From Titanic to Game of Thrones : Promoting Belfast as a Global Media Capital

Screen industry and spatial value

Time Warner–owned HBO’s GoT is shot in various locations in Northern Ireland along with Spain, Iceland, and Croatia, but the symbolic iron throne and an important part of production facilities remain in Belfast. James Cameron’s Titanic, one of the highest budgeted productions to this date, was neither produced in nor represents Belfast. Cameron’s only Belfast connection was his promotion of Titanic’s 3D version at the opening of Titanic Belfast, the maritime heritage museum inaugurated in the hundredth anniversary of the ship’s maiden voyage. Ever since, the museum holds film-related events and promotions.

Belfast does not lack, however, screen productions that represent the city. The Fall is a BBC serial killer series takes place in Belfast and often shows its dark streets in which the lead character roams from inside cars. Charlotte Brunsdon (2018) states that the series associates the city with violence, not only with local but but also with global kind, ‘Belfast appears on the television screen in a way that is fresh for Belfast but generically familiar for the television city: a place where women get murdered’ (p. 14). Brunsdon (2018) argues that ‘television has been central to the apprehension of cities and how they are inhabited’, focusing mainly on TV representation of urban contexts (p. 23). Scholarly research into film, television, and the city often explore the way, for instance, The Wire unfolds ‘systemic analysis of Baltimore’ (Kinder, 2008: 50) or how Sex and the City presents a ‘glorious’ image of New York (Sadler and Haskins, 2005: 207–210). James Hay (2001) criticizes studies that focus entirely on ‘seeing/reading the city in films rather than of locating cinema and the city’, underlining the need for more research on the city as a site of screen production (p. 75).

Media production scholarship shows increasing interest in the image’s complex relationship with the city that needs to take into account the multiple ways in which the city draws value from screen economy. Vicki Mayer (2017) shows that both screen production and representation ‘transform the urban landscape while also mediating a sense of place’ (p. 13). Myles McNutt (2015) similarly explores TV-generated ‘spatial capital’ that consists of (debatable) financial profits from TV production and symbolic value of textual representation. ⁴ Spatial capital is ‘activated, negotiated, and in some instances created within industrial structures that can and often do constrain the complexity of place-identity resulting from that process’ (McNutt, 2015: 8). For McNutt, identity of a production location is often ‘constrained’ by being represented as another city. A city appearing as other cities on screen, as Serra Tinic (2005) explains, also promotes globalism of the film location, it ‘can be made look like anywhere in the world’ (p. 32).

This article aims to explore the way that ‘spatial capital’ is extracted beyond textual representation. It explores the symbolic value attached to screen production and exhibition activity, a larger discourse that goes beyond the benefits of tourism or other financial or cultural benefits received from representation. The article looks beyond more frequently explored North American screen production and representation contexts, expanding further into how screen economy may ‘constrain the complexity of place-identity’ (McNutt, 2015: 8) and history. While cities are increasingly valued as images to attract tourists and investors, image production and exhibition activities not only are used to promote a brand image but also erase troubled histories and create new stories of value for cities. This value or a new global visibility may be generated through association with screen industries as much as through images of locations. Neither Titanic nor GoT show or take place in Belfast, but they add a ‘creative’ value to its image as a global media capital.

Belfast: from the city of Troubles to global media capital

Saskia Sassen (2002) describes a global city as one with replaced manufacturing industries and upgraded downtown areas and as part of a global economic network that goes beyond national territories. Extending Sassen’s description to culture industries, Michael Curtin (2003: 222) describes global media capital as a screen media production space with ‘complex interactions among a range of flows (economic, demographic, technological, cultural and ideological) that operate at a variety of levels (local, national, regional and global)’. With its manufacturing industries long in decline, renovated downtown areas, and the production of HBO’s GoT, Belfast has become a global media capital.

Figures reveal the extent of deindustrialization in Northern Ireland: In 1951, 36% of the total population was employed in manufacturing industries (50% of the population in Belfast; Thomas, 1956: 175), while this number was 10.71% in 2009 (Murphy, 2012: 1). Researchers have documented a historically segregated working-class formation between Catholics and Protestants who had differential access to jobs and recognized such divided working-class culture as a major trigger of the civil conflict (Aunger, 1975; Smith and Chambers, 1991). Violence along with the legacies of trauma and economic deprivation (Tomlinson, 2016) are often associated with working-class communities in Northern Ireland. Anthropologist Allen Feldman (1991) explains, ‘political warfare in the urban sectors of Northern Ireland can be depicted as a Gramscian war of positions between fractions of the “Catholic” and “Protestant” working class and between these fractions and the state’, instigated by deindustrialization and ‘political reclamation of the wasteland of industrial culture’ (p. 5).

After the Good Friday agreement (1998), Northern Ireland has declared that it is now ‘open for business’ (Capener, 2017) with its new business quarters in the regenerated downtown area and with ‘an almost religious belief in the conflict-solving powers of neo-liberalism’ (Hillyard et al., 2005: 47). Beyond their ongoing political disagreements, the Unionist and Republican parties in the government, both embrace the ‘neoliberal peace model’ (McFall, 2018) and the idea ‘that an unfettered free market could deliver sustainable peace’ (Nagle, 2009: 188). Indeed, Belfast draws foreign investment, yet the wealth gap increased and the city suffers high levels of unemployment (Capener, 2017). 2018 National Statistics show Northern Ireland as having the lowest employment rate (69.5%) and highest economic inactivity rate (27.9%) in the United Kingdom (Office for National Statistics, 2018). A survey conducted in 2012 shows that the legacy of the conflict continues through high rates of deprivation and poor physical and mental health, and suicide rates that have doubled since 1998 (Tomlinson, 2016). The promise of ‘neoliberal therapy’ produced neutral gentrified areas in some parts of downtown Belfast (Grounds and Murtagh, 2015), while in the rest of the city, segregation has intensified, currently more ‘peace-walls’ separate communities than before the Good Friday agreement, and there is an ongoing need for social housing (Nagle, 2009).

Belfast Right to the City Alliance objects Belfast’s City Council’s ‘pro-developer agenda’ (PPR Project, 2017) demanding that commercial development sites in south and north of Belfast are used for much needed social housing (Young, 2017). A recent protest was organized during 2017 MIPIM convention. The global real estate convention MIPIM takes place every year in Palais de Festivals in Cannes, a location generally associated with the international film festival, a fitting coincidence considering the growing link between image economy and urban restructuring. In 2017, to draw potential investors, the iron throne of GoT was taken to MIPIM. Alan, a senior male urban development agency officer in his 40s, described the MIPIM show in the following words:

you have hundreds of councils and local organizations from across Europe. So to do events you really have to do something eye-catching. GoT is a global brand. Everybody knows what it is. Particularly the demographic that tend to go to Cannes, the age group, mostly male participants … so really it was a marketing tool to promote Belfast.

Exploring similar entrepreneurial branding strategies in Berlin, a city that promotes of itself as a global media, arts, culture, and design center, Janet Ward (2004) points out how this discourse may hide financial bankruptcy and high levels of unemployment. Ward (2004) explains that ‘The aspirations of city-builders certainly mine the representational pull of a border-free economy … [to enhance] the status and visibility of the urban setting’ (p. 243). Similar to the concerns of post–Cold War united Berlin, Belfast strives to be a ‘border-free’ global city that managed to go beyond a history of local conflict and segregation. Along these lines, Vicki Mayer (2017) explains about post-Katrina New Orleans:

… the city had embraced the film economy as a central strategy in its recovery–transformation. For residents struggling for ways to navigate and narrate the ‘new’ normal of life … few media texts [such as Tremé in New Orleans] … personally hailed those who felt fatigue and loss to ‘Wrap your troubles in dreams, and dream your troubles away’. (p. 71)

The idea of ‘dreaming your troubles away’ applies for GoT and Titanic economy in post-Troubles Belfast as well. Screen industries have taken the role of giving Belfast a new image: a vibrant creative city that left the years of civil strife along with its social and economic weight behind. Urban development agency officer Alan declared, ‘We’ve got a different narrative now, and certainly TV and film production is part of that different narrative, tourism is part of that different narrative’. Often tourism and screen production are considered to go hand in hand in rewriting an appealing ‘narrative’ of the city.

Titanic: from shipping to screen industries

Opened in 2012, with the intent of attracting tourism and investment to the city’s harbor and main regeneration zone, Titanic Belfast showcases shipbuilding industry during the period when Titanic was built and when the city had the largest shipyard in the world. Urban development agency officer Alan explains that James Cameron’s film Titanic was central to the idea of building the maritime museum:

Everyone knew about Titanic … but it was really the movie that … elevated that to another level and made the Titanic brand a much much bigger thing. And probably without that movie I don’t think that Titanic Belfast would have been built. The movie made it so big in the public consciousness that whenever the 100th anniversary was coming up, it was like we have to do something to commemorate the 100th anniversary and that’s why Titanic Belfast was built …. James Cameron was at the opening …

William Neill (2006) also notes that James Cameron’s film is part of the reason why the brand is used in Belfast as the film proved that ‘tragedy is good for business’ (p. 114). Titanic is at the center of city investment promotion narratives as its name is used all over the city’s dock area, Titanic quarter which includes Titanic Belfast, Titanic Studios, and luxury residences. Cameron’s film became part of Belfast’s new ‘narrative’ especially, thanks to the museum. Occasionally, Titanic Belfast (2017) offers Titanic-themed promotions such as ‘Jack & Rose go free!’ event when the museum provides free tickets for visitors named Jack and Rose. As will be explained further, the film is ingrained more fundamentally to the museum’s trajectory of maritime heritage and history of Belfast.

Fake-rusty walls inside the museum give a degraded industrial feel. As the visitors take a tour in the museum, they first learn about the history of shipping industry: a proud narrative of industrial achievement is placed side by side with the grueling working conditions in the shipyards, creating the eventual narrative: the harsh working conditions as the necessary ills for a booming industry. After this narrative on hard labor of workers and the booming shipping industry comes a hall devoted to the launch of Titanic. This museum hall is one of the rare exhibition halls with a large window from where the visitors have the clearest view of the Titanic Studios where GoT is shot. According to a local tourist guide, many visitors go up to this hall to take pictures of the studios that are closed to public. Hence, the launching of Titanic in the museum hall is experienced in parallel with the view of Titanic Studios in the distance, which gives the sense of economic continuity between then booming shipping industry and now burgeoning screen industries. Similarly, outside the museum, one of the best locations where Titanic Studios can be seen is through the rusty Titanic sign, in front of which visitors entering the museum traditionally take pictures, images that further the connection between the shipping heritage signified by the museum on the left and screen industries represented by the studios in the distance (Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

Titanic Belfast in the foreground on the left and Titanic Studios in the background in the middle, seen through the Titanic sign, 2017.

On the way to the museum, there are rusty looking sculptures of anonymous workers among which is a familiar figure, Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp (Figure 2), a choice that furthers the suggested link between industrial and screen media workers. Behind the sculptures stand the newly built luxury residences with harbor view.

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Figure 2.

Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp on the right among the sculptures of anonymous workers on the way to Titanic Belfast.

Inside the museum, once the visitors are provided with details about Titanic’s maiden voyage, they arrive into ‘Myths and Reality’ hall which contains information on films about Titanic, the centerpiece being Cameron’s film. The museum visit ends with images of Titanic’s wreck and an ocean exploration center. In the museum, there is no information on the fate of Belfast’s shipbuilding industry after 1912, which gives the impression that the maritime history of the city perished along with Titanic. ‘Myth and Reality’ hall enables a smooth transition between the glorious history of industrial Belfast and its creative history today. Neill (2006) describes the legacy of Titanic used in the museum in following words:

The citizens of Belfast can see an appropriation of their shipbuilding heritage appropriately scrubbed and sanitized … In a condescending fashion, a counterfeit representation of Belfast, portraying a shipyard with a united urban workforce led by visionary captains of industry both with an accepting ‘tolerance for mixed values’, is sold back to its inhabitants in the interest of profit. (p. 115)

McFall (2018) points out that Titanic Belfast overlooks a history of social inequality, exploitation, and sectarian violence since the period it glorifies, the years of Titanic’s building and launching, was also years of high segregation in the industry marked with mass expulsions of Catholic workers. Titanic brand created partly thanks to Cameron’s film, serves as a mythical historical background that bridges the assumed height of Belfast’s industrial power to its current creative boom erasing the Troubles in between. HBO’s high-profile fantasy TV production, however, gives an a-historical image to this politically charged region as the land of creative opportunities that moved smoothly from heavy industry to the ‘throne’ of screen industry.

Screen industries: contested economic value

Chris Gilligan (2017) explains, ‘Northern Ireland is a violent place. In the twelve-month period from 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) recorded 1,344 “incidents with a [sectarian] hate motivation”’ (p. 7).

One of such violent incidents in 2012 was the severe beating of a young Catholic teenager who was working as an extra in a film that was being shot in a Protestant neighborhood called the Village. Unionist thugs first visited the local community center where the film was being shot to warn the crew that they could not bring people in the area without their permission and soon attacked an extra beating him until they thought he was dead. Segregation of working-class neighborhoods and remnants of ethnic conflict are provided as the explanation of this violence, while marginally one news source mentions that the community in the neighborhood may also be frustrated by the lack of financial gain and job opportunities that filmmaking activity generates (Jamison, 2012). When asked, however, about Belfast resident’s reactions to screen productions in the city, Linda, a senior female creative industries development agency officer in her 50s, explained that the locals are often excited about them: ‘Northern Irish people tend to be “oh I wouldn’t be doing that” type of people. But when it comes to film and TV, it’s just like, “can I be a part of that?”’.

The reasoning for this excitement about the screen industry is often explained through economic gains reflected in financial calculations. NIS (2012: 7) estimates a contribution of £293,749,000 to the regional economy between 2010 and 2014 and of £250,750,000 between 2014 and 2018. These profits justify the opening a new large-scale studio, Belfast Harbour Studios, in which yet another high-end US TV production is lined up for production.

Vicki Mayer (2017) explains that decoding such value reports that claim huge economic gains from screen production is difficult but significant. A major part of the economic value included in the total amount is hotels and services that are often owned by non-local companies or payroll for crew coming from outside the city. Another element that complicates the calculations according to Mayer (2017) is that jobs created in screen production are often short-term contracts, which renders this economy unsustainable. Mayer and Goldman (2010) show how screen industry in Louisiana is unable to generate jobs, education, local film production, and any financial gain for the state budget. Studies in several other US states have shown that the cost of film incentives given to producers far outweigh the benefits. In Massachusetts, between 2006 and 2011, the state received only 13 cents for every dollar of film tax credit spent, while North Carolina reduced film incentives after a report that found US$30 million of tax incentives led to the creation of only a limited number of new jobs (55–70) in 2011 (Verrier, 2014).

TV productions such as GoT are longer term investments compared with film productions, yet so far there is no published scholarly work on the financial benefits of TV as opposed to film or of screen economy in Northern Ireland. NIS’s value reports only provide total amounts spent on goods and services in Northern Ireland. Even though NIS (2017) states that the main economic value is generated through ‘creating job opportunities across the full range of the screen industries … and … ensuring that opportunities in the screen industries are open to the widest possible range of people’, employment figures are not listed in their reports (p. 2). Ramsey (2017) has pointed out that an NIS report (NIS, 2016: 33) shows that 3,900 extras employed through Extras NI on all listed productions equated to only 80 full-time equivalent jobs in 2015; based on the apparent calculation used here, the 13,717 man-days for extras generated on GoT Season 6 equated to just more than 50 full-time equivalent jobs. When the author asked about GoT’s economic contribution to the region, Ronald, a senior male creative industries development agency officer in his 50s, explains,

When someone like HBO comes in … they say alright we’ll use local carpenters, electricians, and actors and extras, which is all good, but they are not using the production companies, the visual effects companies, the music companies, and those are the really high value opportunities … When you try to break it down to what’s best for NI, it’s really quite tricky because NIS looks at a return of 250 million over a three year period, but that is not necessarily just on film production. So while they give X amount to GOT to come in that every pound they spend creates another 4 pounds but that could be in bed nights or it could be on restaurants so it’s not necessarily the product or the property that’s been leveraged here.

Ronald emphasizes that screen economy in Northern Ireland uses the already available resources rather than generating new economic and social opportunities and stimulating the growth of new (creative) businesses.

Careers in GoT: creative and working class

Nagle (2017: 176) underlines that New Labour in the UK emphasizes equal opportunity in the labor market rather than equal outcome, redistribution of job opportunities, or benefits. When asked about their relationship with unions, Alex, a senior male creative industries development agency officer in his 50s, explains,

We are lucky that in Northern Ireland crews are not heavily unionized … We have to take the crew’s concerns into account. But the reality is … we create work opportunities. A plenty of them, so they have choice, when the crew have choice, they get better terms and conditions.

Olivia, a female casting director in her 40s, had a similar discourse about ‘opportunities’ they provide for the working-class communities surrounding her office:

I’m sure they have a very different perspective of it than we do and they probably don’t feel like there is a simple path to the industry that we are in. They probably don’t realize the amount of opportunity that’s on their doorstep because some of those communities are quite closed …

This discourse associates sectarian divisions with the working class, while the global-oriented creative middle class describe themselves as liberal and beyond ethnic and religious identity conflicts. The bureaucrats and creative professionals the author interviewed insisted, for instance, that they knew no one who voted yes for Brexit. Creative industries development agency officer Linda explained even though ‘it’s hard to put your finger on what the change is and when the change happened, the city has certainly changed and the politicians are lagging behind’, mainly because they continue a segregated discourse. Linda continues, ‘We work in the entertainment industry and everybody is very liberal … we don’t really see those divides’. As McFall (2018) succinctly describes, in Northern Ireland, segregation is coded

as a working class phenomena … the peace process is decidedly characterised as a bourgeois endeavour. Indeed, there is a sense among a lot of the city’s middle class that they stand above the sectarian machinations of local politicians and ignorant, reviled lower orders who continue to support them.

Casey, another female casting director in her 30s, when asked about the challenges of her job, described how hard it is to find reliable extras, at the same time, revealing the conditions of work for extras:

The novelty wears off when they see what the industry is like. They see that it’s a lot of sitting around and waiting in not very glamorous locations. And being cold and hungry or wet and hungry or hot and hungry. So for some people one day is enough and they satisfy their curiosity and they don’t do it again.

Aidan, a male freelance art director in his late 20s, states that for screen workers being an extra in a production like GoT is considered as a way to get their feet through the door. Aidan was trained in London, and it was a finally unrealized possibility of working in GoT that convinced him to move back to Belfast. While jobs in screen production may be ‘aspirational’ (Mayer, 2017: 105), another interviewee, William, a 50 year old male freelance producer and union activist (who did not work in GoT but knows of people who do) explains that the working conditions in the series are not attractive for long-term employment:

However wonderful that scene was, I lit the fire, or did the sound, yea but it’s a job. A lot of people have been working for GoT. A lot of people have been swallowed and spat out! It’s hard work and it’s not very well pay. They rely on the star struck attitude.

For Belfast residents job opportunities created by the show seems to be mainly below-the-line work, such as location services or traditional craftsmanship. Creative industries development agency officer Ronald explains that GoT does not bring ‘high value opportunities’ which he described as work for creative professionals such as visual effects companies but that they offer jobs for electricians, carpenters and extras. Such hierarchizing of TV production work is common, as Vicki Mayer describes in Below the Line. Mayer (2011) points out that the notion of creative labor is ‘idealized constructions of the television producer as an embodied creative professional’ and explains how creativity is imagined as one detached from industrial or manufacturing labor (p. 3). Ronald’s conception of creative work is indeed such professionalism. In the discourse of NIS, however, such below the line work is put on display and praised as local industrial heritage that has been turned into creative use.

A significant number of pages in NIS reports on the economic and social value of screen production in Northern Ireland are dedicated to stories of below the line manufacturing labor in GoT. The reports include stories of success and dedication by below the line workers such as scenic painters, wardrobe supervisors, transportation captains, electricians, or assistant location’s managers. Especially, the second strategy report (between 2014 and 2018) focuses on the work of construction and armory departments. The choice of these particular departments for focus is not a coincidence as their work parallels traditional craftsmanship in Northern Ireland: wood shaping and metalwork being central to shipbuilding industry. The long descriptions of these works make open or implied illusions to the local industrial heritage. The work of Construction Department of GOT is described as such,

… wood is measured and cut and sawed and chiselled and glued and nailed; there are butt joints and halving, mortice and tenon, dovetail and box and huge wooden frames for sets which will eventually become the Red Keep and Cersei’s bedchamber and Dragonstone, and one of the most beautiful ships to be built in Belfast for a very long time, all constructed here in a matter of weeks (NIS, 2016: 12).

When the work of armory department is explained, the language used recalls the way shipping industry is described in the Titanic Belfast, through the deafening noise of hammers: ‘The workshop buzzes, literally with the sound of drills and machinery, but also as the start of shooting draws nearer, the activity ramps up’ (NIS, 2016: 29). The discourse on work accomplished by GoT crew emphasizes industrial efficiency as former industrial heritage that smoothly leads into the current creative work.

Alex, creative industries development agency officer, states his optimism about the economic value of screen industry with the following words: ‘The thing is, we make stuff … The film, the crew, the creative industries … amazing. We’re the manufacturing industry of the 21st century’. Alex recounted how HBO was drawn into filming in Northern Ireland before the tax credit included high-end TV productions. The story of drawing HBO was one of turning Titanic Studios, defined as a post-industrial garbage space, into a creative haven:

It was an industrial space … built in the 1970s to paint supertankers … stopped being used in late 1980s early 1990s … There was a glass recycling factory in one of the cells … and then the other three cells had … about two meters of animal feed … It took a fleet of lorries a week to empty the cells. It was just full of, frankly, crap.

Alex’s narrative was that of hard labor of transferring a disaffected area full of ‘crap’ into an attractive location fit for image production.

In 2010, Northern Ireland’s First Minister Peter Robinson stated, ‘The transformation of the Paint Hall from the last remnant of our once great ship-building tradition to the largest stage in Europe is an example of our flexibility and our commitment to innovation’ (in Ramsey, 2013: 170–171). This discourse, Phil Ramsey notes, is in line with that of the firm (Harcourt Developments) that invested in the regeneration of this area: ‘Where once they grew ships, we’re now going to grow a community – one of the finest residential, working, educational and office communities’ (in Ramsey, 2013: 171). This awkwardly phrased claim that turns the labor of making ships into that of growing agricultural produce suggests that ship building industry and post-industrial office spaces, film studios, and museum area in Belfast can be interchangeable in terms of the employment opportunities they offer. Ramsey (2013) states that this is a misleading claim, ‘east Belfast has never managed to replace the jobs that were lost with the mass decline in ship building’ (p. 171). Indeed, the statistics prove that Ramsey is right. In 1915, one quarter of the male labor force was employed in shipbuilding industry in Ulster (Mulholland, 2002: 16). According to Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) statistics, among all the UK regions, Northern Ireland consistently has the lowest percentage of DCMS sector jobs: in 2016 and in 2014, respectively 1.6% and 1.5% of all jobs in Northern Ireland were civil society, cultural sector, creative industries, digital sector, gambling, and sports jobs (DCMS, 2016, 2017: 10). While it is difficult to compare these percentages with previous years – before 2014, the calculations were limited to architecture, design, crafts, film, IT, publishing, museums, and music – compared with the later years, 2013 Creative Industries report shows significantly higher percentage of creative occupations in Northern Ireland: 3.1% (DCMS, 2014: 16). William, freelance producer and union activist explains, ‘In the bigger picture, Game of Thrones doesn’t create much employment … they all got stars in their eyes thinking they’re gonna be working in GoT, even when what they do is shit’. Brain Kelly (2012) similarly explains for the Titanic quarter, ‘The Titanic project, at more than 92 m, two thirds of it public money … failed to generate a mere 25 apprenticeships, fell short of creating a pitiful 15 jobs for the city’s long-term unemployed …’ (p. 44).

Conclusion

The Queen’s visit to Titanic Studios and meeting with GoT cast is noteworthy in the history of television. This is a historical meeting of one of the earliest TV stars with a group of the latest ones. Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953 was the first live TV event watched by 27 million people in the United Kingdom (Press Secretary to the Queen, 2003) and millions internationally, after which number of TV licenses in the United Kingdom grew threefold (De Castella, 2013). Each episode of Season 7 finale of GoT was watched by an average of 23 million accounted viewers (streaming and Video on demand (VOD)) and probably millions of unaccounted ones, as this is a highly pirated show (D’Addario, 2017). This meeting of TV stars also marks the symbolic and economic value that TV production location has acquired in the 2000s. The coronation in the 1950s was the first time TV exhibited the privacy of the crown – the wedding that used to be a spectacle only for the privileged – to the millions. In the 2000s, it is the crown that enters and exhibits the privacy of the TV, the seat of power in GoT along with its stars, to the millions for whom Titanic Studios cannot be approached beyond its gates of secrecy.

Screen production and exhibition promote Belfast as a global capital that has moved beyond its history of local conflict and industrial demise. Being a global capital is associated with going beyond the industrial toward creative economies, but this goes along with a discourse that parallels the economic abundance of jobs for the working class and vibrancy and welfare that the manufacturing industry is associated with. Within the ‘creative narrative’, there are the ongoing references to the industrial, one that ignores the conditions of its historical disappearance as well as the irreplaceability of industrial value for a large group of working-class citizens. The city is associated with the increasing presence of creative professionals who, as opposed to its traditional working-class population, claim to have an open and embracing global vision. While creative professionals occasionally allude to working-class parochialism, they revere manufacturing industry, its economy, and work ethic as a proud local heritage to be appropriated.

Tim Strangleman (2013) argues that while photography on Detroit’s derelict post-industrial spaces is often framed as commercialized nostalgia, this framework avoids the ‘continuing desire to reflect back and find value in the industrial past’ (p. 23). Indeed, we need to explore further into the value of nostalgic allegories to industrial glory and links made between industrial and creative eras. As in Belfast, such nostalgic allegories may be used to justify urban regeneration projects, as well as regional and national support for screen production. Connecting GoT’s below the line labor with traditional shipping craftsmanship and praising Titanic’s making during the industrial boom enable a trajectory of history that skips the Troubles, connecting the past height of industrial Belfast with the present creative Belfast. Linking the two industries gives legitimacy to both conflicted past of shipping industry and contested present and future economic value of screen industries. As creative development agency officer, Alex states,

We’ve watched how this sector [screen industry] has … got to this place it’s at, so, it’s really great to see even the kids, just as little as ten years are talking about it just now like how probably our forefathers talked about the shipyard.