Mark Ryan

Dr. Mark Ryan, who publishes as Mark David Ryan, is a research fellow for the Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology. His PhD research explored the recent boom in Australian horror movies: production and distribution models; and the industrial, market and technological forces driving production. His thesis constituted the first major study of Australian horror cinema, and the first to explore a popular movie genre’s industry dynamics within Australian cinema through sectoral analysis. Ryan’s thesis is nominated for QUT’s Outstanding Thesis Award (to be announced late 2010), an achievement attained by less than 10 per cent of annual doctoral theses. In October 2008, the study received extensive national media coverage with over 40 stories in radio, print and online media (see below for outlets), and according to Media Monitor statistics, coverage of my PhD thesis reached an approximate audience/readership of over 500,000.

Since the completion of his doctoral research, Ryan has have emerged as one of Australia’s leading experts on Australian horror movies. He has five articles on the subject in press or forthcoming, and has have been invited to edit ‘Australasian Horror’, a special issue of the journal Studies in Australasian Cinema, and the ‘Horror Movies’ section of the Intellect Directory of Australian and New Zealand Cinema. Ryan has have been a driving force behind emerging discussion of Australian horror as a distinct filmmaking tradition within Australian film and cinema studies. In addition, he has written on Australian genre cinema more broadly – movies engaging with popular movies genres such as action, adventure, science-fiction, crime and horror etc – broadening my research profile and contributing to a wider national debate.

Between 2003 and 2006, Ryan worked on several high-profile QUT ARC-funded projects and research consultancies. As a research associate/project officer, I worked on the $400,000 Linkage Project ‘Creative digital industries in Australia: Innovation in quantitative and qualitative mapping’ (2004-06), and the $300,000 ARC Linkage Queensland Mapping Project (2005-06). During this period, Mark also managed and co-wrote two high-level research consultancies: the report Research and Innovation Systems in the Production of Digital Content (2003), a key policy input into the national Creative Industries Cluster Study commissioned by the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts; and Financing Creative Industries in Developing Country Contexts (2004), a study commissioned by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In 2003, Ryan worked as a research associate at the now defunct Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy at Griffith University, a leading research centre for cultural and media policy (1995 to 2004).

Mark Ryan has emerged as a media commentator and one of Australia’s leading commentators on horror movies and the horror genre more generally. He is regularly contacted by the media in relation to anything horror, Halloween or film related. In terms of his own research and as a commentator, Mark has featured in news stories in wide number of national and international media including BBC World Service, Daily Mail (UK), ABC Radio, Sky News, The Australian, Channel 7 (Cairns), The Age, Triple J, The Canberra Times, and The Courier Mail, among many others. Overall, Ryan has featured in well over 100 media stories in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, India and others.

Prior to his PhD research in 2002 (during his Honours year), Ryan was accepted into the highly prestigious Australian National Internship Program (an equivalent to the White House Internship Program) and was an intern for the then Shadow Minister for Communications Lindsay Tanner, MP, in Parliament House, Canberra. As part of his internship, he wrote an intern report on the convergence of Australia’s communication regulatory authorities.

Ryan has also had a high level of recent engagement with the film and television industry. In 2009, we was employed by Winnah Films to undertake historical research into Australia’s involvement in Vietnam, and 1960s politics as an input into a feature film screenplay currently in development.

In July 2010, Ryan was awarded the Creative Industries Faculty Dean's Award for Excellence in Research and Innovation (2009) in recognition for the impact and utilisation of his research by the media and industry, which he achieved as an early career researcher. Click HERE for the full story.

"Recent Publications"

Ryan, Mark David, editor of the journal special issue: ‘Film, Cinema, Screen’ (forthcoming 2010), Media International Australia: Incorporating Culture and Policy, August, no. 136, August.

Lobato, Ramon & Ryan, Mark David (forthcoming 2011), ‘Rethinking genre studies through distribution analysis: issues in international horror movie circuits’, New Review of Film & Television Studies, Volume 9 (2).

Ryan, Mark, David (2010 in press), ‘Australian Horror Movies’, in Ben Goldsmith & Geoff Lealand eds. Intellect Directory of Australian and New Zealand Cinema, Intellect, Bristol.

Ryan, Mark David (2010 in press), 'Australian Cinema's Dark Sun: The Boom in Australian Horror Film Production', Studies in Australasian Cinema, Late 2010.

Ryan, Mark David (2010 forthcoming), ‘Towards an understanding of Australian genre cinema: beyond the limitations of ‘Ozploitation’, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol. 24, no.6.

Ryan, Mark, David & Hearn, Greg (2010 forthcoming), ‘Generation Next: Post-Cinema Australian Moviemaking, Innovation and Implications for Cultural Policy’, Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Conference, Old Parliament House, Canberra, 7-9 July 2010.

Ryan, Mark, David (2009), ‘Whither culture? Australian horror films and the limitations of cultural policy’, Media International Australia: Incorporating Culture and Policy, no133, pp. 43-55.

Projects:

Creative Workforce 2.0

60Sox: Developing a creative ecology as a community of practice