Dr Shane O'Sullivan
Faculties, departments and locations
- Kingston School of Art
- Department of Film and Photography
- School of Arts
Head of Department, Film and Photography
- Email:
- [email protected]
About
I am an associate professor and Head of the Department of Film and Photography at Kingston School of Art. I teach screenwriting, documentary and fiction production, and lectured in filmmaking and film distribution at Regents University and Birmingham City University before coming to Kingston in 2014.
My work as a filmmaker includes three feature documentaries exploring contemporary political history which have been broadcast worldwide: Killing Oswald, RFK Must Die and Children of the Revolution, which was released in thirty cinemas across Japan in 2014. My video essay Anatomy of a Murder - Sirhan Sirhan and Robert Kennedy was shortlisted for Best Research Film of the Year in the AHRC Research in Film Awards 2016.
Drawing on my interest in the creative reuse of the archive, I am the UK Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded Make Film History project, supported by the British Film Institute, BBC Archive, Northern Ireland Screen and the Irish Film Institute, which opens up the archives to young filmmakers across the UK and Ireland. The project won the Excellence in Unlocking the Value and Potential of Archives Award at the FIAT/IFTA Archive Achievement Awards 2021.
In 2021, I executive-produced three short films for the New Creatives scheme through a consortium led by the ICA and funded by BBC Arts and Arts Council England.
I am the author of two books: Who Killed Bobby? The Unsolved Murder of Robert F. Kennedy (2008) and Dirty Tricks: Nixon, Watergate and the CIA (2018), recently republished as The Watergate Burglars (2022). I am also a regular contributor to The Washington Post, with seven opinion pieces drawing parallels between political scandals during the Nixon and Trump presidencies. I have been interviewed about my work by the BBC, CNN, NHK, Sky History, Al Jazeera and Russia Today.
Qualifications
- Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy
- PhD in Film, University of Roehampton
- Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching, University of the Arts, London
- BA (Hons) Economics and Social Studies (2:1), Trinity College, Dublin
Domains
My teaching is focused on screenwriting, documentary and fiction production at undergraduate and postgraduate level. I am the university liaison for our partnerships with NAHEMI, albert, London Higher, the Kingston International Film Festival and the ARRI Certified Film School Accreditation Program, which offers our students an advanced camera skills qualification.
I served as an external examiner for four years at London Metropolitan University, assessing undergraduate degrees in Film and Broadcast Production, and Music Technology. I have also worked as an external consultant for the validation of Filmmaking programmes by the University of Winchester, the University of Liverpool and Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU); and moderated Cultural Technology modules for Liverpool and XJTLU.
I am a PhD supervisor and a member of the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts at Kingston. I am interested in supervising doctoral candidates with practice-based projects focused on documentary filmmaking and distribution, creative reuse of the archive or reframing political history.
Courses taught
My research includes three archive-driven feature documentaries on political history, RFK Must Die (2008), Children of the Revolution (2010) and Killing Oswald (2013); two books on political history; and published articles on film history, intelligence studies, documentary distribution and the use of moving image archive in education.
Drawing on my professional knowledge of creative reuse and licensing archival material, I devised a pilot at Kingston in 2017 to give student filmmakers access to 12 documentaries from the BFI National Archive for creative reuse on course-related projects under an educational licence. The success of the pilot led to the creation of the Archives for Education scheme and the AHRC-funded Make Film History project, which offer free access to 270 films from the BFI, BBC Archive, Northern Ireland Screen and the Irish Film Institute for creative reuse by emerging filmmakers: www.archivesforeducation.com
84 higher education institutions have signed up to the scheme, which has now expanded beyond higher education to emerging filmmakers in schools and training programmes across the UK and Ireland. I am the UK Principal Investigator on the Make Film History project, alongside Irish PI, Dr Ciara Chambers (University College Cork). An impact case study on the scheme scored 3* or above in Kingston's REF submission in 2021.
Specialisms
- Documentary filmmaking and distribution
- Creative reuse of archive material
- Political history
- Intelligence studies
Scholarly affiliations
- Learning on Screen Trustee
- National Association for Higher Education in the Moving Image (NAHEMI)
- Working Lead, Screen Heritage Group, Documentary Film Council
- Kingston University Peer Review College
Public and Civic roles
- Festival Committee, Kingston International Film Festival
Publications
Make film history: opening up the archives to emerging filmmakers
O'Sullivan, Shane, Chambers, Ciara and McAuliffe, Colm, 2023, VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture (12), 23pp 53-68, Published
This film is restricted: the training films of the British Security Service
O’Sullivan, Shane, 2018, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television (38), 2pp 275-295, Published
Meinhof, Shigenobu, Kennedy: revolution and assassination in 1968
O'Sullivan, Shane, 2017, VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture (6), 12pp 12-40, Published
Archives for education: the creative reuse of moving images in the UK
O’Sullivan, Shane, 2017, The Moving Image (17), 2pp 1-19, Published
The economy of memory: Archive-driven documentaries in the digital age
O'Sullivan, Shane, 2013, Journal of Media Practice (14), 3pp 231-248, Published
The Watergate burglars: Nixon, dirty tricks, and the CIA
O'Sullivan, Shane (2022). New York, U.S.: [Published]
A guide to the creative reuse of archive film: for young filmmakers and educators in the UK and Ireland
O'Sullivan, Shane and Chambers, Clara (2021). U.K.: [Published]
Dirty tricks: Nixon, Watergate and the CIA
O'Sullivan, Shane (2018). New York: [Published]
In jail with Sirhan Sirhan
(2016). London, U.K.: [Published]
Who killed Bobby? The unsolved murder of Robert F. Kennedy
O'Sullivan, Shane (2008). New York, U.S.A.: [Published]
Archive-inspired storytelling as a creative response to conflict
O’Sullivan, Shane (2026). In: Saloul, Ihab, Baillie, Britt, (eds.), Cham: [Published]
The rise of the feature documentary: fact or fiction?
O’Sullivan, Shane (2017). In: Wroot, Jonathan, Willis, Andy, (eds.), Cham, Switzerland:pp 135-157 [Published]
Enemy of the state: framing the political assassin
O'Sullivan, Shane (2016). In: de Valk, Mark, (eds.), London, U.K.:pp 281-317 [Published]
McCord's final PowerPoint to his family about his role in Watergate
O'Sullivan, Shane(2022). [Published]
Persona non grata: spy fiction in MI5 training films
O'Sullivan, Shane(2015). [Published]
Documentaries and the UK home video market
O'Sullivan, Shane(2015). [Published]
Enemies of the state: framing political subversives in documentary film
O'Sullivan, Shane (2013), PhD thesis [Accepted/In press]
Anatomy of a murder: Sirhan Sirhan and Robert Kennedy
O'Sullivan, Shane (2018) [Published]
Anatomy of a murder: Sirhan Sirhan and Robert Kennedy
O'Sullivan, Shane (2016) [Published]
Killing Oswald
O'Sullivan, Shane (2013) [Published]
Archives for education: opening up the archives to young filmmakers
O'Sullivan, Shane and Chambers, Ciara (2021). [Submitted]
Developing and delivering teaching excellence as course leader of BA Film
O'Sullivan, Shane (2021). [Submitted]