Born Bangor, Ireland, Chris Crilly is a sound designer, film composer, arranger, conductor, musician, singer, and specialist in adaptation of varied ethnic and liturgical music for the large and small screens. He has won numerous awards for his work including an award for music editing for Anik (1989), and a Genie for Best Original Score for Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001). He worked as a music and sound editor at the National Film Board of Canada between 1990-95 and is a founding member of the Canadian Celtic group Barde. He has toured extensively with Barde, Ballet Ys of Toronto, and Teresa Doyle et al. and has recorded with a variety of musicians including Stan Rogers, Barde, St. Lawrence Choir, and Choeur de l'OSM. Crilly is currently the Director of the O'Carolan Chamber Orchestra.
Education
- BA (Communication Arts) University of Montreal
Areas of expertise
Music and sound for film and television
Books
2020, American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder, Duke University Press, pp 388 Outstanding Academic Title (Film Studies) Choice.
2016, The Arclight Guidebook to Media History and the Digital Humanities, edited with Eric Hoyt, REFRAME (in association with Project Arclight), pp. 403.
2012, Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence, Duke University Press, pp. 328.
2011, Useful Cinema, edited with Haidee Wasson, Duke University Press, pp. 386. Awarded Honorable Mention as the 2013 SCMS Best Edited Book and finalist for the 2012 Kraszna-Krausz Best Moving Image Book Award.
2007, Residual Media, an edited collection, University of Minnesota Press, pp. 416.
2003, Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture, Duke U. Press, pp 337. Winner of the 2004 Robinson Book Prize for Best Book by a Canadian Communication Scholar and Honorable Mention by Screening the Past as one of the most influential works of media scholarship in the last ten years, 2007.
1999, Harold Innis in the New Century: Reflections and Refractions, edited with William Buxton, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s U. Press, pp. 435.
1995, Youth, Murder, Spectacle: The Cultural Politics of “Youth in Crisis,” Boulder, CO.: Westview Press, pp. 176.
Refereed journal articles, since 2001
2022 “Crawley Films and Canada’s AudiovisualInfrastructure of Resource Extraction,” Canadian Journal of Film Studies,31.2, 5-25.
2022 “Hollywood’s Cultureof Scientific and Technical Achievement,” Velvet Light Trap, 89, Spring,56-72.
2021 “The Dead-end ofAd-hocracy,” Cultural Studies, 35.2 and 3, Special issue “The CulturalPolitics of COVID-19,” 475-488.
2017 "American A.V. Edgar Dale and the Information Age Classroom,” Technology and Culture, 58.2, April, 392-421.
2014 “Never Too Cool for School,” Journal of Visual Culture, 13.1, Special issue "Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media at 50," 1-4.
2014 "Dirt Research forMedia Industries,” Media Industries,1.1, 1-5.
2013 “New ConformismRedux,” Communication andCritical/Cultural Studies, 10.2, 1-5.
2013, “Senses of Success and the Rise of the Blockbuster,” Film History, 25.1/2, 11-18.
2012, “The Crack in the Electric Screen,” Cinema Journal, 51.2, 167-171.
2009, “Curtains, Carts and the Mobile Screen,” Screen, 50.1, 148-166. Winner of the 2010 Kovacs Prize for Best Essay, from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.
2006, “Harold Innis, Cultural Policy, and Residual Media,” International Journal of Cultural Policy, 12.2: 171-185.
2004, “Moore Than This: Fahrenheit 9/11, Screen Numbers, and Political Community,” Environmental Planning D: Society and Space, 22: 901-906.
2003, “Haunted Places: Montreal’s Rue Ste. Catherine and its Cinema Spaces,” Screen, 44.2.
2001, “Patterns of Cultural Authority: The National Film Society of Canada and the Institutionalization of Film Education, 1938-41,” Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 10.1: pp. 2-27.
Book chapters, selected and since 2008
2018 “An Empire of Pixels: Canadian Cultural Enterprise in the Digital Effects Industry,” in Cultural Crossings, ed. Gillian Roberts, Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 143-170.
2015 “Consumer Electronicsand the Building of an Entertainment Infrastructure,” in Signal Traffic, eds. Lisa Parks and Nicole Starosielski, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 246-278. Signal Traffic won the SCMS Best Edited Book Award, 2016.
2013, “The End of James Cameron’s Quiet Years,” in Media Studies Futures, ed. Kelly Gates, London, Blackwell Press, pp. 269-295.
2011, “Celluloid Classrooms: Post-WWII Consolidation of Community Film Activism,” in Learning with the Lights Off: Educational Film in the United States, eds. Dan Streible, Marsha Ogeron, and Devin Ogeron, Oxford UP, 377-396. Learning with the Lights Off won the SCMS Best Edited Book Award, 2012.
2011, “Hollywood’s Educators: Mark May and Teaching Film Custodians,” in Useful Cinema, eds. Charles R. Acland and Haidee Wasson, Duke UP, 59-80.
2011, “Utility and Cinema,” co-authored with Haidee Wasson, in Useful Cinema, eds. C. Acland and H. Wasson, Duke UP, 1-14.
2009, “Screen Technology, Mobilization, and Adult Education in the 1950,” in Patronizing the Public: American Philanthropy’s Transformation of Culture, Communication, and the Humanities, ed. William J. Buxton, Lanham, Maryland: Rowan and Littlefield/Lexington Books, 261-279.
2008, “Classrooms, Clubs, and Community Circuits: Reconstructing Cultural Authority and The Film Council Movement, 1946-1957,” in Inventing Film Studies, edited by Lee Grieveson and Haidee Wasson, Durham: Duke University Press, 149-181.
2008, “Theatrical Exhibition: Accelerated Cinema,” in The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry, eds. Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko, London: Blackwell Press, 83-105.
Non-refereed articles, selected and since 2009
2011, “Avatar as Technological Tentpole,” FlowTV, 13.14, “Flow Favorites Special Issue,” www.flowtv.org. Reprint from issue 11.05.
2011, “You Haven’t Seen Avatar Yet,” FlowTV, 13.08, www.flowtv.org.
2010, “Everybody Knows,” FlowTV, 13.03, www.flowtv.org.
2010, “Marshall’s Children,” FlowTV, 11.08, www.flowtv.org.
2009, “The Last Days of Videotape,” FlowTV, 11.02, www.flowtv.org.
Consultancy report
2012, “From International Blockbusters to National Hits: Analysis of the 2010 UIS Survey of Feature Films,” UNESCO Institute of Statistics, Montreal, pp. 24. Also translated as “Des superproduction internationales aux succès nationaux : analyse de l’enquête 2010 sur les statistiques des films de long métrage.”
Scholarly Dossier
2017 “Canada,” with Ira Wagman, Global Internet Television Consortium, https://global-internet-tv.com/netflix-country-reports/canada/, 13 manuscript pages. Updated 2019
Web Resources
2014 Project Arclight, an on-line hub for media history and digital humanities, featuring the Arclight Analytic app, www.projectarchlight.org, with Dr. Eric Hoyt (UW-Madison)
2010 Canadian Educational Sponsored and Industrial Film Project, an on-line resource including a 5000-entry filmography of films from private Canadian producers, www.screenculture.org/cesif, with Louis Pelletier.
Books
2020, American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder, Duke University Press, pp 388 Outstanding Academic Title (Film Studies) Choice.
2016, The Arclight Guidebook to Media History and the Digital Humanities, edited with Eric Hoyt, REFRAME (in association with Project Arclight), pp. 403.
2012, Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence, Duke University Press, pp. 328.
2011, Useful Cinema, edited with Haidee Wasson, Duke University Press, pp. 386. Awarded Honorable Mention as the 2013 SCMS Best Edited Book and finalist for the 2012 Kraszna-Krausz Best Moving Image Book Award.
2007, Residual Media, an edited collection, University of Minnesota Press, pp. 416.
2003, Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture, Duke U. Press, pp 337. Winner of the 2004 Robinson Book Prize for Best Book by a Canadian Communication Scholar and Honorable Mention by Screening the Past as one of the most influential works of media scholarship in the last ten years, 2007.
1999, Harold Innis in the New Century: Reflections and Refractions, edited with William Buxton, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s U. Press, pp. 435.
1995, Youth, Murder, Spectacle: The Cultural Politics of “Youth in Crisis,” Boulder, CO.: Westview Press, pp. 176.
Refereed journal articles, since 2001
2022 “Crawley Films and Canada’s AudiovisualInfrastructure of Resource Extraction,” Canadian Journal of Film Studies,31.2, 5-25.
2022 “Hollywood’s Cultureof Scientific and Technical Achievement,” Velvet Light Trap, 89, Spring,56-72.
2021 “The Dead-end ofAd-hocracy,” Cultural Studies, 35.2 and 3, Special issue “The CulturalPolitics of COVID-19,” 475-488.
2017 "American A.V. Edgar Dale and the Information Age Classroom,” Technology and Culture, 58.2, April, 392-421.
2014 “Never Too Cool for School,” Journal of Visual Culture, 13.1, Special issue "Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media at 50," 1-4.
2014 "Dirt Research forMedia Industries,” Media Industries,1.1, 1-5.
2013 “New ConformismRedux,” Communication andCritical/Cultural Studies, 10.2, 1-5.
2013, “Senses of Success and the Rise of the Blockbuster,” Film History, 25.1/2, 11-18.
2012, “The Crack in the Electric Screen,” Cinema Journal, 51.2, 167-171.
2009, “Curtains, Carts and the Mobile Screen,” Screen, 50.1, 148-166. Winner of the 2010 Kovacs Prize for Best Essay, from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.
2006, “Harold Innis, Cultural Policy, and Residual Media,” International Journal of Cultural Policy, 12.2: 171-185.
2004, “Moore Than This: Fahrenheit 9/11, Screen Numbers, and Political Community,” Environmental Planning D: Society and Space, 22: 901-906.
2003, “Haunted Places: Montreal’s Rue Ste. Catherine and its Cinema Spaces,” Screen, 44.2.
2001, “Patterns of Cultural Authority: The National Film Society of Canada and the Institutionalization of Film Education, 1938-41,” Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 10.1: pp. 2-27.
Book chapters, selected and since 2008
2018 “An Empire of Pixels: Canadian Cultural Enterprise in the Digital Effects Industry,” in Cultural Crossings, ed. Gillian Roberts, Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 143-170.
2015 “Consumer Electronicsand the Building of an Entertainment Infrastructure,” in Signal Traffic, eds. Lisa Parks and Nicole Starosielski, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 246-278. Signal Traffic won the SCMS Best Edited Book Award, 2016.
2013, “The End of James Cameron’s Quiet Years,” in Media Studies Futures, ed. Kelly Gates, London, Blackwell Press, pp. 269-295.
2011, “Celluloid Classrooms: Post-WWII Consolidation of Community Film Activism,” in Learning with the Lights Off: Educational Film in the United States, eds. Dan Streible, Marsha Ogeron, and Devin Ogeron, Oxford UP, 377-396. Learning with the Lights Off won the SCMS Best Edited Book Award, 2012.
2011, “Hollywood’s Educators: Mark May and Teaching Film Custodians,” in Useful Cinema, eds. Charles R. Acland and Haidee Wasson, Duke UP, 59-80.
2011, “Utility and Cinema,” co-authored with Haidee Wasson, in Useful Cinema, eds. C. Acland and H. Wasson, Duke UP, 1-14.
2009, “Screen Technology, Mobilization, and Adult Education in the 1950,” in Patronizing the Public: American Philanthropy’s Transformation of Culture, Communication, and the Humanities, ed. William J. Buxton, Lanham, Maryland: Rowan and Littlefield/Lexington Books, 261-279.
2008, “Classrooms, Clubs, and Community Circuits: Reconstructing Cultural Authority and The Film Council Movement, 1946-1957,” in Inventing Film Studies, edited by Lee Grieveson and Haidee Wasson, Durham: Duke University Press, 149-181.
2008, “Theatrical Exhibition: Accelerated Cinema,” in The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry, eds. Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko, London: Blackwell Press, 83-105.
Non-refereed articles, selected and since 2009
2011, “Avatar as Technological Tentpole,” FlowTV, 13.14, “Flow Favorites Special Issue,” www.flowtv.org. Reprint from issue 11.05.
2011, “You Haven’t Seen Avatar Yet,” FlowTV, 13.08, www.flowtv.org.
2010, “Everybody Knows,” FlowTV, 13.03, www.flowtv.org.
2010, “Marshall’s Children,” FlowTV, 11.08, www.flowtv.org.
2009, “The Last Days of Videotape,” FlowTV, 11.02, www.flowtv.org.
Consultancy report
2012, “From International Blockbusters to National Hits: Analysis of the 2010 UIS Survey of Feature Films,” UNESCO Institute of Statistics, Montreal, pp. 24. Also translated as “Des superproduction internationales aux succès nationaux : analyse de l’enquête 2010 sur les statistiques des films de long métrage.”
Scholarly Dossier
2017 “Canada,” with Ira Wagman, Global Internet Television Consortium, https://global-internet-tv.com/netflix-country-reports/canada/, 13 manuscript pages. Updated 2019
Web Resources
2014 Project Arclight, an on-line hub for media history and digital humanities, featuring the Arclight Analytic app, www.projectarchlight.org, with Dr. Eric Hoyt (UW-Madison)
2010 Canadian Educational Sponsored and Industrial Film Project, an on-line resource including a 5000-entry filmography of films from private Canadian producers, www.screenculture.org/cesif, with Louis Pelletier.
