Course Syllabus

This advanced urban planning and historic preservation studio seeks to develop student skills in understanding and integrating cultural heritage as an instrumental component of community and economic development and social-spatial justice. As a project-based studio, students work independently and collaboratively to research, analyze, and propose recommendations for future action, compiling findings in a collective final report (see examples here.) 

Registration for this course will be finalized via application over the summer. 

ON LOCATION: Heritage, Justice, and the Film Industry

Background and Aims:  The use of historic places for on-location filming is a longstanding and vital practice in movie and television production. Many sites and communities benefit financially by opening their doors and streetscapes, creating jobs and generating revenue through location fees as well as film-induced tourism (also known as screen tourism). However, the overall economic, environmental, physical, and social impacts of these arrangements are not always positive or consistent, often creating unjust outcomes. This studio seeks to advance policies and best practices related to the use of heritage places (historic buildings, sites, streetscapes, cultural landscapes, archaeological sites, etc.) for on-location filming. The studio aims to promote accountability in the film industry, preserve the material integrity and environmental quality of heritage places used for filming, minimize risk to and equitably benefit the communities in which they are located, and respect the social-spatial relationships they engender. 

Scope and Methods: The studio involves a research-driven exploration of how heritage places are instrumentalized for community and economic development through film-related policies and practices. Students will examine a variety of sites and organizations around the world as comparative cases, to understand the challenges and opportunities of filming at heritage locales and to explore policy avenues, including:

• how heritage places and communities have been used and protected (or not) in the history of film and TV production, and become the objects of screen tourism;
• how organizations and government agencies have established effective filming protocols (or not) to protect heritage places and communities, and to manage related screen tourism;
• how non-film industries (such as mining, hydropower, etc.) have developed heritage protection and corporate social responsibility standards that might translate to the TV and film industry; and
• how existing film industry standards (such as the American Humane Association’s “No Animal Was Harmed,” Producers Guild of America’s Green Production Guide/Toolkit; etc.) might serve as models for improving heritage accountability.

Alabama will serve as the locale for a more applied case study, working in cooperation with the Alabama African American Civil Rights Heritage Sites Consortium (AAACRHSC). The studio will travel to Alabama in October (dates TBD) to more deeply understand how heritage places significant to the Civil Rights movement have been utilized and represented in film and TV, the issues involved, and how local organizations and authorities promote and regulate on-location filming.

Outputs: The comparative cases, local study, and associated research will provide an evidence-based platform for student proposals that can prepare and empower various actors to address cultural heritage concerns in film production systemically. Proposals will focus on a) specific actions by/for the local study community and AAACRHSC, and b) more global actions by third party heritage organizations, like World Monuments Fund (another collaborator in the studio) to leverage film industry accountability. Students compile findings in a collective final report, and World Monuments Fund has published past studio reports (which can be found here). Given the studio subject, students are also encouraged to consider the use of video to communicate their findings and proposals.

Participation: Those students with preservation planning and policy interest have the option to focus their cases and proposals on social, environmental, and economic issues as they relate to land use and governance, economic and community development, site management, and/or social justice. Students interested in conservation and technology will have the option to focus their cases on material and structural issues as they relate to risk assessments, technical guidelines, and the protection of historic fabric. Students are invited to take a hybrid approach if interested in both conservation/technology and planning/policy.