Dr Steve Presence
PhD
Expertise
My main areas of expertise are documentary film and television, activist film culture and the screen industries.
Current positions
Senior Lecturer
Department of Film and Television
Contact
Press and media
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Projects and supervisions
Research projects
UK Global Screen Fund Documentary Production Funding Consulation
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of Film and TelevisionDates
01/12/2025 to 01/03/2026
The Documentary Film Council: Building a new infrastructure for UK nonfiction film
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of Film and TelevisionDates
01/01/2023 to 01/01/2024
Assessing the impact of Covid-19 on Bristol’s film and television industries’, Co-Investigator
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of Film and TelevisionDates
01/08/2021 to 21/10/2022
UK Feature Docs: Studying the Feature Documentary Film Industry
Principal Investigator
Description
The findings of this project were published in two project reports - Keeping it Real (2020, 72 pp.) and Making it Real (2021, 68 pp.) - and several other publications.…Managing organisational unit
Department of Film and TelevisionDates
02/02/2018 to 31/01/2021
Understanding Watershed: A Study of Independent Film Exhibition in Bristol
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of Film and TelevisionDates
01/01/2017 to 01/01/2018
Publications
Recent publications
01/01/2023Radical Film, Art and Digital Media for Societies in Turmoil
Radical Film, Art and Digital Media for Societies in Turmoil
The Documentary Film Council
Documentary in the Age of COVID
Go West 2! Bristol’s Film and TV Industries
Go West 2! Bristol’s Film and TV Industries
Making it Real
Making it Real
Contemporary Radical Film Culture
Contemporary Radical Film Culture
Teaching
I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and have taught film and television studies for nearly twenty years. I have designed and led modules and units at all undergraduate and postgraduate levels and was Programme Leader of UWE Bristol's MA Film and TV Industries programmes from 2018-2022. I am an experienced PhD supervisor and have examined several PhD, MPhil and MRes theses.
I currently lead the mandatory level one unit, ‘Screen Industries’. This introduces our first year students to the key roles, organisations and sectors that comprise the screen industries' value chain. We explore the economic, political, and cultural forces that shape how film and TV is financed, produced, distributed and exhibited, and engage with fiction and documentary films from all over the world.
Other units and modules I have taught include ‘British Cinema and Television’, ‘Currents in Film Theory’, ‘Documentary Histories and Practices’, ‘Film and Television Research Project Development’, ‘Film Festivals’, ‘Hollywood and Beyond: Commerce, Creativity and Authorship’, 'Industrial Placement', ‘The Movie Experience: Audiences, Culture and Taste’ and ‘Screen Representations: Difference and Diversity’.
I currently lead the mandatory level one unit, ‘Screen Industries’. This introduces our first year students to the key roles, organisations and sectors that comprise the screen industries' value chain. We explore the economic, political, and cultural forces that shape how film and TV is financed, produced, distributed and exhibited, and engage with fiction and documentary films from all over the world.
Other units and modules I have taught include ‘British Cinema and Television’, ‘Currents in Film Theory’, ‘Documentary Histories and Practices’, ‘Film and Television Research Project Development’, ‘Film Festivals’, ‘Hollywood and Beyond: Commerce, Creativity and Authorship’, 'Industrial Placement', ‘The Movie Experience: Audiences, Culture and Taste’ and ‘Screen Representations: Difference and Diversity’.