Professor Mark Ryan
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Creative Practice,
Film, Screen & Animation
Biography
Dr. Mark Ryan, publishing as Mark David Ryan, is a Professor in Film and Screen for the Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice Faculty, Queensland University of Technology. Ryan is the leading international expert on the Australian horror movie industry and is a leading researcher investigating the history and contemporary dynamics of feature film production in Australia. He has published extensively in screen and media studies. He is the co-editor of Australian Genre Film (In Press 2020, Routledge), Australian Screen in the 2000s (2017, Palgrave Macmillan), and the Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand 2 (2015, Intellect). His research has been published in leading film and media studies journals, including New Review of Film & Television Studies, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Media International Australia: Incorporating Culture and Policy, Senses of Cinema, and Studies in Australasian Cinema. His book chapters appear in collections published by leading international academic publishers including Routledge, Sage, University of Toronto Press, University of Ottawa Press, and Bloomsbury Press.Mark has won over $1.5 million in competitive research grants or external research funding. He is a Chief Investigator for two recent Australian Research Council Linkage projects: Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value (2019-2024) and Australian Cultural & Creative Activity: A Population & Hotspot Analysis (2017-2020). He has been awarded various grants in Cat 2 and Cat 3 funding categories.
Ryan’s research has made a significant contribution to local and national screen and creative industries policy. He is the lead author, or co-author, of over eight major reports commissioned by local, national, or supra-national government agencies, including the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Commonwealth Department of Communications Information Technology and the Arts, Screen Queensland, the Gold Coast City Council, and various other national and state government departments. Ryan led an innovative study of the Gold Coast film and television Industry in 2020 resulting in the establishment of the first Australian local council administered fund to invest in local film and television production.
Personal details
Positions
- Professor
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Creative Practice,
Film, Screen & Animation
Research field
Film, Television and Digital Media, Communication and Media Studies
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- Ph.D (Queensland University of Technology)
- Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice (Queensland University of Technology)
- BA Hons (First Class) (Mass Communication) (University of Southern Qld)
- BA (Mass Communication) (University of Southern Qld)
Professional memberships and associations
- Chief Investigator, Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC), QUT, 2015-present
- Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), UK
- President of the Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand (SSAAANZ), from 2015 - 2018. http://ssaaanz.org/
- Executive Member of Australian Screen Producers Education and Research Association (ASPERA), July 2015 -July 2016. http://aspera.org.au/
- Executive Member of Creative Lab, Creative Industries Faculty, QUT
- Member of Society for Cinema and Media Studies, 2012-2016. http://www.cmstudies.org/
- Member of Australian Film Critics Association of Australia (AFCA), 2017 -present. http://www.afca.org.au/
Teaching
Since 2008, I have coordinated or taught in the following undergraduate and postgraduate courses in creative industries, screen studies and media studies:
- Screen Business (KPB121)
- Screen Issues (KPB325)
- Australian Film and Television (KPB212)
- TV and Film Text Analysis (KPB113)
- Global Screen Industries (KPB206)
- International Cinema (KPB206)
- Creative Industries: People and Practices (KKB101)
- Introduction to Entertainment (KXB101)
- Project Design in Creative Industries (KKP003)
- Media and Communication Industries (KCB104)
Publications
Research outputs by year
- Ryan, M., Healy, G. & Cunningham, S. (2022). Where Are They Now? Career Sustainability and Australian Web-Series Producers. Media International Australia. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/236790
- McWilliam, K. & Ryan, M. (2021). Australian Genre Film. Routledge. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/210135
- Ryan, M., (2021). A Monstrous Landscape Filled with Killer Animals and Madmen: Tropes of Contemporary Australian Horror Movies. In K. McWilliam & MD. Ryan (Eds.), Australian Genre Film (pp. 90–108). Routledge. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/210062
- Ryan, M. & McWilliam , K. (2021). Australian Film Genre Studies. In K. McWilliam & MD. Ryan (Eds.), Australian Genre Film (pp. 1–25). Routledge. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/202956
- Ryan, M. & Goldsmith, B. (2017). Australian screen in the 2000s. Palgrave Macmillan. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/105469
- Ryan, M., (2017). Australian Blockbuster Movies. In MD. Ryan & B. Goldsmith (Eds.), Australian screen in the 2000s (pp. 51–76). Palgrave Macmillan. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/105470
- Goldsmith, B., Cunningham, S., Verhoeven, D. & Ryan, M. (2014). The Australian screen producer in transition. In C. Meir, A. Spicer & AT. McKenna (Eds.), Beyond the bottom line: The producer in film and television studies (pp. 125–142). Bloomsbury Academic. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/66666
- Ryan, M., (2012). A silver bullet for Australian cinema? Genre movies and the audience debate. Studies in Australasian Cinema, 6(2), 141–157. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/52046
- Lobato, R. & Ryan, M. (2011). Rethinking genre studies through distribution analysis: issues in international horror movie circuits. New Review of Film and Television Studies, 9(2), 188–203. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/32518
- Ryan, M. & Hearn, G. (2010). Next generation 'filmmaking': New markets, new methods and new business models. Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy, 136, 133–145. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/33169
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Mark, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Awards
- Type
- Appointment to Prestigious Positions
- Reference year
- 2022
- Details
- Academic board member for the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA).
- Type
- Advisor/Consultant for Industry
- Reference year
- 2023
- Details
- Commissioned by Screen Queensland to review the current capacity and constraints of film and television studios and production facilities on the Gold Coast.
- Type
- Editorial Role for an Academic Journal
- Reference year
- 2022
- Details
- Editorial board member for Studies in Australasian Cinema
- Type
- Editorial Role for an Academic Journal
- Reference year
- 2023
- Details
- Editorial board member for Metro Magazine, one of Australia's longest running film and media periodicals
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2016
- Details
- Vice-Chancellor's Performance Award 2015. In recognition of a significant and superior contribution to the work of a university.
- Type
- Appointment to Prestigious Positions
- Reference year
- 2015
- Details
- President of the Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand (SSAAANZ) from November 2015 until November 2018.
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2010
- Details
- Dean's Award for Excellence in Research and Innovation, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology (July 2010)
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2010
- Details
- Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching (team), 8 July 2010
Selected research projects
- Title
- Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- LP180100626
- Start year
- 2020
- Keywords
- online; creatives; screen; digital content makers; web series festivals
- Title
- Australian Cultural and Creative Activity: A Population and Hotspot Analysis
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- LP160101724
- Start year
- 2017
- Keywords
- Title
- Production Cultures in Transition: Examining the 21st Century Australian Screen Producer
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- SR0590002
- Start year
- 2011
- Keywords
- Film And Television; Film Production; Interactive Media; Internet Broadcasting; Transmedia
Projects listed above are funded by Australian Competitive Grants. Projects funded from other sources are not listed due to confidentiality agreements.
Supervision
Looking for a postgraduate research supervisor?
I am currently accepting research students for Honours, Masters and PhD study.
You can browse existing student topics offered by QUT or propose your own topic.
Completed supervisions (Doctorate)
- Extreme sports as filmed entertainment: Understanding aesthetic form, style and characteristics of extreme sports films (2022)
- Blockbustering Australian Style: Evolution of the Blockbuster Exhibition in Australian Museums (2020)
- The Moral Undead: Representations of the soul in contemporary vampire film and television (2017)
- Animated Mise-en-scène and Aesthetic Harmony: An Expansion of the Traditional Principles of Animation to 3D Computer Animation (2016)
- (Un)Dead Japan: A Genre Analysis of the Japanese Zombie Film (2015)
- Creative Interoperability: A new concept to guide, understand and evaluate innovation by cross-sector collaboration (2015)
- Television Content for the 21st Century Classroom (2015)
Completed supervisions (Masters by Research)
- ABC Television Sport: Public Broadcasting, Innovation and Nation Building (2017)
- Crowdfunding and Independent Screen Content Production in Australia: A Direct Economic Relationship between Producer and Audience (2015)
- Made By Motion: a Conceptual Framework for Abstracted Animation Derived from Motion-Captured Movements (2015)