Visiting Professor Eric Hartley Senat, Film Producer and former Senior Vice-President of Warner Brothers will present “Warner Bros. An Illustrated History”.
Thursday 20th February
PART 1: 2-5 in MC2201 (LSM students only) – from the early years to the 1950s
PART 1: 2-5 in MC2201 (LSM students only) – from the early years to the 1950s
PART 2: 6-9pm in Jackson Lecture Theatre – ALL WELCOME! No need to book – from 1950s to the present day
Eric [Rick] Senat entered the motion picture industry in 1970 working independently in the UK and the United States on various films. A qualified solicitor he joined Warner Bros. in 1976, his most recent position being Senior Vice-President, Business Affairs Europe, with responsibility for activities in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In that position he has worked closely with many prominent filmmakers.
Amongst the projects with which he has been closely associated are the Harry Potter franchise, Greystoke, Batman, Superman and many more. He retired from the company after 25 years in 2002. For several years he was a director of the legendary British Film Company Hammer Film Productions. He has served as Vice-Chair of the European Film College, Denmark, chair of Film Education and also as a governor and Vice Chair of the British Film Institute. He is a board member of Cineworld plc, Bank Leumi (UK) plc. and is Chairman of the London Film Museum. He is a visiting professor at Lincoln University.
Since leaving Warner Bros he co-produced Claude Lelouch’s film of And Now Ladies and Gentlemen, with Jeremy Irons and co-produced a show for the West End Stage, Zipp! with Gyles Brandreth. He has also acted as a consultant to various productions including Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, Troy, Alfie, Sahara, Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Nanny McPhee, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and many others.
Most recently, Warner Brothers has been responsible for multi-BAFTA award-winning British film Gravity by Alfonso Cuarón, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.
Professor Brian Winston writes: “These presentations are a unique combination of a number of approaches to talking about the cinema. There are memoirs and biographies, scholarly histories and film analyses and a growing — but pretty dry – literature based on the industry as a business. Rick combines all of these in a way that not only tells the story of a studio, looks at the films it made and asks how it reflected American life; he also enthusiastically explains how the business works, especially the impact of the personalities of the ‘suits’ on the creative process in a unique positive light. The result is to give the audience a multi-viewpoint understanding of Hollywood that they won’t have ever heard before.”
Rick will remain in Lincoln to give a full day of film production surgery sessions for LSM students on Friday 21st February, and on Saturday he will visit the final day of the BFI Film Academy – a prestigious training project delivered by LSM with CfBT for young people funded by the British Film Institute.