Abstract

This essay explores a series of issues which have emerged around the term ‘visualisation’ asa result of materials generated out of the international Lord of the Rings audience project.‘Visualisation’ is quite widely used as a term in film studies, but not much considered. In this essay I begin from someelements of empirical evidence, and through some unlikely encounters that these spurredwith bodies of work from outside film studies, I develop an argument for a new approach tothinking about ‘visualisation’. This approach would reach a long way and have wideimplications, not least for the ways we think about and research film audiences, and for theways we approach adaptation studies. Therefore the essay is as much a report on a journeyof ideas, and a set of proposals, asit is a claim to a demonstration