Cinema and Landscape Prof. Jonathan Rayner and Dr David Forrest University of Sheffield

Seminar 5

Following an international conference held in Sheffield and the publication of Cinema and Landscape in 2010, in 2011, staff from the School of English set out to explore the significance of the Sheffield landscape on film in a project supported by the University of Sheffield's Knowledge Transfer Rapid Response Fund. Dr Jonathan Rayner and Dr David Forrest worked with Key Stage 1 and 2 classes and teachers from two schools in the city (Holt House and Athelstan Primary schools), using films made in and about Sheffield alongside the school children's own images, films and narratives of the cityÕs landscapes. The project's activities included: working with documentary images of the city showing how aspects of the Sheffield landscape have survived, changed or disappeared; encouraging visual literacy in the interpretation of moving images, in connection with the Sheffield Education department's ESCAL (Every Sheffield Child Articulate and Literate) initiative; and exploring how different groups recognize, narrativize and lay claim to their city's environments through drawings, photographs, storyboards and animated films.

Films viewed in relation to the imaging of the city and used in the school sessions included Sheffield, City On the Move (1971), a promotional film for the city, and New Towns for Old (1942), a government information film examining the environment of industrial cities in wartime. These films are available for viewing at the URLs below:

Sheffield - City on the Move :

(1/4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRJISaoytYg&feature=related

(2/4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WibWM9SEnA&feature=related

(3/4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jnw-tpyj5o&feature=related

(4/4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GOwiJUr1k&feature=related

New Towns for Old at the Yorkshire Film Archive:

http://www.yfaonline.com/assetDetails.cfm?film=28&keyword=