Project

Cross-media co-operation in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s

An AHRC funded project 112216.
W: www.crossmediaresearch.net

• PI: Professor Alexis Weedon, University of Bedfordshire
• Co-applicant: Professor Simon Eliot, IES, University of London
• Research Fellow: Dr Vincent Barnett, University of Bedfordshire
• Research Administrator: Rebecca Conway (2006/7) Steven Conway (2007/8)

Rationale

Today authors face the new challenge of cross-media storytelling as adaptations and spin-offs from their narratives are written for different media. Storylines originally published in novels or short stories are retold in films, and the characters' own stories are extended though videogames or via websites. Authors sources of income have diversified as subsidiary rights are exploited. 

The origins of these practices lie in the first three decades of the twentieth century when film companies approached publishing companies to purchase film options on their novel copyrights. Authors responded with varying levels of enthusiasm, some seeing the potential of the new media, others preferring to stick to what they knew and employ others to do the adaptation. 

This project examined early attempts at co-operation between media companies and publishers in the 1920s and 1930s particularly in the sale of broadcast rights, film options and in the timing and release of book, film and radio tie-ins. It researched the connections between these industries and the role played by literary agents in promoting their authors within the media.  

Focusing on British authors who had films made of their work between 1920 and 1939, the project examined relevant correspondence of literary agents (i.e. A.P.Watt, Hughes Massie, Curtis Brown, J. B. Pinker & Son), compared the rate of pay authors received from the different media, researched the business practices by agents and authors during the period and examined the implications of this on the status of authors.  

The aims were: 

1. To identify the models of media co-operation in operation in the 1920s concerned with the promotion of an author's work  

Aim 1. Investigation of the models used by publishers, broadcasters and filmmakers in the 1920s revealed that each held different perspectives on: the value and agency of the author in the process of the adaptation of their work; what rights they should have in the enterprise and what share of the financial returns; and how each partner built a market or audience for each others work. Work on these three aspects is outlined below. 

2. To analyse how and why these models changed during the 1930s and to assess to what extent this marked a historical shift in relations between the author, agent, film-maker and publisher 

Aim 2. Through the 1920s the argument that publication in one form created a market for the work in another form gained ground. The effects are seen in the agreements made between partners. A systematic analysis of agreements between the authors and 19 publishers and 6 film companies identified characteristic clauses asserting rights and claims for revenue from audience they created. In addition research on the censors showed that they were alarmed by the cumulative effect of cross-media influence and cited it as a reason for distinguishing between the title of book and its movie adaptation. 

3. To see how those models of media co-operation operated and how effective they were in developing markets for film and radio adaptations of an author's work throughout the 1920s and 1930s 

Aim 3. Film companies at this time sought to use the cultural capital of published authors to attract audiences to their movies. Weedon's spatial information database plotted over 530 data from book sales, theatre and movie receipts charting the cross-media strategy of one work. Barnett examined Oswald Stoll's economic theories  and analysed how Stoll adapted the work of well-known British authors, focused publicity around an on-going film series format, and used authors on set to promote the film in a range of news publications. Weedon investigated how authors' and book trade associations were able to exert pressure on early BBC radio models of cross-media publishing in 1920s. Book publishers established their rights to be announced on radio and The Society of Authors negotiated a minimum of pay scale for the broadcast of published works.  Weedon researched the standard agreements and why they were contested by literary agents on behalf of their authors. 

4. To examine the sales/receipts for such work in order to assess the effect of film and radio adaptations upon book sales and authors' income 

Aim 4. Quantitative analysis of publishers' cheap editions of the authors works in the 1920s and 1930s  show the correlation between book sales, radio adaptations and film releases is more consistent after the second half 1920s. Over 6200 records were collated by the team for analysis from 12 play companies, 21 book publishers, 8 periodical publishers and c.900 entries from film diaries.  

5. To examine the role of the Press in building audiences/readerships for the original work and its media adaptations 

Aim 5. Barnett and Weedon designed a detailed, original and multi-disciplinary account of the contributions that Elinor Glyn made to cross-media cooperation in the UK and the USA. Barnett's idea that 'star capital' is of use in theorising author-celebrity and how this celebrity is used to promote cross-media outputs is further developed in the co-authored book on Elinor Glyn. The book signals Glyn's attempt to create a 'brand image' across her various literary enterprises as one of the first such attempts by a magazine journalist, novelist and screenwriter and Glyn's cross-media experiences are situated within the widen context of the development of new forms of multi-media company that had begun to come into being at the end of the nineteenth century. 

6. To provide analyses that could productively inform the future research in this area. 

Aim 6. Additional analyses that can deepen our understanding of the adaptation industry include: i. Barnett's quantitative model of the extent of cross-media adaptations. This evaluates the weight of cross-media outputs in an author's total output, by measuring the aggregate volume of adaptations from one form of media (eg. novels) into another form (eg. films) in any given time period using spreadsheets of author's cross-media outputs for all authors. ii. Weedon's linked cog model of adaptation. Developing Robert Darnton's Communications Circuit and Simone Murray's Industry model of adaptation, Weedon's model locates the audience/readership at the axis of cross-media adaptations.  It illustrates the effect of peritexts in building audiences and readerships for new adaptation.

The selected authors were: Marie Belloc, Arnold Bennett, Agatha Christie, Elinor Glyn, A.E.W Mason, Baroness Orczy,  Philip MacDonald, Edgar Wallace, and Hugh Walpole. Other authors were brought in for comparative and statistical purposes. 

The project consulted over 34 libraries and archives including those at the Universities of Reading and London, the University of Texas and North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the British Library, the Library of Congress, the BBC archives relating to agents, authors and to arts review programmes, the press books and archives of British film production companies at the British Film Institute and other publishers' archives. In particular The Elinor Glyn Ltd archive held 46 boxes of financial letters and scenarios which enabled the project team to research the company's business practices and Glyn's personal income as an author and film director. 

The research focused on case studies of an author's work to ascertain the proportion of income from different media sources, sales of their work before and after film release and the extent of media coverage. Partial details were available for all authors. Secondly, it examined literary agents' correspondence for information about their policies in marketing and promoting an author's work and provided a basis for comparing different agents' operational practices and evaluating their success. Thirdly, the archives of the different media players - film companies, Society of Authors, publishers - were scrutinized for evidence of changes in policy on rights acquisition .

• Visit the Cross-media Project