Setting the Film Studio Stage

This chapter introduces the book’s main themes and approaches, setting out the key questions it engages with regarding Pinewood’s history and reputation. Relevant literature on Pinewood and film studios is surveyed as context for the book’s film-historical-materialist methodology combined with a ‘tectonic’ approach applied in the context of film studio analysis. The chapter presents a brief early history and information about Pinewood’s foundation in 1936, its development as a studio facility, and its experience of being requisitioned during the Second World War. The chapter sets out how the book’s particular structure and ‘pivot’ focus produces a micro history which offers new insights into the material, cultural, and social role of film studios during a key period of British film history.