The Mallen Screen Entertainment Conference
23 Sep 2024
09:00 -20:30
24 Sep 2024
09:00 -21:00
25 Sep 2024
09:00 -18:00
Times are shown in local time.
Open to: All
Magdalene College, Cripps Court
1-3 Chesterton Rd
Arbury
Cambridge
CB4 3AD
United Kingdom
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Category: Conferences Research seminars
Join the Conference on its 25th anniversary
The Mallen Conference is an annual meeting of global leading scholars who are excited by the business and economics of screen entertainment (including film, television, streaming and video-gaming) and the managers who make practical decisions about it.
Participants have an original interest to advance managerial decision making in the context of screen entertainment in relevant ways. Accordingly, an essential element of the conference is to provide a forum for discussions between researchers and managers. Together, we search for ways to better understand the mechanisms and processes contributing to the successful creation, management, and marketing of screen entertainment.
In September 2024, the Mallen Conference will celebrate its 25 anniversary in the University of Cambridge, at Cambridge Judge Business School and Magdalene College. It will also start, for the first time, with a dedicated PhD symposium.
The Mallen Conference 2024 is organised by Cambridge Judge Business School and Magdalene College in co-operation with Universität Münster.
Cambridge Judge Business School, founded in 1990, uses the power of academia for real-world impact to transform individuals, organisations and society. A centre of rigorous thinking and high-impact, transformative education, Cambridge Judge pursues innovation through interdisciplinary insight, collaboration and entrepreneurial spirit.
Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded first in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, and second in 1542 in its current denomination, distinguished fellows and alumni include C.S. Lewis, Hannah Critchlow, Sir Michael Redgrave, Mike Newell, and Julian Fellowes.
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Agenda
Symposium, registration and screening
08:45 – 09:30
Opening session
Allègre Hadida, University of Cambridge & Thorsten Hennig-Thurau, University of Munster
09:30 – 10:00
The delights and challenges of entertainment science research
Allègre Hadida, University of Cambridge & Thorsten Hennig-Thurau, University of Munster
10:00-10:15
Coffee break
10:15 – 10:35
First round presentation: “Finding a great research question”
Charles Weinberg, University of British Columbia
10:35 – 11:35
Pod meetings #1 at gallery roundtables
Facilitated by faculty mentors
11:35 – 11:45
Comfort break
11:45 – 12:05
Second round presentation: “Positioning papers for top journals”
Tom Van Laer, University of Sidney
12:05 – 13:05
Pod meetings #2 at gallery roundtables
Facilitated by faculty mentors
13:05 – 14:00
Buffet lunch
14:00 – 14:20
Third round presentation: “Empirical design”
Jordi McKenzie, Macquarie University
14:20 – 15:20
Pod meetings #3 at gallery roundtables
Facilitated by faculty mentors
15:20 – 15:35
Coffee break
15:35 – 15:50
Fourth round presentation: “From findings to contributions”
Darlene C. Chisholm, Suffolk University
15:50 – 16:50
Pod meetings #4 at gallery roundtables
Facilitated by faculty mentors
16:50 – 17:20
Symposium conclusion and debrief
17:20 – 18:00
Conference registration opens
18:00 – 19:00
Conference registration and welcome reception
Canapé reception
19:30 – 20:30
Watersprite Film Festival Special Screening
Curated and presented by Flora O’Neill, Festival Producer, Amber Hyams, Development Director, and Zebulon Goriely, ex-Festival Director, Watersprite Film Festival.
The Watersprite Film Festival, which is entirely run by Cambridge students, is the largest and one of the most prestigious student film festivals in the world. The festival producer, development director and 2023-24 festival director will present a special curated screening of award-winning short films and engage in a Q&A with other Mallen 2024 participants.
Mallen Conference Day 1
08:30 – 09:00
Conference registration
09:00 – 09:15
Conference welcome – From film to screen entertainment
Allègre Hadida, University of Cambridge & Thorsten Hennig-Thurau, University of Munster
09:15 – 10:45
Session 1: film economics and strategy
- Session Chair: Ricard Gil
- Session Warden: Eti Akter Anowara
Ricard Gil & Francine Lafontaine: Block booking and product variety: evidence from the Paramount Antitrust Case of 1948
Darlene Chisholm, Xilin Song & Charles Weinberg: Does where you produce matter? Evidence from the movie industry
Milica Bozanic: Economic incentive policies impact on the development of the national film industries in CEE
Session 2 : Immersive experiences
- Session Chair: Sebastiano Delre
- Session Warden: Öykü Ağkoç Ayradilli
Öykü Ağkoç Ayradilli: Beyond engagement: how immersive digital experiences transform business and society
Thorsten Hennig-Thurau, Hanna Pott, David Finken & David Jutte: Exploring the interplay between virtual and physical reality in immersive entertainment experiences
Niel Althuizen & Sebastiano Delre: Does innovation and portfolio differentiation lead to higher sales? A study using big data from Hollywood
10:45 – 11:00
Coffee break
11:00 – 12:30
Session 3: Videogame success and engagement
- Session Chair: Andre Marchand
- Session Warden: Yanbo Song
Andre Marchand & Nicolas Weber: How movie star power drives video game success
Sunghan Ryu & Shantanu Dutta: Decomposing gaming microtransactions by gaming motivation, gameplay style and personality type
Yanbo Song: Dialing affects in early release pitching: Video game developers’ audience engagement and vision selling
Session 4: Storytelling across identities
- Session Chair: Tom Van Laer
- Session Warden: Shirin Yazgulieva
Tom Van Laer: Life imitates art imitates life: A framework for understanding the intersection between narrative consumption and generational identities
Stefano Russo, Bartosz Jus & Trilce Navarrete: Who participates and why in the digital museum: capitals and attitudes for generation Z
Abraham Oshote: Stylistic differentiation in cultural markets: the benefits of conspicuous category spanning
12:30 – 13:30
Lunch
13:30 – 15:00
Screen entertainment-themed walking tour
See Cambridge differently
15:00 – 15:15
Coffee break
15:15 – 16:30
Mallen 2024 Power Pitches
- Session Chair: Allègre Hadida
- Session Warden: Nathan Odiase
Speakers
- Shirin Yazgulieva: Analysis of non-market strategies in climate fiction movies
- Pauline Rohr: The power of nostalgia: the dominance of older movies in IMDb’s top 250
- Zhao (Joy) Zheng: Team creativity, digitization, and assessment divergence in creative industries
- Nicole Helwig: Balancing acts: exploring social enterprise hybrid tensions in social impact moviemaking
- Nathan Odiase: Fashion, style, and creative identity: implications for the future of cinema and the other creative industries
- Tobias Meyerhofer: A mixed-method approach to investigate the interplay of professional and amateur reviews on consumer decision making
The candlelight gala dinner will take place in the beautiful 16 century dining hall of Magdalene College
16:30 – 18:00
Session 5: Screen entertainment and AI
- Session Chair: Jordi McKenzie
- Session Warden: Hanna Pott
Paul Crosby & Jordi McKenzie: The reel deal? An experimental analysis of perception bias and AI film pitches
Isin Guler, Demetrius Lewis & Giacomo Negro: Accounting for retrospective bias in classification systems of cultural products
Angus Finney & Allègre Hadida: Leviathan or utopia? Strategic AI options in the film industry
Session 6: Unconventional storytelling
- Session Chair: Angelo Tomaselli Session
- Warden: Kristin Petras
Kristin Petras, Oliver Emrich & Lukas Kutscher: The effect of personalised storytelling on the support of climate protection initiatives
Angelo Tomaselli & Tao Wang: How semantic loyalty and cultural distance drive the commercial performance of translated creative Ideas
Hamideh Farahmandian, Francois Penz & Maximillian Sternberg: An investigation into the cinematic representations of spatial poverty in tehran (1963–2022)
18:00 – 18:15
Comfort break
18:15 – 19:15
Conference Keynote: Alison Owen in conversation with Angus Finney
Alison Owen is one of the UK’s leading film and television producers. Finding international success with multi-Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA-winning historical drama Elizabeth (1998), starring Cate Blanchett, Owen has consistently produced award-winning film and television projects. Additional credits include The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), Jane Eyre (2011), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Suffragette (2015), Back to Black (2924), and the Emmy Award-winning Temple Grandin (2010) and Small Island (2009). In 2016, Owen produced Me Before You for MGM, and collaborated again with MGM on The Hustle (2019), starring Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway.
In 2014, Owen founded Monumental Pictures with fellow UK powerhouse producer Debra Hayward. Monumental’s film and television slate includes How To Build A Girl (2019), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to critical acclaim and won the FIPRESCI Prize.
For television, Owen has served as executive producer on 3 seasons of Hulu’s critically acclaimed Harlots (2017-20). She is the executive producer of the hit BBC One sitcom Ghosts as well as the US version for CBS. Owen also executive produced three seasons of Anne with an E (2017-20) for Netflix, Riches for Amazon and ITV, and Sanctuary, a seven-part returning series for AMC.
19:30 – 21:30
Gala dinner at Magdalene College
The Hall is a beautiful 16th century dining room, originally the monastic refectory.
We will dine by candlelight below the stunning stained-glass windows and the Heraldic arms of Queen Anne.
Mallen Conference Day 2
09:30 – 11:00
Session 7: Diversity and representation in screen entertainment
- Session Chair: Joe Cox
- Session Warden: Lars Grewe
Joe Cox, Allègre Hadida, Daniel Kaiman & Avraham Ravid: The effect of gender, age and race on the wages of high-level professionals in leading roles
Jia Li & Koleman Strumpf: The link between representation on the silver screen and consumer demand
Tania Aparicio-Morales: The uses and misuses of diversity in the curatorial process in the MoMA film department and Cineteca Nacional
Session 8: Screen entertainment value systems
- Session Chair: Antoine Vernet
- Session Warden: Tobias Meyerhofer
Antoine Vernet, Christine Moser & Dirk Deichman: The company you keep: effects of leader and members brokerage on creative performance
Markus Wohlfeil: Escaping the “Iron cage” of digital entertainment providers
Michael Franklin: Promises, promises: exploring conflicting values and differential access to data in video streaming’s third act
11:00 – 11:30
Coffee break
11:30-13:00
Session 9: Streaming and platforms
- Session Chair: Anthony Palomba
- Session Warden: Bobbie Krijger
Bobbie Krijger, Hannes Datta & Bart Bronnenberg: Attracting new subscribers in the subscription video on demand industry
Anthony Palomba & Nicole Fleskes: Series superstars: How streaming-video-on-demand (SVOD) content popularity informs SVOD platform demand
Eti Akter Anowara, Amar Takhar & Markus Wohlfeil: Music streaming platforms: Are artists getting paid what they deserve
13:00 – 14:00
Lunch
14:00-15:30
Mallen 2024 Panel: The future of storytelling
- Session Chair: Angus Finney
- Session Warden: Pauline Rohr
Angus Finney is an experienced film and creative content business specialist, author, and an executive producer in film/TV and Streaming. His training and education work includes teaching at Cambridge Judge Business School, the London Film School, Exeter University, the Beijing Film Academy, and the Danish National Film School, the NFTS and the British Film Institute. Finney has also served as an expert witness in three high profile cases.
For 10 years (2007-2017), Finney was the manager of Europe’s only Production Finance Market for movies, hosted by Film London and held at the London Film Festival annually. Finney was appointed joint Managing Director of Renaissance Films in July 1999, and took over sole MD responsibilities between 2003-2006. He is currently working as an active executive producer in television, streaming and film.
Finney has a PhD in Management from Cass Business School, City University London. His publications include: International Film Business – A Market Guide Beyond Hollywood (Third edition May 2021); The Egos Have Landed: The Rise and Fall of Palace Pictures, London, Heinemann (1996); The State of European Cinema, Cassell, London (1996).
Andy Wang is VP Investments at Ashland Hill Media Finance. An experienced film finance executive with a Cambridge MBA, he believes in supporting independent producers with clarity and honesty. Some of his recent titles as Executive Producer include The Mother and The Bear (TIFF 2024, sold by FilmNation), Young Werther (TIFF 2024, sold by Mister Smith), and Tornado (sold by HanWay). Ashland Hill Media Finance provides senior secured and gap loans against pre-sales, tax incentives, unsold territories including the US, and offers bridge loans and finishing funds.
Prior to Ashland Hill, Andy has worked for leading multinational companies including the media banking division of the Royal Bank of Canada, WarnerMedia, WME Australia, and others.
Simon Hall leads a course in storytelling, writing and public speaking skills at the University of Cambridge. He’s also Director of Creative Warehouse – a business communication, media, design, websites, and video production consultancy, specialising in helping startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs. He’s coached executives and politicians around the world in communication skills, and worked with organisations as varied as the London Stock Exchange, the tech giant Arm, the Alzheimer’s Society, and the NHS.
A BBC TV and radio journalist of 25 years’ experience and the author of 13 non-fiction books and 8 novels, Simon is a master cross- media storyteller and a self-proclaimed lover of words, thoughts, and feelings, as well as wild swimming!
15:30 – 15:45
Conference closing session
Allègre Hadida, University of Cambridge & Thorsten Hennig-Thurau, University of Munster
15:45 – 16:15
Coffee break
16:15
Free evening / optional activities
Punting on the River Cam, drinks on the Magdalene Beach (weather permitting) or drinks at a local pub
Weather permitting, 2024 Mallen participants may choose to end the conference with a leisurely exploration of Cambridge from the river Cam on a traditional long boat with a flat bottom or with drinks on the Magdalene College Beach.
Rain or shine, they may also opt for a pint of ale at a traditional English pub, for instance The Eagle or the Pickerel, with a side of traditional ‘fish and chips’, ‘bangers and mash’, or ‘Shepherd’s pie’!
Registration, applications and submissions
- Registration
- Call for applications for PhD Symposium (23 Sep)
- Call for submissions for Mallen Conference (24-25 Sep)
Register
Please note that there are 3 options in order to register for the conference. Choose one of the ones below:
Student registration is for doctoral candidates with papers accepted to the PhD Symposium. Registration includes the symposium, the main conference, all social activities and the gala dinner.
In addition to registration, you will have the option to book one of a limited number of bed and breakfast places at Magdalene College.
University of Cambridge staff registration is for members of the University of Cambridge whose attendance will be funded by their department or other University funding source. The cost of registration will be £200, including the conference, all social activities and the gala dinner.
At checkout, an email will be sent, prompting Cambridge Judge accounts to make an internal charge for your registration fee.
Standard registration is for external academics and participants from the screen media industries. The cost of registration will be £200, including the conference, all social activities and the gala dinner, which will be charged in full at checkout.
Registrations are now open, please follow the link below if you would like to register.
* This registration link is to an independent website which is not under our control, and we are not responsible for and have not checked or approved the data protection or privacy policies.
Deadline: 31 May 2024
The first Mallen PhD Symposium aims to develop a supportive and inclusive community of PhD students and mentoring scholars interested in the screen entertainment industries (including cinema, television, streaming, and video-gaming) and to foster research conversations and future collaborations. We will meet on the day before the start of the 25th Mallen anniversary conference, on Monday 23 September 2024. Every PhD candidate invited to the symposium will also have an opportunity to present a paper at the conference on Tuesday 24 or Wednesday 25 September 2024.
The Symposium alternates between keynote presentations, research sprints, and campfire sessions mentored by leading scholars. It offers PhD students a unique opportunity to receive constructive and developmental feedback from leading scholars in the field of entertainment science.
How to Apply
We welcome applications from second, third and fourth-year doctoral students from all disciplines of management. Places are limited to make the most of the learning and networking opportunities offered by the Symposium.
Please combine all application materials into one PDF file including:
- A short biography of not more than 100 words.
- A one-page summary of your dissertation proposal.
- An application letter of not more than 400 words explaining why you wish to take part in the doctoral symposium and what you expect to gain from it.
- A curriculum vitae, including the name of your supervisor and (if already known) of the members of your thesis committee.
- A letter of recommendation from your supervisor.
The conference organisers will sponsor the symposium and conference fees (including catering and social events) of all student participants, who will only have to pay for their travels to and accommodation in Cambridge.
We have also provisionally reserved a limited number of reasonably priced ensuite rooms for student participants in Magdalene College Cripps Court for the duration of the symposium and conference, to be allocated on a first-registered, first-served basis.
We look forward to receiving your application by 31 May 2024
Please direct all queries to the Mallen 2024 Conference Chair, Dr Allègre L. Hadida, at: mallen2024@jbs.cam.ac.uk.
Applicants will be informed of acceptance decisions by 30 June 2024. Those invited to participate in the Symposium will then be asked to submit a paper or an extended abstract for presentation by 31 July 2024.
Deadline: 31 May 2024
The theme of the Mallen Conference is deliberately cross- and interdisciplinary. Participating scholars are not selected by their respective research disciplines, but instead their shared excitement about screen entertainment as the object of their work. This interdisciplinary way of thinking is evidenced by the list of winners of the annual Mallen Award for Scholarly Contributions in Entertainment Research – since Jehoshua Eliashberg from Wharton received the inaugural Mallen Award, awardees are a who-is-who of leading entertainment scholars from various disciplines, including economics, marketing, strategy, management, finance, and communication.
We are inviting you to submit a full paper or an extended abstract of about 1,000 words for presentation at the 2024 conference by 31 May 2024.
All papers and extended abstracts should be written in English and include the following elements:
- title (15 words maximum)
- author(s) name(s), affiliations and email addresses
- keywords (up to 5)
- full paper or extended abstract (about 1,000 words)
Please direct all queries to the Mallen 2024 Conference Chair, Dr Allègre L. Hadida, at: mallen2024@jbs.cam.ac.uk.
Authors will be informed of acceptance decisions by 30 June 2024.