He is particularly interested in silent cinema history, and is the author of Legitimate Cinema: Theatre Stars in Silent British Film, 1908-1918 (2003) and a range of articles and essays on different aspects of silent film culture in Britain. His new book The Edwardian Cinema Boom, 1906-1914, co-authored with Richard Brown, will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016. For the Projection Project Jon will co-ordinate the historical strand of the research, which aims to investigate the development of the projectionists' profession from the 1890s onwards and throughout the 20th century. This archival research phase will begin in earnest in 2015/16. He is responsible for liaising with key associations related to the project (members of which are on the advisory board), and he will co-supervise the PhD research.