, semi-improvisational manner, using online networking and regional brainstorming events, and forcing alternative processes to those usually employed in television production to come to the fore.

In this way, a programme filmed over a week and broadcast on a Friday can be discussed immediately during and after transmission by online forums, Twitter hashtags and Facebook groups, all of which are monitored by the production team. The results, opinions and ideas from these are then taken before a prearranged touring discussion group the following day, and finalised – the touring aspect ensures no two decision making sessions are ever the same, and should be chaired by actors and writers with close ties to the finished product. These brainstorming sessions should operate as open forums, without restrictions on those who attend, and guided by the chairs, who must deliver intrinsic knowledge of the production’s resources and schedule in order for the participants to best evaluate the information on display. The conclusions reached by the participants can then be brought back to the programme makers on the Monday morning, applied during rehearsals and improvisation sessions, and the subsequent episode is filmed in studio for broadcast at the end of the week.

This is only one model for true viewer interactivity, and certainly it is not the most refined or effective, but the actuality of any participatory practice on mainstream television in this country will not come to pass until media professionals accept that theirs is a shared creative form, one that requires participation and encouragement outside of any overtly defensive professional system in order to grow and develop beyond its initial aspect, and that the cult of the writer, prevalent in mainstream theory and criticism, as well as the actual professional structure itself, and growing constantly in power day by day, is both supercilious and cliquey. This won’t happen until viewer participation is accepted at a basic level of media education, or championed by a high-profile production company, journal or mainstream channel. The demand is huge in this country for interactive drama, for viewer participation and for changes in the way we create and consume our national television programming. That this demand won’t be met unless it is on the restrictive terms of those who hold the reigns of media power is as depressing as it is predictable.

The opportunities for independent film and television production in this country, let alone in the North East region, are disappointingly few. Post-graduate media practitioners are taught to go where the money takes them, rather than build their own sustainable creative bases closer to home, and the regional screen agencies, who should be creating those opportunities themselves, are content merely to wait for the larger, more anonymous TV and film corporations to patronise their respective regions, thus ensure anything made under their guidance is anodyne and contemptuous as opposed to directly addressing the aspirations and anxieties of a select peoples. This is an intolerable situation and one that desperately needs to change.

But change comes at a cost that too many are reluctant to spend: the inhibitive, hierarchal situation present not only in the mass audio-visual media, but also at the most basic levels of cinema and television production, education and distribution – which on closer inspection reveals inherent fears over the collaborative nature of the form, and the loss of privilege that comes with alternative processes – desperately needs those same processes, even though the vast majority of media professionals, theorists and commentators are unwilling to acknowledge the necessity for change let alone accept alternatives. Only through real-world examples, initiated by those brave enough to strike against the old guard, can we prove these possibilities to the hostile mindsets of the fatuous incompetents who hold the reigns of media power.

In this patronising and debilitating atmosphere, the individual – which in this case should be taken as any independent film or television production start-up, regardless of numbers – must look for their own opportunities, create their own markets, and exploit avenues available to them uniquely on low to zero budgets. An excellent and admirable example of this forward-thinking, practical attitude originates here in the North East of England, where many media practitioners are quick to lament the lack of golden opportunities, but the superlative efforts of Durham-based journalist and broadcaster Richard D. Hall in producing his own content and marketing it directly to an available audience not only destroys this myth, but embarrasses those who cling to its insensible notion like religious zealots propagating a geocentric astronomical model.

This simile is well suited, as Hall has made alternative scientific, political and media orientated theories his stock in trade. His self-produced series Richplanet.net (2008-Present) – a name which points also to the important cross-platform nature of many independent productions, allowing viewers true interaction with programme makers usually denied them by the hierarchal, gatekeeping measures employed by the BBC and its ilk – has gone through four seasons of investigating, exposing and debating the counter-culture topics of UFOs, government cover-ups and secret world powers. Further to this, Hall has expanded his output to included his own idiosyncratic chat show The Richplanet Starship (2009-Present), wherein he willingly gives exposure to fringe commentators, some of whom are eccentric and harmless, others portentous or potentially contagious. Whether one endorses Hall’s view, and, to be brutally honest, it is of a well-researched albeit naively judgemental variety, his tenacity in and inevitable success at producing and distributing two programmes outside of any mainstream, big money corporation must be acknowledged, and, furthermore, endorsed if modern media practitioners, and the next generation of film and television wannabes, are to break the pedantic cycle we are currently inhibited by.

It is a telling point to examine the course not only of Hall’s work but its trajectory in relation to Edge Media TV, the erstwhile platform for controversial and alternative debate on UK television, previously available on satellite television, and home to small-pond big-hitters like Theo Chalmers and Philip Gardiner. Edge Media offered an outlet to alternative viewpoints, many of which felt consciously undermined by mainstream media, and, rightly or wrongly, had an axe to grind on a variety of topics. Hall’s work first appeared on his channel, alongside the pompous and self-important work of people like Gardiner, who themselves represented an as equally tyrannical regime as the media outlets they sought to expose. But Edge Media, perhaps because of this same self-satisfied attitude, ultimately ate itself: having over-spent its budget, the channel was forced to sell precious airtime to shopping networks and dubious phone-in psychics. Suddenly, Gardiner, Chalmers, Nick Ashron and the whole so-called “alternative view” circuit were left without a soapbox for their wooly content, and inspirational autuers like Hall or Christopher Barnett (who, with his level-headed and egalitarian approach, seems a natural successor to James Burke) were left totally in the cold.

However, unlike his peers, Hall seized this opportunity to project himself further into the consciousness of further potential audiences by jumping from the sinking Edge Media TV to another, unrelated and more commercial-minded channel, thus ensuring his market-share increased as much as his kudos. This move reveals more about alternative production and distribution models necessary for modern cinema and television production than it does about Hall and his specific content, but his example, again, should be lauded and promoted by and to media professionals and commentators. Hall has the ability that many practitioners desire in themselves but consistently fail to implement: he is not confined by his own convictions, nor does he exhibit any misplaced loyalties to his own content. Hall demonstrates, in both the marketing and distribution of his programmes, as well as in their simplistic but effective production techniques, an adaptability that ensures he continues to create and connect when others are stillborn or stalled.

Filmmaking in the UK should not be initiated by the arrival of foreign production companies propagating foreign production models, nor should television production wait for the patronising injection of cash and crew into a beleaguered and lonely region by London-based idiots, but, following Hall’s example, individuals must pursue and generate such opportunities themselves, just as Hall creates his own content and forcibly exploits it, at once remaining honest to his integrity but also ruthless in his own self-exploitation. This example should be recognised and replicated by public funding and education bodies such as the regional screen agencies, whose job it is to create and promote similar opportunities. That they would rather wait anxiously and childishly for the BBC or ITV, or various Bollywood or Hollywood companies, to discover their regions through tourist brochures, and exploit their parochial talents in a totally unpalatable and unprofitable manner, is further indictment of the mentality of many modern media professionals – the same mentality that no doubt would label Hall an amateur toiler rather than an iconoclastic fountainhead.

Visit Richard D. Hall’s official website

Yesterday, Brett was invited to talk about the abolition of the UK film Council, and the prospective future of the British film industry, as related in our article here, on both national and local radio. Appearing on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Gabby Logan programme with James Richardson of Vertigo Films, and later the Jon and Anne drivetime show for BBC Radio Newcastle, this brought our understanding of the situation to a wider audience, and seems to have been received in a generally positive, interested light.

Exposure and discussions on alternative views to the generally apathetic and negative “Save the UK Film Council” campaigns are of paramount importance right now: we can only move forward with the British film industry if we accept the inevitability of the situation, and look to collectively establish the foundations for a new, improved government film body.

You can listen to both shows again on BBC iPlayer until Tuesday 10th August 2010.

Listen again to the Gabby Logan programme on Radio 5 Live

Listen again to the Jon and Anne show on BBC Radio Newcastle

The current UK government’s decision to axe the UK Film Council, along with numerous other arts funding bodies, has come as a shock to many media practitioners and commentators, especially those who were either supported by this outdated and pedantic unit – including cinematic bores like Mike Figgis or Mike Leigh, both of whom have laughably expressed their dismay and anxiety at potentially having to earn their keep – or to anyone so deluded in their concept of what constitutes a sustainable and recognisably British film industry that they considered the Harry Potter or James Bond series as somehow benefiting this country and not Hollywood, but the move did not come as a shock to those of us who realised the total waste of time and money the UK Film Council represented, as well as the horrendous gate-keeping mentality of those who polluted it with their artistic and financial idiocy.

The UK Film Council failed totally at its remit, relaxing into a position whereby it fed a glossy Hollywood machine with docile crew and picture-postcard locations, and made pathetic token gestures at ‘real’ films for this country. Those films were made even more shocking by the patronising nature of their content, and the almost cliquey aura that surrounded those involved. Not a single one attempted to build a national film identity unique to this country, but all modeled themselves on a gross North American product; as if somehow the association of the two would rub the success of the latter onto the former. Success, inevitably, proved all too elusive for the UK Film Council to save them from the axeman’s blade. If they had trusted in independent cinema, not pandered to our Hollywood rivals, and, perhaps, thought long and hard about their own attitudes toward cinema in this country, the Film Council could have begun to make commercial and important films in and about the United Kingdom. That they failed to do this, or even to acknowledge the error of their ways, signed their death warrant.

But the reaction to its demise has been particularly depressing in the totally misguided support displayed by some critics and journalists. With the UK Film Council on the way out, there is now greater opportunity for those locked out of the old system to forge new directions in British cinema. When a new body replaces the old, it will most probably tread the same pedestrian line, unless those of us at the vanguard of independent British film-making make our voice heard – not in defence of a dying ogre but in reforms that need to be made across the entire process of film production, distribution and consumption. We need that unique filmic identity, like other countries across the world, who sustain their own films and enjoy foreign imports safe in the knowledge that they are intrinsically different – something we haven’t witnessed here since the 1960s. And we need to break the hierarchical, inhibiting practices imposed on us by Hollywood systems: a return to the open and honest film-making concepts of homegrown auteurs like Lindsay Anderson, Peter Watkins or Kevin Brownlow.

So, if you’re reading this, don’t join forces with the countless moaners and complainers – who would rather see the UK Film Council saved than any real change for good come out of the government’s cost-cutting decision – and don’t lobby that same government for a u-turn on what could be a catalyst for that change. Now is the time to prove Britain is capable of making its own films on its own terms, utilising new technologies and radical departures from accepted but elitist practices. There is a course of action we can all take now, every single one of us, in order to ensure a future for the British film industry, but it is one that most institutionalised media professionals will gag at. It isn’t an easy one to digest, but it’s impact will be immeasurable.

Get out there and make a film – not a short but feature. Make it cheap, make it for free, lose money if you have to but fucking make it! And make it unique to yourself and your colleagues, not some multiplex ideal. Look here and here at Captain Wardrobe Must Die (2008; dir. Roger Armstrong) or It’s Nick’s Birthday (2009; dir. Graeme Cole): films like this need the financial acumen and entrepreneurial skill that an insightful, adventurous film body can give them – finding markets as opposed to forcing them, yielding high returns from low expectations. But we need to prove this to the government first, on a basic and unremitting level, so it’s necessary to forgo the standard avenues of funding and production. Shot on digital, without pay, without rest – work on a copy-and-credit basis – do anything you need to do in order to get the film made. Trust in the projects and the participants themselves, push them harder than ever at festivals here, abroad and online. Find those niches where they sit, taking them to the people and not the sales agents. Above all, document all of this, back it up with evidence – quotes, screening numbers, audience figures – until you have something that sells your film and the way you made it, rather than the other way around. At the end, make a full and honest budget, factoring in things you may have been forced to leave out, e.g. pay rates, location fees, editing costs etc. All of these films, and the material collected in support of them, should suggest, to any potential money-conscious film body, that a viable alternative to the UK Film Council lies not in the replication of its deeds and endeavours, but in supporting true independent film-making in this country.

It sounds like a risk, and some may find it too great of a one, but if enough of you reading this eschewed your ingrained concepts of film-making just this once, and went out on a daring, giddy limb, we might all build something exciting, honest, worthwhile and successful.

The reaction to homicidal gunman Raoul Moat, whose criminal career ended with his apparent suicide, suggests, unlike the recent Cumbrian killing spree, that a large proportion of the public not only feel pity for Moat but endorse his campaign against the British police force, which left one civilian dead. In a unique scenario, public opinion has preempted and befuddled the mass audio-visual media, who usually, by their nature, reflect the attitudes of their consumers after the fact, but are currently at a loss to appease themselves with the unsavoury and subversive views on offer through Twitter, Facebook and bizarre public displays. Some news shows and publications have taken a hardline against these attitudes, safe in the knowledge that it will not alienate their mainly conservative market-share; others have responded with ambivalence – headlines like “Moat’s girl doesn’t know he’s dead” could be taken in either support or derision – but none have offered explanations or solutions to the issue.

On examination, support for Moat comes largely from his own social strata, from a middle to lower working class largely underprivileged and marginalised, not only by society but by the MAVM themselves. Recent events in this country, specifically incidents involving the police force and the recent general election, have left a growing sense of dislocation between state and public, especially amongst the lower classes, who feel betrayed by the electoral results and unable to reconcile themselves with a draconian authority that threatens their wages, tax credits, benefits and support structures. Likewise, they are grossly misrepresented by the mass media, who offer unsightly caricatures of a vast number of their viewers purely because the media professionals responsible for them have no experience of their subjects – and neither do they desire such. Programmes like Misfits (2009-Present), Eastenders (1985-Present) or Shameless (2004-Present) are constructed by liberal middle class graduates without sufficient research into the poorly educated and inherently bigoted lifestyles of those they portray. The working class in this country are expected to swallow this scenario without question: in Raoul Moat, they have found someone who wouldn’t.

The high-profile police brutality meted out at G8 demonstrations in this country, and the awkward killing of Charles De Menezes, coupled with the lower classes’ innate distrust of authority, feeds the controversial opinions of many, who are openly accusing the police in collusion for Moat’s death – a number which also includes the deceased’s brother. Similarly, Moat’s actions, regardless of their true origin, have been read as an attack against that authority, which, for some, can’t come soon enough. The police in this case are not the brave, upstanding forces of justice visible in cinema and television, but corrupt and violent “piggies” – again, the gulf between reality and media as perceived by some reveals itself. Moat was, to them, justified in selecting police officers as his prey, as, further on from this, Moat was raging against all institutions of authority, be they political, media or public, and the police force, in their stab proof vests and positions of seemingly unquestioned immorality, were the perfect metaphor. Whatever the truth behind Moat’s short-lived infamy, and it is undoubtedly one more abstruse and personal than this, this is how many have come to see him, and they have reacted as thousand have through the centuries to such illusionary figures of rebellion and freedom.

Moat’s former home has been deluged with flowers and tributes from friends and admirers, in a manner usually reserved for victims of criminals, or much-loved celebrities. His belongings have been stolen from under police custody, coveted not by ghouls but by passionate devotees, recalling the mediaeval obsession with relics. Online posters and commentators have declared their undying support for him, changing their usernames to swell the ranks of Moat-related content. In all of this, it’s not hard to see Moat taking on, in his death, the mantle of modern folk-hero – compare his growing mythos with that of Robin Hood or King Arthur, both of whom were lower class citizens who waged justifiable campaigns of terror against an institutionalised evil, and faced death against the guards of tyranny. It’s not unfair, also, to suggest a growing unease with Moat’s death, which, in some commentator’s eyes, has yet to be explained adequately by those present (importantly, the police), and has all the trappings of a protoplasmic conspiracy theory.

But how can the media react to this? And how can they adequately report back their findings without isolating core elements of their viewers and readers? In short, they can’t – simply because they are unable or unwilling to admit their part in it’s origins. As in this article here, we are faced with another example of the gulf between creator and consumer, of the ever-growing privilege afforded the media professional and denied the receiver. If those affecting such attitudes toward Moat felt they were adequately represented and consulted by the mass audio-visual media, they would not find it necessary to elevate a brutal and misguided criminal to a level of cultural importance. That they do speaks volumes about how they perceive their place not only in society but as lowly members of a media-centric hierarchy: they see news programmes, fictional dramas, newspapers, radio shows and magazines as separate to themselves, a wholly distinct world to which they will never belong, and they must rebel against it as Moat did, but with status updates, tweets and fan pages as their weapons.

This is not the case. If the MAVM can afford the same privilege to us all that it retains for itself, the schizoid scenario apparent in this country and abroad – which often feeds agendas even more detestable than that surround Moat – would be on it’s way to recovery. That this won’t happen, and that the MAVM will attempt to retain power for itself by hypocritically reflecting back the unfortunate opinions raised around the gunman, is yet more justification for a national conversation of the state of the media, it’s content and our position within it.

A recent tweet by Gari Sullivan, editor and co-presenter of North East podcast The Cultural Thing, indicated the most watched video on YouTube isn’t a TV episode from the BBC or Channel 4, both of whom now offer free and complete content on that platform, or even a comedy pratfall or cute baby video, but is in fact the music promo for Lady Gaga’s single Bad Romance. It would be easy to dismiss this as a success for crass commercialism, or perhaps link it to some notion of the decline of intellectual pastimes, but a deeper consideration of the atmosphere surrounding nearly 240 million views of the video in question reveals something a lot more pertinent than devoted fans, interested fashionistas or cultural eeyores.

A browse through the comments posted beneath the video suggest a curious reason for its popularity. The most obvious read “Best video ever!” or “Nobody can deny this woman has talent”. But others say “I find it creepy because I know what this song entails,” or even “Illumintati in action!” And another: “Do your research and you will find out yourself how terrible Lady Gaga really is.” Not everybody watching this video is doing so for entertainment. It’s true there are a large number of haters on the internet, but this hate is of a peculiar and paranoid variety. In the West, there is a growing suspicion that our political and cultural leaders (presidents, media moguls, CEOs of great corporations) owe their positions of authority and influence to, or are possibly part of, some secretive extraterrestrial or demonic conspiracy. As deluded as this sounds, to suggest that greed, inadequacy or apathy are symptoms of an external influence – and the thoughtless acceptance of notoriously unproven ideas like the Illuminati, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or even the New World Order suggests a distinct lack of rationality behind this thinking – it reveals some innate need in consumers to address issues of alienation and miscommunication in the media, however misguided their conclusions may be.

Performers like Lady Gaga, Rihanna or Beyoncé, who are prominent and successful regardless of any artistic merit they may or may not possess, have been targeted by websites and journals as puppets of an imagined, malignant and secret world power. Sites and forums like vigilantcitizen.com or davidicke.com post near-slanderous items daily, translating the distinctive visual styles of such artists into hidden and disturbing messages designed to paralyze our minds, corrupt our youth and generally dissuade us from pursuing a good, religious, conservative lifestyle. If Lady Gaga or any other artist’s videos contain imagery that may relate to occult initiations, mind control programming or totalitarian systems, it is because these are the same archetypal images that originate universally in dreams, myths, folk-tales and legends, and we find them repeated consistently throughout human history. The producers, choreographers and designers of these videos, as well as the artists themselves, replicate knowingly or unknowingly these archetypes – not because they want to control our minds, or placate their Illuminati masters, but because they are inherently disposed to do so by all of human experience.

A recent article in The Guardian newspaper by Dorian Lynskey – read it here – highlighted this rant against Lady Gaga and her contemporaries, referencing some possible cultural precedents, including the eerily familiar Privilege (1967; dir. Peter Watkins) and the fringe writings of Reverend David A Noebel, but failed to offer an explanation for their attacks. To anyone who looks at the mass audio-visual media, it is startlingly obvious that there is a widening gulf between the professional critics, theorists and practitioners, and the amateur viewers and readers. This separation has lead not only to a communication breakdown between the two – wherein media professionals are forced to maintain their positions of privilege and elitism by forcing consumers out of their creative loop – but to a substantial inability by personages on both sides to deal with this media crisis. These so-called conspiracy theorists, who feel their (occasionally extreme) views are under-represented in the mainstream media, and are alienated by a creative artistic system that deems them below consideration, confuse these forced feelings of inadequacy as the work of a cancerous agency, turning innocuous and transitory pop imagery into a malevolent force for control, manipulation and oppression. They blog and tweet about it constantly, allowing the belief network to grow, until mainstream commentators pick it up and feed it back without attempting to resolve the causes, and a throwaway number one single has been watched by nearly 4% of the world’s population.

There is nothing insidious or manipulative or occult about Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. It is a visual aid to selling a song; a stylistic exercise in imagery and music. But there is something intrinsically wrong with a mass audio-visual media that shuts out individuals, of all backgrounds, ethnicities and ages, who should be an essential aspect of their basic processes, but desperately crave a voice in an ever alienating world. Unlike the problem imagined by the conspiracy theorists, this one has a solution: we deserve more open participation and debate between those who make the media and those who consume it, so that the barriers between the two erode, and, with them, the unfortunate need by some individuals to misinterpret innocent content and perpetuate negative beliefs.

Watch Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance promo video on YouTube

Visit the anonymous Vigilant Citizen’s blog

Read the Lady Gaga thread on the David Icke forum

The over-hyped release of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010; dir. David Slade) not only underlines the unbalanced emphasis given to throwaway and adolescent material, but also the innate fear of modern critics and theorists to actually criticise any high-profile, mainstream films or television programmes – thereby maintaining the privileged positions of their makers and the untouchable nature of their content. Mainstream critics, including those in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, have lauded the film with platitudes like “Eclipse feels the most cinematic of the series so far” or “the producers plot everything as if it were a strategic game of chess”, but the entire Twilight series is undeniably the “meat pap” to which broadcaster and actor Stephen Fry recently alluded in this country – more about that here – and, whilst Fry’s comments may lurch toward cultural elitism, there’s something nauseatingly depressing about supposedly serious-minded and intelligent people endorsing puerile rubbish, thus buying-into and perpetuating the myth of the impossible 18-34 demographic.

As suggested by this review here, some critics may consciously reserve their true judgements in order to maintain or secure opportunities to move out of the reception and review system, into the actual media-making industry, which is notoriously elitist and close-ranked. But, in the case of actual publications, websites and broadcast shows, who should have a responsibility beyond the personal to remain objective and isolated at all times, there can be no such excuse. The true reason then for such blatant support of an inhibiting and bigoted mess – one that has unhealthy and hidden attitudes towards sex, race and religion – is a fear of reprisal from its countless motivated and organised supporters.

The recent furore surrounding actress Emma Roberts – whose innocuous and harmless comments concerning the male leads of the Twilight seres resulted in an online backlash and the cessation of her Twitter account – has demonstrated to the mainstream media that criticism or opposition of such an overly-popular creation may result in severe viewer or reader disapproval. With free online and alternative broadcast material readily available, and a number of established content-providers beginning to charge for their previously free content, the mass audio-visual media can ill-afford any high-level outcry against them – more than this, they often find they must go so far as to promote films, programmes, publications and personalities that are in desperate need of reevaluation, possibly despite any professional opinion they may hold about them.

In this country, The Guardian has been vocal in its support of adolescent entertainments like Twilight, Harry Potter or Doctor Who. They have specifically ran articles aimed at fans of these series – without criticism or insight, and often targeting those articles not at the pubescent target markets of their subjects, but more mature readers who deserve not to be patronised by such utter stupidity. Well-paid idiots like Dan Martin, Peter Bradshaw or Anne Bilson have offered blanket safe opinions on matters that need to be held accountable if the MAVM is going to offer adult-orientated alternatives to this pap. The behaviour and attitudes of The Guardian, the BBC, Channel 4, Variety, and The New York Times, amongst many others, who may be terrified of a loss of market-share or even a determined assault from obsessive fans, only serves to highlight the modern media crisis and the inability of modern media professionals to even acknowledge the problems they create day-to-day, to say nothing of dealing with them honestly and maturely.

Writer and broadcaster Stephen Fry’s recent suggestion that the BBC’s output is infantile and idiotic may ring true when the corporation’s current trends and attitudes are taken into account, but his argument fails to suggest a solution to the problem, and certainly doesn’t go far enough. As right as he is to criticise programme makers and media professionals for treating their prospective audiences as dim-witted children, comparing it to the joys of latter-day British television – which offered adult-orientated plays by Dennis Potter and Ken Loach, amongst others, and featured television regulars with superior albeit technically primitive content – Fry totally failed to acknowledge the narrative-centric, hierarchical processes of the mass audio-visual media as the main cause of the problem, precisely because he is part of that hierarchy.

Today, media professionals are under-educated in their given field, and fixated on negative practices that perpetuate the very scenario Fry has recognisedt: an obsession with story and character development, and a lack of insight into the relationship between creator and consumer, results in poor quality cinema and television. Unless we openly admit that the ideas and theories to which many practitioners and commentators blindly subscribe are deeply flawed at their most basic level, and accept the egalitarian alternatives of critical debate and open participation, then British (and possibly worldwide) media will stay at a depressingly low level, never aspiring to anything other than the purely visceral and intellectually redundant.

And so, despite his apparent criticism of how low the BBC aims – which included digs at the truly infantile Doctor Who (2005-Present), our opinion of which you can read here – Fry, in the same speech delivered at BAFTA’s Annual TV Lecture, defended the tyranny of the licence fee whilst also re-establishing his place as a BBC mainstay. He accused those who hold the BBC to account for the way it wastes public money of “bordering on the pathologically cruel” thereby pandering to ego and sympathy of his masters; totally ignoring the gulf between those of us suffering the pits of the so-called British recession, and the over-paid, pompous imbeciles who masturbate themselves daily with the idiotic and costly programmes Fry is so quick to decry. The current media crisis – and it is a crisis, make no mistake – needs a visible orator, like Fry, who is willing to stand up and held accountable in the honesty and integrity of their opinions, but, unlike Fry, isn’t afraid of what the consequences of their behaviour may be.

Visit Stephen Fry’s official website

Nigel Kneale is largely famous for his work in the field of science fiction, but he also wrote kitchen sink dramas, mysteries and horrors. Despite which, his legacy as a sci-fi author in this country is vast, and he is held beyond reproach by numerous critics and emulators. However, having already noted that his oeuvre is in desperate need of a critical reappraisal – read here and here – and as part of our ongoing online project The Donnerstag Analysis, it has become necessary to force the situation by examining Kneale’s work and its continued impact on British mainstream film and television, particularly narrative sci-fi and horror. The views in this article, and the conclusions reached by our examination of Kneale’s output, may not be comfortable reading for the majority of theorists and practitioners, many of whom add daily to the growing numbers supporting Kneale, but it remains essential to expose the hypocrisy and bigotry underlining much of their idol’s output so as to dissuade others from perpetuating his elegant but crass – and, in most cases, socially detestable – conceits.

A detailed analysis of Kneale’s work reveals that, like most interesting filmmakers, he almost continuously employs the same artistic structure throughout his career, particularly in major works like the Quatermass serials, The Stone Tape (1972; dir. Peter Sasdy) or The Year of the Sex Olympics (1968; dir. Michael Elliott), but also in less well-known fare. When identifying these themes in Kneale’s work, it is important to recognise that the majority of mainstream critics and commentators are merely content with identifying the surface elements of his output – this adolescent lack of insight, which is in no way limited to an appreciation of Kneale’s work but is apparent in most mainstream film and television criticism, inhibits a true understanding of the origins and motives behind an author’s work, as well as adding to the parasitic screen-writing culture.

Kneale’s career can be divided into two parts: the first and lengthiest is also the most popular; the second is less renowned but ultimately more interesting. Throughout the former, Kneale employs a narrative structure that betrays his bigotry and misanthropy almost universally across everything he writes. Each Kneale-penned piece begins by introducing a ‘damaged outsider’ – often, this is a dedicated professional who exists within a team of other dedicated professionals; unlike them, this person has something in their past which remains unspoken, and thus unforgettable and pertinent. This ranges from a barely-acknowledged dead spouse, or a missing grandchild, to a love affair that went wrong, or a full nervous breakdown. In The Quatermass Experiment (1953; dir. Rudolph Cartier), the titular character has extreme feelings of guilt even before he sends three men hurtling into the depths of space; in The Witches (1966; dir. Cyril Frankel), Joan Fontaine is plague by her humiliation at the hands of colonial natives and, possibly, her family.

In a relatively Freudian sense, these painful events or memories have constant bearing on the behaviour and attitudes of the Damaged Outsider, specifically with those around them – which, outside of their Dedicated Team, can also include caricatures of established authority figures and the working classes – who figure largely in Kneale’s work as an ill-educated and superstitious means-to-an-end (and, in Kneale’s universe, it will be shown that superstition is a necessary evil). These other characters remain resolute in their unwillingness to acknowledge the opinions and outlooks of the Damaged Outsider, as Kneale builds the conflict he sees as essential to the core of his scenario: the protagonist is at odds with all around them, both spiritually and intellectually, sometimes physically. Through this conflict, and by constant self-exposure to that which pains them, the Damaged Outsider’s personality comes to be recognised as innately confrontational at best, and radical or bolshie at worst.

Here it is necessary to ruminate on Kneale’s persona as he presents it through his screen-writing. In the aforementioned articles, we outlined our belief that Kneale’s work is that of a bigot and a misanthrope who, instead of using his craft to explore alternative solutions to significant contemporaneous topics, creates clearly constructed formulae that place the source of all the world’s ills beyond the sphere of human influence, and, therefore, render those same topics as neither our responsibility nor our fault. Kneale uses his trade to excuse himself and his audience of any involvement in issues ranging from racism and emancipation to nuclear arms and the peace movement. Anyone familiar with our essay on false-objectivity as integral to conventional narrative frameworks (available here) will realise that the conclusions in Kneale’s dramas preclude any interpretation other than the inhibiting and reprehensible one he instinctively desires.

This is the key to understanding the most important factor in Kneale’s work. Through synchronous events that unfold around the Damaged Outsider, and a slow and deliberate gathering of evidence in a manner strikingly similar to that popularised by M. R. James (another much misunderstood author – read more here), Kneale is able to offer a rationalised supernatural explanation for that which, in the real world, he finds distasteful. Attempted Martian colonisation in Quatermass and the Pit (1958; dir. Rudolph Cartier) proves to be the source of all racism in the world; likewise, youthful rebellion is explained through similar extraterrestrial interference in the later Quatermass (1979; dir. Piers Haggard). In order to enforce this, Kneale suggests that the past, especially the non-institutionalised beliefs and rituals of the past have a distinct but hidden control over contemporary life, but to such a wide-reaching extent that this significance is often unrealised, forgotten or unheeded. By seemingly unconnected or coincidental demonstrations, coupled with the knowledge accumulated through research into the past, the Damaged Outsider ultimately experiences an inrush of knowledge or realisation regarding the values of a perceived phenomenon that represents Kneale’s ‘rationalised supernatural explanation’.

In this way, the behaviour of the protagonist, which is often mentally unhealthy and socially reprehensible, and the superstitions of the past, which are rationalised in their respective disciplines, come together and are enforced by each other to exonerate the author (and, vicariously, the viewer) of any abhorrent doctrine. Interestingly, the rarely discussed second era of Kneale’s work, perhaps beginning with The Stone Tape, but definitely with Murrain (1975; dir. John Cooper), and explored fully with television series Beasts (1976) and Kinvig (1981), actually questions the validity of this view, and occasionally leaves a question mark over the truthfulness of that supernatural explanation. As such, this change in his work may suggest that in later years Kneale became aware of this constant harbouring for the past in his oeuvre, and somehow felt the need to explore it by colliding young and upstanding characters with the Damaged Outsider of his earlier material. Certainly, in scenarios like What Big Eyes (1976; dir. Donald McWhinnie) or The Dummy (1976; dir. Don Leaver), and in the ambiguity of the Kinvig sit-com, he questions that he once swore by.

But by ignoring the deeper narrative conventions or models employed by Kneale, and concentrating on the buried spaceships, pagan influences and substandard spook stories present on the surface of the majority of Kneale’s work, modern theorists and practitioners unconsciously buy into and enrich the paranoid fascist delusions which form the backbone of Kneale’s rationalised supernatural explanation. Worse than this, Kneale’s elevated status as the “grandfather of British science fiction” has resulted in the ubiquity of such wholesale pilfering, present in this country in programmes like Doctor Who (2005-Present), Invasion: Earth (1998), Paradox (2009), Torchwood (2006-Present) and countless magazines, fanzines and novels. But writers as diverse as Mark Gatiss, Russel T. Davies, Stephen Gallagher, Lizzie Mickery or Jed Mercurio, and especially idiot boys like Chris Chibnall or James Moran, fail to appreciate the hazardous intricacies of incorporating Kneale’s work into their own precisely because they are unable or unwilling to recognise the true nature of their source.

Kneale presents himself as an isolated cynic, terrified of change and desperate for the rose-tinted and non-existent past, but the majority of writers mentioned above, like the vast number of modern media professionals, aspire to liberal, if not acceptably left-wing or socialist values, and consider themselves as tolerant and free of chauvinistic sentiment – why then should they seek to incorporate the polar opposite of their social, political and cultural views into their work? The answer is simple and obvious, but, as per usual, requires deeper examination than most said professionals are willing to attempt. When these wannabe sci-fi icons witness the power of Kneale’s work, without realising what imbues it with that strong relevance and personality, they wrongly assume imitation alone will replicate the effect; but they are only powerful because they acutely accent Kneale’s true self, resplendent with all its prejudices and hang-ups, and are structured at their centres to reflect traits that are unique to him and not to them. Thieving magpies like Gatiss or Davies fail to see this, and believe that a shopping list of familiar Kneale-style elements will achieve the same faux-legendary status. Instead, they should discard this parasitic mentality, which not only perpetuates hierarchical film-making processes but limits the imagination of both writers and audience alike, and instead, as Kneale may have been trying to achieve in the latter part of his career, turn their writing onto themselves and look at how their original elements comment on their own personalities and outlooks. Only by constant self-exploration and awareness of themselves on the page or screen, can an author or filmmaker begin to approach the powerful uniqueness of not only Kneale’s work but that of countless other iconographic figures.

Two productions that highlight the central flaw in Kneale’s work, and use it to different ends, are worth discussing in this context. In Ghostwatch (1992; dir. Lesley Manning) – reviewed here – screenwriter Stephen Volk suggests the possible ineptitude of Kneale’s Damaged Outsider by eschewing a rationalised supernatural explanation. We never learn what secrets drive Volk’s Dr Lin Pascoe, but, through performance and insinuation, we suspect that there isn’t just a chip on her shoulder, but a destructive streak that will steer the proceedings to their apocalyptic conclusion. Likewise, the sci-fi extravaganza Lifeforce (1985; dir. Tobe Hooper) uses the tell-tale signs of Kneale’s narrative structure, lampooning the same surface elements cherished by modern writers, to wryly comment on the prominent nature of his status. Here, the Damaged Outsider is closer to the B-Movie heroes Kneale both copies and denigrates, and the rationalised supernatural explanation is ludicrously subsumed into the chaos of the film’s climatic moments, wrenched from any obnoxious double meaning. Hooper draws on the elements of Kneale apparent in the screenplay – which, in this case, have analogues in a spaceship hidden in the tail of Haley’s Comet, and the destruction of London by its possessed citizens – not only as an excuse for some startling pre-CGI special effects, but to highlight the hokey nature of much of Kneale’s work, coupling it with the dry humour Hooper has consistently employed throughout his career. Both of these films offer an alternative approach to that currently on display in this country, but not the ideal…

Cinema and television should dispatch the writer to the dustbin of bad ideas, and concentrate on the rich vein of collaborative film-making available to the cast and crew of any production – or at least, adapt both established and original works with an unvarying critical eye. Unfortunately, this is almost impossible in the current climate surrounding not only British science-fiction but the mass audio-visual media as a whole. Today, the writer is king, and a facile concept like ‘story’ is maintained above all else – any deviation from this warped hero-worship is deemed ‘amateurish’ or ‘inept’. Theorists, commentators, practitioners and even educators continually stress this misguided approach, supplementing the true writing process with fixations on character development or story arcs, and the next generation of media professionals and filmmakers are indoctrinated at the most basic level of media education, ensuring that this narrative-centric tyranny moves forward into the future. It must be broken. Writers and filmmakers must realise that their constructions come from the inside, and are unhealthily skewered by their own prejudices, neuroses and preoccupations. They must recognise it and question it, and, by incorporating that self-analysis into their work, and by avoiding any surface gloss pilfered from the successful works of others, they will help to build an atmosphere of openness and understanding which, rather than aiming for the purely visceral and emotional, as it does now, allows us some true insight into a scenario, and the possible solutions and alternatives to its existence.

With The Donnerstag Analysis, not only will we conclusively prove that the work of Nigel Kneale is laced with bitterness and intolerance, but offer an alternative to currently accepted narrative practices, which we see as detrimental to the social, political and cultural well-being of both creators and consumers. A delivery platform like YouTube allows us access to a receivership both polluted and untouched by either of these aspects, and the success of our project lies not only in our goal of 150,000 total upload views, but also in any potential debate that could ensue from it. A conversation that breaks down the holy sanctity of the writer on film and television, and raises questions about our puerile obsession with mainstream narrative techniques, can only be a positive influence on the next generation of filmmakers, and with The Donnerstag Analysis, we aim to get that conversation started.

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The recent furore over The Killer Inside Me (2010; dir. Michael Winterbottom), which centres around its graphic depiction of violence against women, has totally failed to pinpoint the cause of that film’s failure, with many theorists and commentators misdirecting their efforts onto spurious, tabloid-baiting claims: some have foolishly argued that it represents Hollywood’s desire to supplicate a specifically degraded demographic (18-34 year old males!) who crave nothing but sadistic entertainments, whilst others, even more damagingly, have suggested that the actresses involved should be held culpable for their complicity and apparent willingness to be humiliated on screen. Helmer Winterbottom, whose career swings between courting controversy with films like 9 Songs (2004) or The Road to Guantanamo (2006), and ridiculously pointless ‘comedy’ efforts like 24 Hour Party People (2002) or A Cock and Bull Story (2005), has defended his latest film by claiming that he wished to remain faithful to the source material (a book by hardboiled veteran Jim Thompson), but this only reveals the dearth of his insight into the subject he has adapted, or, more specifically, into the film-making processes for which he has been so wrongly lauded.

Winterbottom, like most modern media professionals, has no concept of the difficulties and contrivances presented by the self-contained narrative (outlined here), and, as such, falls into the trap of not only making a bland, aimless film but also one that fails to adequately address the issues it raises, or, at least, invoke something in the viewer other than repulsion and anger – which cannot be their own justification without intellectual argument behind them. Filmmakers must learn to approach their source, which can include original screenplays as well as established ideas, with a careful consideration as to their contents, and with a comprehensive knowledge of the personality who first authored them, in order to ask themselves, and more importantly their audience, pertinent questions about what they are watching. Faithfulness to the original material cannot be a defense as it represents a lazy and possibly detrimental approach to film-making: examples like Jonathon Miller’s critique of M. R. James with Whistle and I’ll Come to You (1968) and Sergei Parajanov’s take on the life of Harutyun Sayatyan in Sayat Nova (1968) suggest that filmmakers must be open to alternative interpretations than those offered to them by the written word.

Winterbottom himself has been reticent if not pretentious on the issue, indicating by his comments that he belongs to the ‘cult of the writer’ that currently holds sway over the mass audio-visual media, and, shockingly, that he may not even be aware of where his own film has gone wrong – which only serves to remind us that he wasn’t the original helmer but actually third choice down the Hollywood production line. But, regardless of how he landed the project, if Winterbottom and his collaborators had taken the alternative approach, and adapted Thompson’s novel in a highly critical and openly impressionistic manner, then The Killer Inside Me may have answered its own critics, and possibly advanced rather than just continued the absurd debate regarding violence on screen. Ultimately, it would have been a more interesting film than the banal mix of obvious noir stylisation and pop culture iconography it remains.

The Killer Inside Me at the IMDb