In 2013 Paul Kerr was appointed Senior Lecturer in Television Production at Middlesex University. He received his Doctorate in 2013. He is the author and editor of a number of books and articles on television and film. He started his career at the British Film Institute but for twenty years was an award-winning television producer, making dozens of programmes for the BBC and Channel Four as well as a number of international co-productions. He began his TV career by specialising in major series about the media first as researcher on Open The Box (C4 1986), then as producer on The Media Show (C4 1987-90), and subsequently as Series Editor of the award-winning cinema series, Moving Pictures (BBC2 1990-96) but developed into working on a range of documentaries about the arts and history including series about the Crimean War, black British history, British theatre and international design. A number of his documentaries have been screened at film and TV festivals around the world including New York, Turin, Dinard, Florida and Bologna. In 2007 he left television and took a full time position at London Metropolitan University where he received his PhD in 2013.. His research interests include documentary, drama documentary, 'quality' television, the independent production sector in film and television, Hollywood, and international art cinema. He was Co-Investigator on a two year AHRC research project on British television documentary television and independent production from 2010 to 2012. He produced a documentary commissioned by Alexandra Palace in 2015 about the role the Palace played as an internment camp for German civilians during the 1st World War - the film was entirely made and edited by TVP students. In 2016 he directed two short films commissioned by and about Emmaus, the homelessness charity. He is currently writing a book about the indpendent film and TV production company, The Mirisch Company for Bloomsbury.
Paul Kerr teaches a number of television production modules, specialising in both the theory and practice of documentary.
He will be programme leader in Television Production (BA Hons) from 2014.
Dr Paul Kerr's research interests include British and American Television, documentary, drama documentary, 'quality' television, independent production (in both fim and television), film and television authorship, (auto)biographical filmmaking, Hollywood and world/international art cinema. He is particularly interested in both arts and history documentary-making. He is also interested in the relationship between generic and narrative forms and industrial modes of production in both film and television. Doctoral students are welcome in any of the above or connected areas.
Kerr, Paul (2020) 'It seemed like a good idea at the time': Hollywood, homology and hired guns – the making of The Magnificent Seven. In: Reframing Cult Westerns: from The Magnificent Seven to The Hateful Eight. Broughton, Lee , ed. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781501343490 (Accepted/In press)
Kerr, Paul (2020) The magnificent seven Mirisch companies: competitive strategy and corporate authorship. In: United Artists. Krämer, Peter and Needham, Gary and Tzioumakis, Yannis and Balio, Tino , eds. The Routledge Hollywood Centenary Series . Routledge, pp. 112-131. ISBN 9780367178987
Kerr, Paul (2018) A forgotten episode in the history of Hollywood cinema, television and seriality: the case of the Mirisch Company. In: Exploring Seriality on Screen. Hudelet, Ariane and Cremieux, Anne , eds. Routledge, London. (Accepted/In press)
Kerr, Paul (2016) Case study: The apprentice’s sorcerer: television in/and the academy. In: Industrial Approaches to Media: A methodological gateway to industry studies. Freeman, Matthew , ed. Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 29-38. ISBN 9781137551757
Glynn, Basil and Kerr, Paul and McGorrian, Tom (2016) Emmaus in the UK 1991-2016 - Brochure / Booklet. [Artefact]
Multiplatforming Public Service.
Dr James Bennett, Paul Kerr, Dr Niki Strange and Dr Andrea Medrado
Arts and Humanties Research Council
October 2012-October 2012
£180,000.00
This research project looked at the impact on British Public Service Broadcasting of two recent developments - the rise of independent production and the development of Multiplatform. Focusing on factual television we did extensive interviews with well over 100 independent television and digital producers and broadcast execxutives as well as ethnographic research inside four independent TV production and digital companies for several months at a time. You can read more about it here: www.cowboysorindies.co.uk/
Paul Kerr has served on the editorial board of Screen and was elected to the Executive Committee of MeCCSA in 2009 until 2011. he is is an editorial advisor to Audiovisual Thinking, the world's first online academic video journal, based at the University of Copenhagen. He produced a documentary film commissioned by and for Alexandra Palace in 2015 and directed two short films for Emmaus, the homelessness charity, in 2016.
