My research covers the ecological footprints of film and television production, the marginalisation of different groups in and by the screen industries, and histories of cinema and technology.
You can access related books and articles under Publications.
You can access related books and articles under Publications.
1. Ecological footprints
I led the Environmental Impact of Filmmaking project, which was funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, between 2022 and 2025. The EIF project examined the environmental impacts of Star Wars production in two main areas: emissions from prop and costume fabrication (including digital asset-making), and disruption to communities and nature, including animals and plants, at location shoot sites across Britain. The project launch in 2023 took place at BFI Stephen Street, and was attended by sustainability consultants, film and television production crew, and more.
My work on the project has included: archival research (BFI, National Archives, British Library, Margaret Herrick Archive, etc.); interviewing former Star Wars crew and contributors, industry experts, and ecologists; co-creating emissions calculators with project research associate Dr Siti Syhaida Mohamed Yunus; field trips; public surveys.
The project has produced four case studies: 1. practical vs digital Artoo-Detoo fabrication, 2. the design of the 'Throne Room Dress', 3. lightsabers and manufacturing for retail, 4. community and nature impacts, including disruption to wild lives.
Findings are of significant interest to screen industry practitioners, with the Artoo-Detoo case study in particular challenging received wisdom about the perceived 'green' credentials of digital workflows (we estimate that, even accounting for disparities in energy efficiency, creating a CGI droid in the early 2000s resulted in 59x more greenhouse gas emissions than making an aluminium version of the character in 1976). Recommendations to help improve wildlife protections on location shoots also have potential to bring about positive change.
My work on the project has included: archival research (BFI, National Archives, British Library, Margaret Herrick Archive, etc.); interviewing former Star Wars crew and contributors, industry experts, and ecologists; co-creating emissions calculators with project research associate Dr Siti Syhaida Mohamed Yunus; field trips; public surveys.
The project has produced four case studies: 1. practical vs digital Artoo-Detoo fabrication, 2. the design of the 'Throne Room Dress', 3. lightsabers and manufacturing for retail, 4. community and nature impacts, including disruption to wild lives.
Findings are of significant interest to screen industry practitioners, with the Artoo-Detoo case study in particular challenging received wisdom about the perceived 'green' credentials of digital workflows (we estimate that, even accounting for disparities in energy efficiency, creating a CGI droid in the early 2000s resulted in 59x more greenhouse gas emissions than making an aluminium version of the character in 1976). Recommendations to help improve wildlife protections on location shoots also have potential to bring about positive change.
I have presented findings from the project at numerous academic conferences, and in workshops and panel discussions for the British Film Designers' Guild, BFI Future Film Festival, Celtic Media Festival, and Buckinghamshire Council. More information about the project and its related research network are available at eifproject.com.
My book-length investigation of Star Wars film and television production, A Star Wars World, is forthcoming in with Bloomsbury in 2027.
My book-length investigation of Star Wars film and television production, A Star Wars World, is forthcoming in with Bloomsbury in 2027.
2. Marginalisation in and by the screen industries
Much of my research focuses on gender as it intersects with other politics of identity, including race, class, sexuality, and disability, both in terms of representations of marginalised people on screen, and the material conditions that affect marginalised people's work in the creative industries. Recent projects have included an analysis of identity and technology in Channel 4's It's A Sin, and a self-reflective, archival reinterpretation of the biography of early filmmaker and star Mabel Normand.
Perhaps my best known work, 'Fuck the Canon,' is a quantitative accounting of men's visibility in the screen industries, even when they have been accused of abusive behaviour, versus that of women. Written in the wake of the #MeToo movement in 2018, the article argues for a rethinking of film canon in exhibition, teaching, and other critical contexts. It is taught on university curricula internationally. (A follow-up chapter in the Routledge Companion to Gender, Media and Violence discusses alternative strategies for engaging with work made by gender-marginalised creatives in a disability context.) Similarly deploying quantitative research to reveal inequalities in the screen industries, I also produced data for male characters' screen time versus women's in the Star Wars franchise.
Other projects have included archival research and interviews to uncover the histories of the so-called 'projectionettes,' who were women employed in previously male-only projection roles to keep cinemas running in wartime Britain. My work in this, which includes a co-researched and written article with members of the University of Warwick's Projection Project, inspired an emerging filmmaker to create a documentary on the topic, and also featured as part of the at the 2017 Flatpack Festival in Birmingham.
Perhaps my best known work, 'Fuck the Canon,' is a quantitative accounting of men's visibility in the screen industries, even when they have been accused of abusive behaviour, versus that of women. Written in the wake of the #MeToo movement in 2018, the article argues for a rethinking of film canon in exhibition, teaching, and other critical contexts. It is taught on university curricula internationally. (A follow-up chapter in the Routledge Companion to Gender, Media and Violence discusses alternative strategies for engaging with work made by gender-marginalised creatives in a disability context.) Similarly deploying quantitative research to reveal inequalities in the screen industries, I also produced data for male characters' screen time versus women's in the Star Wars franchise.
Other projects have included archival research and interviews to uncover the histories of the so-called 'projectionettes,' who were women employed in previously male-only projection roles to keep cinemas running in wartime Britain. My work in this, which includes a co-researched and written article with members of the University of Warwick's Projection Project, inspired an emerging filmmaker to create a documentary on the topic, and also featured as part of the at the 2017 Flatpack Festival in Birmingham.
3. Histories of cinema and technology
My first major research project resulted in the book From Steam to Screen: Cinema, the Railways, and Modernity in Britain. Between 1895 and 1948, cinema and the railways fascinated British media. Films, newspapers, literature and art told stories about machines that astonished the senses, from locomotives breaking land-speed records and moving images springing into life onscreen, to the wreckage of train crashes and the disaster of cinema fires. The two technologies allowed humans to manipulate time and space, and, in the auditorium or at the station, passengers and spectators bought into new ways of seeing and moving; indeed, the carriage and the auditorium commoditised an experience that made movement visual. As a result, the railways and cinema radically transformed everyday life for people in Britain by altering not only how they interacted with the world around them, but also how they understood their position within it.
The historical intersections between locomotives and projectors are well documented, and particular attention has been paid to the railway’s influence on cinema in Film Studies. But For Steam to Screen is interested in how moving images and the railways materially transformed the world for ordinary people. Over five chapters that cover ghost shows and fairground attractions, WW1 ambulance train newsreels, women's interwar travel, WW2 evacuee rail and film experiences, and the phenomenon of cinemas on trains, the book challenges narratives about 'mass' culture, and considers how different groups experienced modernity.
Research from the project was used by the National Railway Museum in York to help design a replica cinema train in their 2015 Flying Scotsman exhibition. My research on First World War ambulance trains also featured in their 2016 programme on the topic.
The historical intersections between locomotives and projectors are well documented, and particular attention has been paid to the railway’s influence on cinema in Film Studies. But For Steam to Screen is interested in how moving images and the railways materially transformed the world for ordinary people. Over five chapters that cover ghost shows and fairground attractions, WW1 ambulance train newsreels, women's interwar travel, WW2 evacuee rail and film experiences, and the phenomenon of cinemas on trains, the book challenges narratives about 'mass' culture, and considers how different groups experienced modernity.
Research from the project was used by the National Railway Museum in York to help design a replica cinema train in their 2015 Flying Scotsman exhibition. My research on First World War ambulance trains also featured in their 2016 programme on the topic.