Traces of the new in the old: distribution and exhibition in early and late film culture

Screen Australia's report Beyond the Box Office: Understanding Audiences in a Multi-Screen World (2011) identifies the resilience of established access points for distribution and exhibition despite expanding access to new avenues of engagement with screen content and participation with digital screens. Whilst much research seems to respond to a perceived threat about the open windows and unmapped territories of the digital signalling the demise of celluloid film culture, the broader spectrum of multimedia forms creating deep and broad audience engagement are not specific to the new millennium.One hundred years ago, a collection of early experiments in cinema - The Corrick Collection - was one of the first film programmes to tour Australia. Beginning with an examination of contemporary patterns of distribution and then considering the pathways forged by The Corrick family, this article aims to explore how early distributors developed innovative approaches to attracting audiences and exposing them to this new attraction. The Corrick Collection toured capital cities, regional Australia and ventured into South East Asia and Europe. An examination of the innovations developed in early film culture will reveal resonances with contemporary distribution. This historical project will not imagine the new supplanting the old, nor will it account for the emergence of film culture in evolutionary terms, instead, it aims to use contemporary approaches to historiography to highlight the intermediality of early film and to display the presence of celluloid behind digital culture.