Professor Robert Shail
Director of Research | Leeds Beckett University
Leeds, West Yorkshire, UNITED KINGDOM
Professor Robert Shail's research interests cover postwar British cinema, gender identity in film, comics books, and children's cinema.
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Biography
Robert Shail is Director of Research at Leeds Beckett University's Leeds School of Arts where he leads on film, music, performing arts and creative technologies.
Robert’s research has focused mainly on the history of post-war British cinema with a particular interest in the work of key directors and on stardom. His book on Welsh star/producer Stanley Baker was supported by an AHRC award and his book on director Tony Richardson was published by Manchester University Press. More recent work has focused on children's media including an essay on Beryl the Peril and completion of his study of the Children's Film Foundation. This work has fed into current debates on the future of children's media in the UK.
Industry Expertise (3)
Education/Learning
Motion Pictures and Film
Writing and Editing
Areas of Expertise (5)
Children's Film Foundation
British Cinema
Film Art
Critical Practice
Children's Media
Education (3)
University of the West of England: M.A., English Lit, American Studies, Film Studies
University of the West of England: B.A., English Lit, American Studies, Film Studies
University of Exeter: Ph.D., Film and Visual Culture
Links (6)
Languages (1)
- English
Media Appearances (3)
Academics to publish book on 'the diversity' of Jason Statham
The Telegraph online
2018-01-16
Professor Robert Shail, one of the book's editors, said: "The contributors have each given Statham's career a different 'voice'. By focusing on his diversity, the book analyses his personality across a variety of media platforms."
Leeds celebrates its film pioneer
Yorkshire Post online
2017-10-24
Professor Robert Shail, from Leeds Beckett University, says Le Prince holds a unique place in the story of film, albeit one that’s somewhat overlooked. “When it comes to the question of who invented cinema and who gets the bragging rights the nearest anybody can get is him – Louis Le Prince.”
Why Yorkshire is rapidly becoming the most popular filming location in the UK
iNews online
2017-10-19
“The real selling point of Leeds is that there is such a wide variety of attractive and exciting locations within a compact area,” explains Robert Shail, Professor of Film at Leeds Beckett University.
Articles (4)
Censorship in Context: The British Board of film Classification, the Children’s Film Foundation and Terry on the Fence (1986)
Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television2020 For over thirty years the Children’s Film Foundation (CFF) produced a variety of shorts, travelogues, serials and features which were shown at a network of Saturday morning cinema clubs all over the UK and beyond. At their peak in the 1960s and 1970s they reached an audience in excess of half a million per week.
Anarchy in the UK: reading Beryl the Peril via historic conceptions of childhood
Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics2014 Much work within the field of childhood studies has focused on the social discourses through which childhood is understood. This article draws on this work in developing a critical framework for considering the appeal of Beryl the Peril.
A Film from Wales: Welsh Identity and The Children's Film Foundation
The Welsh History Review2016 This article examines the work of the Children's Film Foundation (CFF) in Wales. The CFF was founded in 1951 to make films for children and supported a network of Saturday morning cinema clubs which were popular until the 1970s.
Terence Fisher and British science fiction cinema
Science Fiction Film and Television2009 Sf has historically been one of the least-discussed genres in British film culture. Until the 1999 publication of British Science Fiction Cinema, edited by I. Q. Hunter, serious consideration of Britain's contribution to the genre had frequently taken place in the margins of studies devoted mainly to the more obvious attractions of American sf films.
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