Global and Local Hollywood

Originality versus proximity: An explorative study of audience reactions to monolingual film remakes

“…In one of the Flemish groups, for instance, Tom announced after seeing the first fragment that, because he had already seen the Dutch source film of Crazy About Ya , the location of the fragment (being Antwerp, in Belgium) was actually interchangeable. The participant seemed to suggest that the location of the story is not inseparable from the story or film: ‘I have seen the Dutch version, and the location could be both the Netherlands or Antwerp, it doesn’t make a lot of difference, I think.’ This echoes the finding of Goldsmith et al (2010: 207) in the context of Hollywood’s production strategy of using stand-in locations: ‘Locations often stand in for somewhere else not just because of common place elements, but because these elements are functioning iconographically to mark out, simultaneously, narrative meanings that are understood through genre.’ Another illustration of this comes from the other Flemish session, in which one of the participants, Luna, remarked that it is odd that the perception of what is typically Dutch or Flemish seems to be quite similar. During the discussion of the first fragment, most of the participants named several ‘Dutch clichés or stereotypes’ and suggested that the film is ‘typically Dutch’; after seeing the Flemish version, however, all of a sudden these elements that were first ‘typically Dutch’ now became ‘typically Flemish’:…”

Globalising the local in children’s television for the post-network era: How Disney+ and BBC Studios helped Bluey the Australian cattle dog jump the national fence

“…Ludo Studio’s Brisbane-based animation studio has become an important source of employment and training for Brisbane-based animators; for many it is their first job out of university. While the state is the home of some high-profile children’s drama production filmed at Queensland theme park SeaWorld, notably Jonathan Shiff’s mermaids franchise, most of Australia’s screen production industries are clustered around Melbourne, in Victoria, and Sydney, in New South Wales (Goldsmith et al, 2010). Screen Queensland’s support for Ludo Studio’s operations is part of long-standing strategic efforts to develop screen industries, including film, in Queensland (Goldsmith et al, 2010).…”

“…While the state is the home of some high-profile children’s drama production filmed at Queensland theme park SeaWorld, notably Jonathan Shiff’s mermaids franchise, most of Australia’s screen production industries are clustered around Melbourne, in Victoria, and Sydney, in New South Wales (Goldsmith et al, 2010). Screen Queensland’s support for Ludo Studio’s operations is part of long-standing strategic efforts to develop screen industries, including film, in Queensland (Goldsmith et al, 2010). Ludo Studio’s distinctive production culture and access to state funding are just two elements then of Bluey ’s success; the series has also clearly benefited from strategic partnerships, industry networks and professional relationships that provided access to decades of international expertise in the production and monetisation of children’s content, by both PSB and commercial providers.…”

Stitching it all together: Service producers and the spatial dynamics of screen media labor

“…While there are productive scholarly discussions about a location’s ‘film friendliness’ (Goldsmith et al, 2010: 152–85), which overlap with some of the aspects outlined above, that concept is framed more as a conscious policy maneuver and place-based marketing strategy on behalf of film commissions than a condition also made possible through the ingenuity, craftsmanship, and willfulness of local producers and crew. Film commissioners perform many of the same duties as service producers to attract projects to a city or region, but service producers remain central figures throughout the duration of production, making them as much place-based advocates as they are expert practitioners caught up in screen media’s industrial mode of production.…”

“…On the other hand, Goodman’s story also points to the agency of local actors and institutions that ‘have acted as junior partners, collaborators and investors, innovators and supporters in the very transformation and creation of this system of globally dispersed production’ (Goldsmith et al, 2010: 29; emphasis added). Rather than domination and control among unequal partners, then, this shift in perspective draws attention to collaboration and mutual influence within a hub-and-spoke production regime.…”