Bert Hogenkamp is a media historian at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. He is also professor by special appointment at VU University Amsterdam, teaching and researching audiovisual productions that have been commissioned by industry, State and non-governmental organisations. In short: the sponsored film. This professorial chair is funded by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, which holds the largest audiovisual collection in the Netherlands.
Hogenkamp studied history at the University of Amsterdam and obtained his PhD at Westminster College in Oxford. He published books in Dutch and English and countless articles on the use of film by the labour movement and on the history of documentary film. He is currently working on the third volume of his history of documentary film making in the Netherlands, covering the period 1965-1990.
As part of TEF Hogenkamp is looking into the effects of the introduction of video in the audiovisual sector in the 1970’s. It resulted not only in the birth of a new medium but it was also the start of a challenge with regard to the creative skills of the film-makers concerned. There was considerable resistance against the new medium. Film-makers were concerned about its quality: compared to film the image quality of video was poor, not to mention the limitations with regard to editing. Another concern was the lack of standardisation, with different systems being introduced and disappearing in quick succession. But video also offered advantages: it was cheaper and target groups could be reached more easily. In December 2010 Hogenkamp organised two seminars at Sound and Vision looking into the questions raised by the introduction of video, one for academics and one for practioners.
Panel on sponsored film and video at ESSHC
TEF was represented at the recent European Social Science History Conference 2012 in Glasgow. In a special panel on ‘Commissioning Consumption – Strategies and Impact of European Sponsored Films and Commercials’ representatives of three different research projects presented papers. Sema Colpan and Lydia Nsiah (Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Vienna) discussed the research project ‘”Sponsored Films” and the culture of modernization: interferences between aesthetics and economy in Austrian advertising and industrial film’ and showed some interesting examples. Bjørn Sørenssen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim) pointed out what a positive impact the discovery North Sea oil has had on the audiovisual sector in Norway. The research project that he is leading is called ‘Offshore Media: audiovisual Mediation of the Norwegian Offshore Oil Industry 1967-2000′. Bert Hogenkamp (TEF/VU University, Amsterdam) discussed the impact of video on the sponsored film sector in the Netherlands, which resulted in decentralisation and a new ‘ production mode’ based on television rather than documentary and avant-garde film. The panel ended with a discussion, chaired by Beata Hock (Universität Leipzig), on the similarities and differences in development of sponsored film and video production in different European countries. The conclusion was that comparative research could produce new insights into a research area that itself is very recent.
