Asta Nielsen: the international film star and the emergence of the star system 1911-1914

本项目以20世纪10年代初兴起的故事片商业的第一位国际电影星星阿斯塔·尼尔森为例，研究从短片节目到故事片放映的媒体转型。早在1911年5月，一个开创性的商业模式就在法兰克福签约，该模式预见了随后几十年的国际星星系统，其中包括盲目和集体预订，独家展览权，以及使用电影星星作为品牌战略。该项目的主要目标是检索1911/12，1912/13和1913/14赛季Asta Nielsen系列营销活动的事实和数据。为此，该项目侧重于国内市场德国和匈牙利，以及国外市场英国和澳大利亚。该项目将由马尔堡和特里尔大学的媒体研究系实施。研究设计和方法框架的概念化为一个两步的程序：第一年是专门收集和解释广告的阿斯塔尼尔森系列的展览在当地出版的约50个城市和城镇在德国和约20个城市和城镇在匈牙利，英国和澳大利亚。这些广告涵盖了从1911年8月1日开始到7月31日结束的三个电影季（就在第一次世界大战爆发之前，阿斯塔·尼尔森的职业生涯暂时中断）。在第一年检索的材料基础上，第二年将分析4个国家中每个国家的5个城市和城镇的地方电影史。为了考察阿斯塔尼尔森系列电影在电影节目和其他娱乐节目方面的不同地方环境，选择了一些城市和城镇作为样本，从大城市、工业城镇、中等区域中心和大学城市到农村小城镇。第三年是致力于两篇论文的写作：一个关于三个阿斯塔尼尔森系列在德国和匈牙利的国内市场的分销和展览，另一个关于各自系列在英国和澳大利亚的国外市场的分销和展览。该项目的可持续性将通过在线访问第一年收集的数据来确保：来自行业媒体和当地媒体的所有广告将被输入到现有的Asta尼尔森数据库中。

This project takes Asta Nielsen, the first international film star of the feature film business emerging in the early 1910s, as an example to study the media transition from short film programs to feature film exhibition. Already in May 1911, a groundbreaking business model was contracted in Frankfurt that anticipated the international star system of the following decades, which included blind and block booking, exclusive exhibition rights, and the use of a film star as a branding strategy. The main goal of the project is to retrieve the facts & figures of the marketing campaigns of the Asta Nielsen Series during the seasons 1911/12, 1912/13 and 1913/14. For that purpose, the project focuses on the home markets Germany and Austria-Hungary as well as on the foreign markets Great Britain and Australia. The project will be conducted by the Media Studies Departments at the universities of Marburg and Trier. The research design and the methodological framework are conceptualized as a two-step procedure: The first year is dedicated to collecting and interpreting adverts on the exhibition of the Asta Nielsen Series published in the local press of around 50 cities and towns in Germany and about 20 cities and towns in Austria-Hungary, Great Britain and Australia. These adverts cover the three cinema seasons that started on August 1st, 1911 and ended on July 31st (just before the outbreak of the First World War that interrupted the career of Asta Nielsen temporarily). Building upon the material basis retrieved in the first year, the local cinema histories of 5 cities and towns from each of the 4 countries will be analyzed in the second year. The sample of cities and towns selected to examine the different local environments of the Asta Nielsen Series in regard to cinema programming and to other entertainment programs ranges from big cities, industrial towns, middle-range regional centers and university cities to small rural towns. The third year is dedicated to the writing of two dissertations: one on the distribution and exhibition of the three Asta Nielsen Series in the home-markets of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the other on the distribution and exhibition of the respective Series in the foreign markets of Great Britain and Australia. The sustainability of the project will be ensured through online access to data collected in the first year: All adverts from the trade press and the local press will be entered into the already existing Importing Asta Nielsen Database.