Book ID: CBB438938942

Engineering Hollywood : Technology, technicians, and the science of building the studio system (2021)

unapi

Luci Marzola (Author)


Oxford University Press


Publication Date: 2021
Physical Details: 255
Language: English

Engineering Hollywood tells the story of the formation of the Hollywood studio system not as the product of a genius producer, but as an industry that brought together creative practices and myriad cutting-edge technologies in ways that had never been seen before. Using extensive archival research, this book examines the role of technicians, engineers, and trade organizations in creating a stable technological infrastructure on which the studio system rested for decades. Here, the studio system is seen as a technology-dependent business with connections to the larger American industrial world. By focusing on the role played by technology, we see a new map of the studio system beyond the backlots of Los Angeles and the front offices in New York. In this study, Hollywood includes the labs of industrial manufacturers, the sales routes of independent firms, the garages of tinkerers, and the clubhouses of technicians' societies. Rather than focusing on the technical improvements in any particular motion picture tool, this book centers on the larger systems and infrastructures for dealing with technology in this creative industry. Engineering Hollywood argues that the American industry was stabilized and able to dominate the motion picture field for decades through collaboration over technologies of everyday use. Hollywood's relationship to its essential technology was fundamentally one of interdependence and cooperation-with manufacturers, trade organizations, and the competing studios. As such, Hollywood could be defined as an industry by participation in a closed system of cooperation that allowed a select group of producers and manufacturers to dominate the motion picture business for decades. (Publisher)

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Reviewed By

Review Talia Shabtay (April 2022) Review of "Engineering Hollywood : Technology, technicians, and the science of building the studio system". Technology and Culture (pp. 574-575). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB438938942/

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Authors & Contributors
Jones, Geoffrey
Morgan Spencer
Murray, Susan
Ariel Rogers
Berlin, Leslie
Hansen, Per H.
Concepts
Technological innovation
Business history
Technology and society
Technology
Motion pictures; cinema; movies
Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
19th century
Places
United States
Europe
Southern states (U.S.)
India
Great Britain
Institutions
Airbnb (Firm)
Motorola
Uber
American Telephone and Telegraph Company
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