Make Me Laugh: Creativity in the British Television Comedy Industry

这项拟议的研究项目旨在通过研究个人的工作实践以及影响和塑造这种创造力的行业、机构和政策背景，来审查英国电视喜剧行业内创造力的性质。媒体、文化和体育部将创意产业定义为“基于个人创造力、技能和才华的产业”，从而将个人置于生产文化产品的创造力概念的核心。此外，有关创意产业的学术研究也同样强调了个人的重要性：理查德·弗罗里达认为，具有创造力的个人构成了一个特定的“阶级”，他们有自己的兴趣、工作方法和技能(2002)，而约翰·豪金斯则将创造力称为“意识的一个特例”(2007：5)。然而，这些人的产出必须考虑到他们所在行业的需求和动力，以及影响所有劳工决定的更广泛的经济和政策背景。个人和他们工作的系统之间的这种紧张关系是分析创造力的成熟场所。英国电视喜剧行业由于其产业结构的特殊性，是检验创造力的有用案例。首先，像许多在电视上逐个项目工作的人一样，喜剧编剧、表演者和制片人被要求反复创造，创造可能会引起制作公司和广播公司兴趣的新想法和新形式，同时考虑到这些机构的职能范围。其次，喜剧行业表明，个人希望管理自己的创造力，并致力于对个人有意义的项目；这从1980年代独立电视部门扩张期间小型制作公司的激增可见一斑，这一趋势一直延续到今天。研究表明，个人为小公司工作和从事特定项目的愿望是一种对产出和工作实践的“保持控制”(Mills 2009：56)和“自主”(Hesmondhalgh 2007：6)的尝试。第三，喜剧行业相对不专业，缺乏公认的喜剧专业资格；因此，个人的知名度和成功完全取决于他们的创造力。第四，英国公共服务广播理念中对喜剧的承诺表明，幽默和娱乐在国家理念中扮演着核心角色，这与英国政府对创意产业的承诺一起，证明了有必要更深入地探索创意概念。因此，这个项目假设，从方法论上来说，创意的想法最好是通过那些被要求具有创造力的个人来理解，因此它的重点是那些谋生依赖于创造力的编剧、制片人、导演、专员和其他行业人员。因此，该项目将在与这类工人面谈的基础上进行实证调查，并对一系列工作做法进行观察。其目的将是跟踪特定的项目，从最初的想法(通常由作家产生)到它们的成功完成或被放弃，捕捉它们通过参与其发展的个人的活动所经历的创造性过程。通过这种方法，创造力将被置于适当的行业和机构背景下，因此将绘制和探索这些背景、结果产品和涉及的个人之间的关系。通过这一分析，该项目的目的将是在相关的政策辩论中进行干预，并促进学术界和产业界对创意和创意工作者的理解。

The proposed research project seeks to examine the nature of creativity within the British television comedy industry, via examination of the working practices of individuals and the industrial, institutional and policy contexts which inform and shape such creativity. The Department for Media, Culture and Sport defines the Creative Industries as those 'that are based on individual creativity, skill and talent', thereby placing the individual as the core of notions of creativity from which cultural products are produced. Furthermore, academic work on the Creative Industries similarly highlights the significance of the individual: Richard Florida suggests that creative individuals constitute a particular 'class' (2002) with their own interests, working methods and skills, while John Howkins calls creativity 'a special case of consciousness' (2007: 5). Yet the output of such individuals is necessarily tailored to take into account the needs and impetuses of both the industries within which they work and the broader economic and policy contexts which affect all labour decisions. This tension between the individual and the system within which they work is a ripe site for the analysis of creativity.The British television comedy industry represents a useful case study for the examination of creativity because of the specifics of its industrial structures. Firstly, like many who work on a project-by-project basis in television, comedy writers, performers and producers are required to be repeatedly creative, generating new ideas and formats which might interest production companies and broadcasters, while taking into account the remits within which those institutions function. Secondly, the comedy industry is indicative of a desire by individuals to manage their own creativity and to work on projects which are meaningful to the individual; this is shown by the proliferation of small production companies during the expansion of the independent television sector in the 1980s, a trend which continues to this day. Research shows that individuals' desire to work for small companies and on specific projects is an attempt to 'maintain control' (Mills 2009: 56) and 'autonomy' (Hesmondhalgh 2007: 6) over both output and working practices. Thirdly, the comedy industry is relatively un-professionalised, with a lack of recognised comedy-specific qualifications; the renown and success of individuals is, therefore, reliant entirely on their creativity. Fourthly, the commitment to comedy within British notions of public service broadcasting demonstrate the central role humour and entertainment are seen to play in ideas of the nation which, alongside the British Government's commitment to the Creative Industries, is evidence of the need to explore notions of creativity in more depth.This project therefore assumes that ideas of creativity are best understood methodologically via those individuals who are required to be creative, and its focus is therefore those writers, producers, directors, commissioners and other industry personnel whose livelihood depends on their creativity. The project will therefore undertake empirical investigation, based on interviews with such workers as well as undertaking observation of a range of working practices. The aim will be to follow particular projects from initial idea (usually generated by a writer) through to their successful completion or abandonment, capturing the creative processes they go through via the activities of those individuals involved in their development. By this method, creativity will be placed within appropriate industrial and institutional contexts, and therefore the relationships between those contexts, the resulting product, and the individuals involved will be charted and explored. From this analysis, the project will aim to make an intervention within relevant policy debates as wellas contributing to academic and industrial understandings of creativity and creative workers.