In 2013 Paul Kerr was appointed Senior Lecturer in Television Production at Middlesex University. He received his Doctorate in 2013. He is the author of Hollywood Independent: How the Mirisch Company Changed Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2023), and has edited or co-edited two other film and television books, (The Hollywood Film Industry and MTM: Quality Television) as well as The Crimean War (which was written while producing a Channel 4 series with the same title) not to mention numerous articles about television and film. He began his career at the British Film Institute, but for amost twentyfive 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. Since becoming an academic, 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. At Middlesex 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.
Paul Kerr teaches a number of television production modules, specialising in both the theory and practice of film, specifically documentary and the structures of the film and television industries. He has also taught World Cinema, Film History, Media Industries and Media Audiences modules at UG levels and Mass Communications and Film at Masters levels.
He has served as External Examiner for post-graduate and under-graduate degrees at a number of Universities.
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 film and television), film and television authorship, and (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) A forgotten episode in the history of Hollywood cinema, television and seriality: the case of the Mirisch Company. In: Exploring Seriality on Screen: Audiovisual Narratives in Film and Television. Hudelet, Ariane and Crémieux, Anne , eds. Routledge, London and New York, pp. 79-102. ISBN 9780367491482
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, pp. 21-39. ISBN 9781501343490
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 (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/
He was a key collaborator on two KE projects at Middlesex, the first for Alexandra Palace, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, resulted in a 15 minute documentary film which was exhibited at Alexandra palace for 18 months and was toured to local schools. The second was a project for the homelessness charity, Emmaus, and involved producing and/or directing four short films for their website.
Paul Kerr is a member of the Directors Guild of Great Britain.
He is a member of the Royal Television Society.
He served on the editorial board of Screen for almost a decade.
He wason 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.
