'Edith' - an experiment in developing a new aesthetic of the television studio.

Abstract

Whilst much of the focus within practice-as-research has been on location filming with a single camera in documentary and drama genres, I am interested in how the creative ‘blank page’ space of a studio environment and the immediacy of multi-camera and/or live events might contribute to the complexity, contestation and debate that is the hallmark of academic endeavour. I draw on the work of a previous generation of experimental television producers, writers and directors from the 1960s and 1970s who embraced the non-naturalistic studio play. I use this neglected form to articulate my thinking as a practitioner and academic about how we can communicate complex ideas, narratives and feelings using television studio techniques in an academic context.Can we use television studio drama to model ideas? 'Edith' is an experiment as part of this inquiry. In this case, my practice as research experiment takes a historical mystery, the 1941 flight of Rudolph Hess and thoughts about historiography as a case study to test my ideas about the practice of non-naturalistic studio drama and consider how it might be developed in the future as a useful form of inquiry and expression.