John Ellis (born 23 May 1952) is a British former TV producer and professor of media arts at

Royal Holloway, University of London Royal Holloway, University of London (RH), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public university, public research university and a constituent college, member institution of the federal University of London. It ...

. Ellis studied English at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

1970-3 and at the

Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) was a research centre at the University of Birmingham, England. It was founded in 1964 by Stuart Hall and Richard Hoggart, its first director. From 1964 to 2002, it played a critical role in dev ...

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

1973-6. From 1978 to 1982 he taught Film Studies at

University of Kent The University of Kent (formerly the University of Kent at Canterbury, abbreviated as UKC) is a Collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom. The university was granted its roya ...

at Canterbury.

TV Producer 1982–1999

In 1982 he joined Simon Hartog and Keith Griffiths to form Large Door, the company that bid successfully to make ''Visions'', a magazine series on world cinema for

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

when it opened in 1982. ''Visions'' ran for three series until 1985. Griffiths left the company in 1984, but Ellis and Hartog continued producing documentaries separately and together until Hartog's death in 1992. Large Door made over 100 documentaries until it ceased production in 1999. The company produced two documentaries on the

Cinema of China The cinema of China is the filmmaking and film industry of mainland China, one of three distinct historical threads of Chinese languages, Chinese-language cinema together with the cinema of Hong Kong and the cinema of Taiwan. China is the hom ...

presented by

Tony Rayns Antony Rayns (born 1948) is a British writer, commentator, film festival programmer and screenwriter. He wrote for the underground publication ''Cinema Rising'' (its name inspired by Kenneth Anger's '' Scorpio Rising'') before contributing to ...

: ''Cinema in China'' (1983) outlined the history, hitherto scarcely known in the West; and ''New Chinese Cinema'' (1989) concentrated on the 'Fifth Generation.' Large Door also produced: *'' Beyond Citizen Kane'' a history of TV in Brazil (directed and co-produced by Simon Hartog) *'' The Holy Family Album'' from a script by

Angela Carter Angela Olive Pearce (formerly Carter, Stalker; 7 May 1940 – 16 February 1992), who published under the name Angela Carter, was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picar ...

*''This Food Business'', a current affairs series on Britain's food supply *''Distilling Whisky Galore!,'' on the making of the 1949 British film *''Riding the Tiger'' (1997), directed by Po-Chih Leong and Sze Wing Leong, chronicling the period up to the British hand-over of Hong Kong to China. As a leading producer, John Ellis was elected vice-chair of the producers' organisation

PACT Pact, The Pact or PACT may refer to: Entertainment * The Pact (novel), ''The Pact'' (novel), by Jodi Picoult, 1998 * The Pact (2002 film), ''The Pact'' (2002 film), adaptation of Picoult's ''The Pact (novel)#Film adaptation, The Pact'' * The Pac ...

(1989–93). He was also co-founded 'Spectre' a collective of filmmakers that included Simon Hartog, Anna Ambrose, Michael Whyte,

Vera Neubauer Vera Neubauer is a Czech born British experimental filmmaker, animator, feminist activist and educator. She is known for her jarring, provocative and anti establishment approach. Her life's work spans genres, from cinematic short film to televisi ...

Thaddeus O'Sullivan Thaddeus O'Sullivan (born 2 May 1947) is an Irish director, cinematographer, and screenwriter. Early career In the early 1980s, O'Sullivan was among a group of filmmakers who co-founded Spectre Productions, a collective that included John Elli ...

Phil Mulloy Phil Mulloy (born 29 August 1948) is an Irish-English animator. He was born in Wallasey, Merseyside and studied both painting and filmmaking. Mulloy worked as a screenwriter and director of live-action films until the late 1980s before becomin ...

and Keith Griffiths.

Media academic

Ellis was a visiting professor at Bergen University in the Media Studies department from 1991 to 2002. In 1995 he joined the staff of the Media School at

Bournemouth University Bournemouth University is a public university in Bournemouth, England, with its main campus situated in neighbouring Poole. The university was founded in 1992; however, the origins of its predecessor date back to the early 1900s. The universi ...

, and became a professor in 1999. He joined the Media Arts Department at

Royal Holloway University of London Royal Holloway, University of London (RH), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public university, public research university and a constituent college, member institution of the federal University of London. It ...

in September 2002. He is now chair of BUFVC, the British Universities' Film and Video Council. He was an editorial board member of ''

Screen Screen or Screens may refer to: Arts * Screen printing or ''silkscreening'', a printing method * Big screen, a nickname for motion pictures * Split screen (filmmaking), showing two or more images side by side * Stochastic screening and Halftone ...

'' from 1974 to 1984.

Medium theory and television history

Ellis's work concentrates on television and related media. In 1982, he developed a medium theory approach, proposing that television's typical regime of spectatorship is that of the 'glance' rather than the more cinematic one of the 'gaze', and exploring the segmented and repetitive structure of TV programming. In ''Seeing Things'' (2000) he proposed the periodisation of television history into the three eras of 'scarcity', 'availability' and 'plenty', and applied the psychoanalytic concept of working through to television in the latter two eras. He also examined the crucial role played by scheduling in the organisation of creativity in TV and of the TV experience. Recently he has developed the concept of

witness In law, a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, either oral or written, of what they know or claim to know. A witness might be compelled to provide testimony in court, before a grand jur ...

in relation to audio-visual material in a debate with, among others,

John Durham Peters John Durham Peters (born 1958) is the María Rosa Menocal Professor of English and of Film & Media Studies at Yale University. A media historian and social theorist, he has authored a number of noted scholarly works. His first book, ''Speaking Into ...

and Paul Frosh. This work is extended in his ''Documentary: Witness and Self-Revelation'' (2012) which applies an interactionist approach derived from

Erving Goffman Erving Goffman (11 June 1922 – 19 November 1982) was a Canadian-born American sociologist, social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century". In 2007, '' The Time ...

to the understanding of documentary. He argues in addition that contemporary viewers, now thoroughly familiar with the processes of filming and being filmed, adopt a much more skeptical attitude to the 'factuality' of documentary and to the ethics of filmmaker-subject interaction. His work on television history includes several articles on Channel 4; on critical issues including the construction of a canon of TV work; the importance of overlooked items such as interstitials; and decade-long involvement in the EU funded archival projects Videoactive and EUScreen In 2013 he won a

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

grant of €1,600,000 for ADAPT a five-year study of the history of technology in TV broadcasting, concentrating particularly on the standard forms of production (both on film and on video) and the ways that these 'technological arrays' were adopted and brought into regular use.

Selected publications

Ellis's books include: * ''Documentary, Witness and Self-revelation'' (Routledge 2012) * ''TV FAQ'' (IB Tauris, 2007) * ''Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty'' (IB Tauris, 2000) * ''Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video'' (Routledge 1982, 2nd edition 1992) * ''Language and Materialism'' (Routledge 1977) with

Rosalind Coward Rosalind Coward is a journalist and writer. She is an Emeritus Professor of journalism at Roehampton University, and a former member of the board of Greenpeace UK (2005–12). Education Coward gained her first degree in English literature fr ...

Ellis's articles include: * "Interstitials: How the Bits in Between Define the Programmes" in ''Ephemeral Media'', ed Paul Grainge (Palgrave Macmillan) 2011 * "Mundane Witnessing" in ''Media Witnessing'', ed Paul Frosh, Amit Pinchevski,(Palgrave Macmillan) 2008 * "Is it Possible to Construct a Canon of Television Programmes? Immanent Reading versus Textual Historicism" in ''Re-Viewing Television Histories'', ed Helen Wheatley (I.B.Tauris) 2007 * "Visions, a Channel 4 Experiment 1982-5" in ''Experimental British Television'', ed Laura Mulvey, Jamie Sexton, (Manchester University Press) 2007 * "Documentary and Truth on Television: The Crisis of 1999" in ''New Challenges in Documentary'', ed J.Corner & A.Rosenthal (Manchester University Press) 2005 * "Television Production" in ''The Television Studies Reader'', ed. R.Allen & A.Hill (Routledge) 2003

References

External links

ADAPT TV History project website

MA International Broadcasting, led by John Ellis

Details of John Ellis, ''Documentary: Witness and Self-revelation''
Routledge {{DEFAULTSORT:Ellis, John 1952 births Living people Alumni of the University of Cambridge Alumni of the University of Birmingham Academics of Royal Holloway, University of London Academics of the University of Kent Mass media theorists Academics of Bournemouth University