Jane Thorburn
POSITION
- Principal Lecturer
- Course Leader BA Media Studies. Television
practice
BIOGRAPHY
Co-founded the production company AFTER IMAGE
in 1979 , directing, editing and series editing the majority of the
company’s productions. One of the early successes was the Arts
Magazine programme Alter Image which ran for three series.
The programmes established an important
reputation for quality and innovation and received a number of
international awards as well as having seasons devoted to the
company’s work at the Pompediou centre in Paris and the Taomina
film Festival in Italy. In 1989 The Greatest Show on Earth was the
official entry of Channel 4 to the Montreaux Television festival.
In 1994 the After Image production THE EMPRESS won the Royal
Television Society best production design award and a special
mention at the prestigious IMZ Opera Screen. Other productions
include THE SCORE, a classical music magazine series for BBC2,
CAMERA an opera written specially for television featuring Dagmar
Krause, 2 documentaries for the Discovery Channel and PULL a
sculptural ballet made with Bruce McLean and AshleyPage, S.O.S.
Songs of Seduction and THE LIFT a Dance for Camera for BBC/Arts
Council. Recent productions include documentaries made in Africa
and Cuba and a video poem written by Deborah Levy.
RESEARCH AREA
My primary interest when making programmes has
always been to collaborate with artists and performers to use the
medium of television to make original work.
Visual or Art based performance created for
the camera is a difficult genre in which to gain a commission.
Artforms from other cultures are rarely even recognised as suitable
for an innovative approach to filming and is usually erroneously
dismissed as 'traditional' and not contemporary. This is
exacerbated if the primary performance space is not the stage and
if the performance is participatory. This is considered to be more
profound if the exchange takes place in an everyday environment.
It is not my aim to produce learned anthropological works but
rather to find an innovative visual and aural means of presenting
performances by working with performers in their social contexts.
Recently this interest has taken a different turn. Naturally
people's social contexts are full of social problems. As a result
of trip to Northern Nigeria I became interested in the stories of
the girls & women & how to tell those stories. In parallel
I am interested in how Nigeria has created a fast growing
'Video/film' industry which exists totally outside of normal
broadcast or film finance.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
-
NOLLYWOOD Just Doing it, 2008, A serious look at the
creative and commercial drive behind this rapidly growing industry,
driven by increasing access to new technology.
- approx 200 arts & music programmes
transmitted on Channel 4; BBC2, Discovery Channel and
transmissions abroad.
- THE EMPRESS. channel 4. a new opera
written for television. composer orlando gough. designed
by bruce mclean.
- CAMERA. Channel 4. A new Opera written
for TV. Written by Peter Blegvad & Anthony Moore. Starring
Dagnar Krause
- Alter IMAGE. 3 series of 10 programmes.
collaborating with artists & performers to create work for the
television medium.
- ALagba. a water spirit masquerade. shot
in Southern nigeria about one the beginning of a new cycle of
masquerades that will take 17 years to complete.
- BALLET AFRICAINS. Performance of the
National Ballet of the Republic of Guinea. Channel 4
- S.O.S. songs of seduction. A sound on
film production with composer jenni roditi for bbc2
- pull. a sculptural ballet. with ashley
page & bruce mclean. bbc2
SELECTED SCREENINGS
AWARDS
- Various arts Council/BBC2 commissions
PhD SUPERVISION