Film

How To Be Part Of The Film Community This Year

by hamilton brown

If you love film, then you’re in the right place! UEA has multiple film-related societies suited for any taste - including Cinema Society, Bad Film Society, Film-Making Society, Disney Society and many more! It is the perfect chance to not only meet new people and make new friends, but to watch movies and discuss them with other like-minded people who might also believe that Shrek 2 is the best in the franchise!

I joined Disney Society in my first year and highly enjoyed it - I ended up meeting a friend there, who I am still really close with today. Of course we saw the newest Disney releases in the cinema, but the society also held really entertaining quiz nights, gettogethers and socials that I enjoyed a lot (there was some spark about going to Disneyland Paris, too, but COVID spoiled that!)

If you want to be in the movie instead of watching the movie, then Film-Making Society is the place for you. The society makes smaller short films, and then bands together to put on a big film every year. At the moment, they are currently in the process of making a film called Isolationships, a film documenting a group of people and how their relationships have developed, been tested and strengthened by lockdowns.

There are also many cinemas to visit in Norwich, perfect for a rainy day or to catch the latest blockbuster. There are two big chain cinemas: the Odeon, located on Riverside, which has perfect popcorn, and Vue Cinema in Castle Quarter, which does great milkshakes!

For those of you wanting to see something a little different, I would recommend Cinema City, located on St Andrews Street – in my first year at UEA I visited this independent cinema frequently. Here they do viewings of fewer mainstream films and instead focus on more alternative showings - I went to see Studio Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle, for example. They screen Anime films, old films, foreign films, as well as staged West End musicals, plays and ballets.

There’s something for every filmlover in Norwich, I hope you find your genre!

Photo: Unsplash

Norwich and Norfolk Spots On The Big Screen

by laura patterson

‘A Fine City’ and ‘Home of the Wonderful’ are the words associated with Norwich, and they’re certainly not wrong. The landscape of our city and county has been showcased in many films we know, love, or need to watch - be sure to check out these films and hidden gems if you’re new to the Norwich area!

Norwich has been the setting for the renowned Alan Partridge series, and this remains the case in its spinoff feature film, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013). The plot entails the hilarious consequences of our much-loved radio DJ getting kidnapped, and Steve Coogan’s witty acting will never disappoint. Not only does the film show various shots such as Norwich City Hall, but it also presents an amusing showdown at Cromer Pier - only a speedy train trip away.

Fighting With My Family (2019) is another fun homage to our city and produced by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson himself. It tells the true and emotional story of the Norwich bornand-bred Zodiac family, whose great enthusiasm for wrestling leads to their daughter training for the WWE championship in the United States. In one of the opening scenes, you’ll see Paige (wonderfully played by Florence Pugh), handing out her wrestling club leaflets in front of the iconic Norwich Market.

The cobbled street and antique shops along Elm Hill are the perfect setting to capture Stormhold, the magical land in the film, Stardust (2006). A fairy-tale for adults, this film explores the tensions between the mortal and magical world when a star falls from the sky. The Briton Arms, a quaint tea shop, was brilliantly transformed into a guest house called The Slaughtered Prince for the film. The location manager of Stardust also described the residents and businesses of Elm Hill as, ‘a joy to work with.’

Did you know you study just metres away from a box-office success? One of the biggest superhero franchises of the last decade has also set foot on our campus at UEA– the unique Sainsbury Centre art gallery performs as The Avengers headquarters in many of their films.

One of the most adored Norfolk coasts, Gorleston, is the location of a key scene in the music comedy Yesterday (2019), written by the British rom-com king Richard Curtis and directed by the talented Danny Boyle. This wholesome film is about the big break of a struggling musician when he takes credit for The Beatles’ music in a world that has forgotten the bands’ existence.

It seems that Norwich and Norfolk have always been recognised for their underrated beauty by film production teams. Go and explore its beauty for yourself!

Why ‘About Time’ Is My All-Time Comfort Film

by Lily Boag

Sometimes there’s nothing better than indulging in a top-notch comfort film when you’re feeling down - films have the power to heal and restore. For me, the best comfort films are British romantic comedies. Not the cheesy cliché rom-coms which dominated the early 2000’s, but rather the light-hearted romantic comedies that make you feel warm and fuzzy. The kind of films that pull at your heart strings and still give you hope, ones that aren’t afraid to be deep and vulnerable, which is an honest depiction of life.

For that reason, my all-time comfort film is About Time (2013), a British romantic comedy that follows the romantic and socially clumsy character of Tim Lake, who learns from his father that he possesses the ability to travel back in time and relive past events. In learning the family secret, Tim begins to take advantage of this power to improve his love-life, fixing the mistakes he makes along the way. As Tim moves to London, he meets the shy but flirtatious Mary, and uses his abilities to win her heart.

Directed and written by the brilliant Richard Curtis, who’s well known for his portfolio of British Romantic Comedies - including Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999), Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), Love Actually (2003) and Yesterday (2019) – and with a terrific performance from a star-studded cast, including Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, and Margot Robbie, you simply can’t help but fall in love withthe charming and endearing storyline of this film, as well as the collection of lovable characters you’ll meet along the way. One cannot go without mentioning the Cornish coast and London settings that make this film feel like a British love-story through and through - and the therapeutic soundtrack is simply perfect in convincing you to feel all the emotions.

While this film is literally ‘about time’, it’s a little bit about everything: love and loss, family and relationships, growing up and growing old, as well as the happiness and hardships of life. It’s down-to-earth, yet still has a little bit of drama, fantasy, and adventure. But most of all, it’s a heart-warming and wholesome film that explores the opportunities we are given in our short lives, teaching us to make the most of the time we have. There are many important life lessons for the audience such as seizing opportunities, spending time with your loved ones, and appreciating the mundane and the ordinary-everyday - this film will even convince you to appreciate a rainy day.

A film about love and life and loving life, its positive spin will raise your spirits, connect you to the world around you, encourage you to change your perspective on life, and inspire you to live. (PS: You’ll most likely want to watch this film on a rainy day, snuggled up under a blanket with a hot chocolate.)

Photo: Unsplash

The Fear Street Trilogy: Bringing Halloween to Summer 2021

by louise collins

The Fear Street series, originally written by R.L. Stine, thrives off subversion.

So much about this trilogy rejects typical horror tropes. As a newcomer to horror, I was nervous but excited to watch Fear Street. My intrigue won out. It seemed presumptuous to consecutively release all three films on Netflix in the weeks of July – usually one of the lowest months of horror releases. Surely, you’d wait for reviews before even thinking of filming the sequel. But no, the Fear Street crew already knew they had three hits.w

Alongside the subverting conventions of publication comes the subverted expectations of chronology. The films are Fear Street Part 1: 1994, Fear Street Part 2: 1978, and Fear Street Part 3: 1666. Typically, it would be the other way around, but the team knew EXACTLY what they were doing. They pull you in with Part 1, and up the tension with Part 2. Then they finish it all off by hitting you with a major plot twist in Part 3. You cannot watch them chronologically by date without completely ruining the impact of the story. The full tale MUST be experienced through jigsaw pieces of flashbacks and storytelling.

Much of the series has a focus on misdirection, as well as subversion. We’re told from the very beginning that Sarah Fier is the witch, and we never doubt this. This is unlike typical horror movies where the killer is a mystery, or you listen to doors slam for half an hour before realising there’s a ghost. It isn’t until halfway through 1666 that we realise there’s a lot more than

The line between good and evil is also majorly subverted. The trilogy is set in Shadyside, the ‘murder capital of the US’. Here, the people are underprivileged and battling their demons. The neighbouring town, Sunnyvale, is safe and privileged. The teenagers there have a future. The teenagers in Shadyside are at risk of going on a murder spree. Yet, in truth, the residents of Sunnyvale are the cruellest. They call their lessprivileged counterparts ‘Shadyside Trash’ and enjoy flaunting their superiority. In the series, it’s the kids who deal drugs who have the most courage, and it’s the cops, who’re meant to protect and serve, who don’t listen to people who need their help.

The final, beautiful matter of subversion is that of the characters. Throughout the series, the main characters are people of colour, who, in horror, are usually stereotyped. In Fear Street, they’re not tokenistic, or the first to die. Instead, they’re the most important characters. Alongside this, queer characters exist! LGBTQ+ characters are a rarity in this genre, but again, Fear Street ignores the typical horror path and puts queer romance at the forefront.

If you haven’t already watched the Fear Street trilogy, then what are you doing? They bring a touch of Halloween to Summer, and I cannot hype them up enough.

TV

27 Interview: Paul Hayes on his new radio documentary about the original UEA Television station, Nexus: Norfolk’s Forgotten TV Station

BY benjamin smith

As a student at UEA in the early 2000s, Paul Hayes was a presenter at the university’s resident T.V station, Nexus. While the station wasn’t at its height during this time, it was still active in producing daily news and their own shows to be shown in Union House, now named University House.

Hayes’ fascination with the history of the station started during his time there. ‘[Nexus] still had the studio upstairs in Union House, the one they built in the 90s, and there were loads of old stuff in there, old tapes and old photos and old documents and all sort of bits and pieces. It was clear to me then that it had had a really interesting history and I was fascinated by it, and I hung on to various bits and pieces from the history of it from when they were chucking some stuff out later on when I was there. And so, I was always fascinated by the history of it.’

It was only when an alumnus of Nexus uploaded some old videos of shows from the 1970s onto YouTube a few years ago that his interest in the station re-emerged, and as Hayes began thinking of what the topic for his next documentary could be, the idea of Nexus popped up again at the beginning of this year.

Nexus was synthesised in 1970, although the exact year is disputed as to be between 1968 and 1970. Ran by students and financed by the SU, the station was initially set up for educational purposes as part of the Audio-Visual Centre at UEA, before students started to take an interest in producing their own shows to be shown on television, a luxury that was not found widely elsewhere in the UK, which allowed students to strive for achievement, such as potentially being the first 24-hour worldwide live stream on the internet in 1995.

Hayes’ documentary tracks the history of the station and big events in its timeline, interviewing past alumni and famous faces like comedian Arthur Smith and BAFTA-nominated writer and director Gurinder Chadha, to tell their stories and fond memories of the station.

While Nexus has remained a hidden gem from the university’s past, having ended all production in 2009 after being dormant for several years before being revived as the current UEA TV, Hayes makes it feel completely revived, giving the station the personality and light that it once had, being a place for community and creativity at its height. Sadly, as the years went on and technology became more and more accessible, the station drifted into obscurity at UEA. ‘When I was there, I think we had very low awareness on campus. We did play in the pub on the big screen, but people didn’t really pay attention to it, it was kind of in the background. I don’t think many people would have known what Nexus was if you asked them, so certainly by the time I was there, we were more doing it for ourselves because we enjoyed doing it.’

The documentary also talks about this shift in audience and media technology, something that made the station so successful was its use of professional-grade equipment, which was the most up to date in the 1970s, but as technology developed and the station started to lag behind, audiences went elsewhere for their entertainment.

‘Particularly in the 70s and 80s was definitely [Nexus’] high point, people didn’t have internet, people didn’t really bring their own TVs to university, so it had a kind of captive audience at lunchtime in Union House, people would go along, eat their lunch and watch. It’s like how broadcasting, in general, has changed. Mainstream broadcasting has fragmented hugely and has so many different services, you’ve got catchup and streaming. Obviously, these days something like, say EastEnders, 20 years ago it would’ve been getting 15 million views every episode, nowadays it gets 3 or 4 million because everything is so fragmented. And I guess that applies just as much to student media as it does to mainstream media, you don’t have these captive audiences like you used to in the 70s, 80s, going into the 90s, probably up until the turn of the century.’

For many, Nexus was a way of finding out what they wanted to do in future, whether just as a part of their individual university experiences or enriching their CVs so they can pursue further media exploits. ‘Even though the media changes hugely, there will always be media of some sort, obviously these days there’s social media… I think there will always be student media. What form it will take and what it will be, however many more years there’ll be a paper version of Concrete, for example. Back in the day, no one would have thought that Live Wire wouldn’t actually transmit over the air, presumably they are just online streaming now or however they operate. Things always change but there will always be a student media of some kind because there will always be students who want to be journalists or producers or be involved in media so there will always be students who will come together and form these groups or societies or stations or whatever so they will always be there. But in 20 years’ time, I’m sure you’ll look back at what’s happening at UEA, and it’ll be hugely different to how it is now, it’s difficult to imagine what it’ll be like in 20 years. It’ll always be there, and it’ll always be something different.’

You can listen to Nexus: Norfolk’s Forgotten TV Station on the BBC Sounds app now.

Academic Entertainment to Settle you into University By Louise Collins

I’m the first to say that university isn’t what we see in TV shows, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be helpful in settling us into a new life.

Shows with high school/university settings can be extremely cheesy, but they’re also very easy watches. When you’re settling into a new lifestyle, and you need to get used to a new schedule, you may not have the brainpower to watch the latest crime show, or an intense sci-fi. What you may need is some light-hearted shows you don’t have to think about.

Glee - This show isn’t insightful, and some of it’s problematic, but it’s so fun. The academic part of high school isn’t really touched on, but the ideas of clubs and societies are. Glee shows how beautiful friendships can blossom from these clubs, which is something I’ve found about UEA societies. So, whilst watching Glee and singing along to some banging music, maybe consider which clubs at UEA interest you.

High School Musical: The Musical: The Series - Another cheesy show about a High School club, HSMTMTS is all about found family, and learning how to express yourself. It’s a very easy watch, and it’s so funny. And again, this also gets you to maybe think about joining a club.

Boy Meets World – Many of you may have seen this classic 90s show, but it’s still a good one to talk about. It brings on an air of nostalgia, especially as so many problems Corey faces are so relatable – from figuring out who he likes in High School, to what he wants post-University.

There’s an endless amount of academically set TV shows, from Sex Education to How To Get Away With Murder, but these are just a few easy suggestions to provide some light entertainment whilst you’re finding your feet.

Channel 4: If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It! BY Matthew Stothard

The government’s been knocking on the doors of the country’s cultural institutions for the last few years, and it seems it’s Channel 4’s turn for a visit. They are currently considering privatising the channel which has been publicly owned since its launch under the Thatcher government in 1982. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden says that it is because it would allow the channel to escape the ties of public ownership ‘to access new capital, create strategic partnerships, and reach international markets,’ whereas others may suggest a case of ideological revenge on the government’s part for seemingly anti-Tory content. Whatever the reason though, it is a terrible idea.

Channel 4’s ethos and business model are probably the most positive in television. It does not aim to make a profit, instead of ploughing the money from its advertising revenue back into making new shows. This allows it to fulfil its remit to create innovative, diverse, and distinctive programming, much of which, particularly its documentaries and investigative journalism, would likely not be made was the channel run for profit. It also means that it is not costing the taxpayer money, as it receives no funds from the government. Channel 4’s programming is edgy, different, and unique in UK television. Although the government claim that they would maintain a similar remit if the privatisation was to go ahead, they have not committed to leaving it unchanged and realistically the more restrictive the remit, the less attractive the channel would be to prospective buyers.

One of the prime beneficiaries of this non-for-profit model is Channel 4’s coverage of the Paralympic Games. This year they have broadcast around 300 hours of the 2020 games in Tokyo, a vital, world-beating commitment. For comparison, NBC in the US offered around 135 hours of televised coverage on a separate sports channel, whilst Ireland’s RTÉ offered around 52 hours. The sort of coverage Channel 4 supplies for the games is crucial for encouraging them to be seen on an equal footing with the Olympics as if people cannot watch the games for themselves, how are they meant to appreciate their importance? It is a vital service, but one which Channel 4’s programme director Ian Katz has suggested could lead to the channel being privatised, the inevitable drive for profit reducing the incentive to invest in such public interest programming. It would surely be a disaster for the Paralympics in Britain were this to happen.

Broadening out to another programming, one of the other key benefits of Channel 4 is its role in the British television economy of supporting ‘indie’ producers across the country. Since Channel 4 is not currently allowed to produce its own content, it has to rely on more than 300 external production companies to create its output. The government has said that these producers have nothing to worry about and would benefit from the additional capital of a private owner. However, many of them are worried, with Alan Clements, managing director of Two Rivers Media telling the Financial Times that there was a danger of ‘a wave of companies folding’ were the proposals to go ahead. The government may say they would protect the smaller production companies, but ultimately a privatised Channel 4 would be able to produce programmes inhouse, reducing the need for the ‘indie’ producers.

Ultimately what the government appears to be trying to do with Channel 4 is mend something which doesn’t need to be fixed. The broadcaster currently makes unique, innovative programming to fulfil its remit with the funds it has. At best privatisation is unnecessary, and at worst it could be catastrophic.