Geographies of creative labour: the working lives and spaces of British travel bloggers

This thesis seeks to advance understanding of the wider cultural and economic politics of creative labour, through an in-depth understanding of the working lives and workspaces of British travel bloggers. In particular, the research explores the aesthetic, affective and entrepreneurial components of travel bloggers’ creative work, alongside how travel bloggers construct and understand both their careers and workspaces. The empirical fieldwork deploys a qualitative methodology, focused on nineteen travel bloggers, which uses semi-structured interviews, photo elicitation interviews and netnography data. The thesis research is positioned at the intersection of scholarship on creative labour, the blogging economy, and digital work, so aims to make a number of key interventions into each of these areas of scholarly study. In particular, the thesis makes three key analytical claims, which form the basis of the three empirical chapters. The first argues that travel blogging involves aesthetic work which occurs directly through the labour of self-fashioning. Here, the thesis explores and expands the concept of aesthetic labour, developing the idea of the travel blogger dispositif as the idealised embodiment of characteristics which the travel blogger seeks to attain. The second empirical chapter deals with ideas of affective connections between the blogger and others. In this chapter, the research understands travel blogging work as affective labour, unpacking how travel bloggers seek to create and sustain affective relationships with their ordinary followers, with other bloggers and with brands. The final empirical chapter is focused around the idea of entrepreneurial labour, teasing out the elements of versatility and uncertainty across the working lives of travel bloggers varying in career trajectory from hobbyists to professionals. The thesis concludes by demonstrating how it addresses the three principal research claims (namely, that travel blogging involves distinctive forms of aesthetic, affective and entrepreneurial labour). It also highlights the different ways in which the thesis makes us think spatially about the digital and real-world geographies of creative work

What is Virtual Production? An Explainer & Research Agenda

Virtual production harnesses the power of virtualising technologies to create digital environments in, and through which film and television can be made. In combination, these technologies offer more flexibility to filmmakers and the potential to cut carbon emissions. But while the technologies at the centre of virtual production are not new, their application in combination with each other is generating new approaches to production which are evolving fast. In this report, we highlight the prominent technologies involved in virtual production and how these have been used in three approaches to virtual production: live action green/blue screen, entirely virtual worlds and LED volume virtual production. The report then goes on to examine the ‘emergent orthodoxies’ of virtual production: what the opportunities and challenges associated with virtual production are and how virtual production is changing established production workflows. We conclude by outlining a research agenda for further work on virtual production, posing questions about how the industry and its associated working practices may develop and how virtual production might address skills shortages and equality, diversity and inclusion

Industry briefing: Environmental sustainability in the UK film and TV industries

The UK film and television industries are becoming increasingly aware of their large environmental footprint. Recent initiatives (such as albert’s Screen New Deal report) have acknowledged the need for increased sustainability in film and TV. Yet, sustainability initiatives remain predominantly focused on the production phase of film-making. Shifting to adopt circular economy thinking and practices could ensure environmental sustainability is embedded at all stages of the film and TV supply chain. Examples of circular economy initiatives exist in the film and TV ecosystem, but at present there is limited research into the potentials of widespread adoption of circular economy thinking and practices into the UK film and TV industries