Professor Emily Caston
Emily Caston is Professor of Screen Industries and Director of the Policy and Practice Research Institute of Screen and Music at UWL (PRISM). She publishes widely on screen advertising and music video with funding from the AHRC, British Academy and Leverhulme, securing high profile public engagement work with the BBC, Sky Arts and the British Film Institute. She has published four books: Celluloid Saviours: Angels and Reform Politics in Hollywood 1933-1955 (CUP, 2010), British Music Videos 1966-2016: Genre, Authenticity and Art (EUP, 2020), The Story of British Screen Advertising (Bloomsbury, 2024) and Soho’s Hidden Screen Industries 1880-2020: An Oral History (Routledge, 2025). She sits on the board for the British Film Institute’s Screen Stories book series (Bloomsbury) and UWL’s New Vistas journal. Emily supervises PhD students in dance, advertising and music video.
A member of BAFTA, judge of the Smiley Film Charity Awards and a board member of Film London from 2008 to 2015, Emily worked in Los Angeles and London as Executive Producer for Ridley Scott Associates, Propaganda Films (part of Polygram Filmed Entertainment) and Harry Nash until 2003, producing music videos and television commercials for Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham and Dawn Shadforth with artists ranging from Madonna to The Chemical Brothers, Her work has won multiple MTV and D&AD Awards. She holds a BA (Hons) in Social and Political Sciences Double First from the University of Cambridge (1991), an MA in Cinema and Television History from Birkbeck College, London University (2000) and a PhD on religion and Hollywood film from the University of Cambridge (2003).