Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The second category of “cinematic cartography,” film-related tour-
ism, represents an area that has developed into something of a global
phenomenon in recent years, prompting the publication not only of
movie maps of cities and regions (often as tie-ins to major film releases)
but also of a string of film-tourism travel guides that have become a focus
of research into movie-mapping and place-marketing. The British Tour-
ism Authority's (BTA)
Movie Map of Britain
(1990) was the first national
campaign that sought to capitalize on the economic potential of film-
related tourism; the map became BTA's (now Visit Britain) most suc-
cessful printed product. The organization has since gone on to produce
a series of movie maps and has become a global player in the film tourism
market. Working with film production and distribution companies, Visit
Britain has developed dedicated film tourism offices in Los Angeles and
Mumbai and typically plans its location maps with movie studios at least
twelve months in advance of the date of a major film release.
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Film tour-
ism has brought with it growing convergence between the film and tour-
ism industries, with each providing mutually reinforcing promotional
tie-ins and product or brand awareness designed to stimulate both the
consumption of place (the economic imperative of the tourism, leisure,
and cultural industries) and the consumption of film and television pro-
ductions. A number of recent studies have examined the economic im-
pacts or potential of this form of destination marketing, although studies
that address the social, cultural, and geographic impacts of film-related
tourism remain comparatively underdeveloped.
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By way of contrast, recent approaches in film studies have focused on
the ways in which maps are embedded in feature films; as Tom Conley
points out, “Since the advent of narrative in cinema - which is to say,
from its very beginnings - maps are inserted in the field of the image to
indicate where action 'takes place.'”
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In Sébastien Caquard's discussion
of cinematic maps - or “cinemaps” - he argues that early animated maps
in films such as Fritz Lang's
M
(1931) predated many of the future func-
tions of modern digital cartography, such as the use of sound, shifts in
perspectives, and the combination of realistic images and cartographic
symbols. Caquard suggests that professional cartographers can learn
much from the study of cinematic techniques used by Lang and other
filmmakers in terms of their status as cinematic precursors to modern
