New Books in Radio, Television and Film 2020-2021
Below is a list of books added to the collection from September 2020 to April 2021.
Books are sorted into:
General Media Books
Amazon: Understanding a Global Communication Giant by
Taking a political economy of media approach, this book examines Amazon as a significant actor in the global media landscape. Amazon is mainly conceived in the popular consciousness and media commentary as a corporate body, selling products and services to individual consumers and organisations, but Brevini and Swiatek show that Amazon has become a communication giant that trades in diversified media (its own and others), and exerts a significant influence on global communication, especially through its online services. Further, the authors provide evidence of Amazon's multiple influences on politics, economics, and culture. With its comprehensive and critical overview, this book is ideal for students, scholars, and researchers of media and communication studies and political economy.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780367816711Publication Date: 2020-11-26
A Cultural History of the Disney Fairy Tale by
This book charts the complex history of the relationship between the Disney fairy tale and the American Dream, demonstrating the ways in which the Disney fairy tale has been reconstructed and renegotiated alongside, and in response to important changes within American society. In all of its fairy tales of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Walt Disney studios works to sell its audiences the national myth of the United States at any one historical moment. With analyses of films and television programmes such as The Little Mermaid (1989), Frozen (2013), Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Once Upon a Time (2011-2018), Mollet argues that by giving its fairy tale protagonists characteristics associated with 'good' Americans, and even by situating their fairy tales within America itself, Disney constructs a vision of America as a utopian space.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9783030501488Publication Date: 2020-11-22
Documentary Across Platforms: Reverse Engineering Media, Place, and Politics by
In Documentary Across Platforms, noted scholar of film and experimental media Patricia R. Zimmermann offers a glimpse into the ever-evolving constellation of practices known as "documentary" and the way in which they investigate, engage with, and interrogate the world. Collected here for the first time are her celebrated essays and speculations about documentary, experimental, and new media published outside of traditional scholarly venues. These essays envision documentary as a complex ecology composed of different technologies, sets of practices, and specific relationships to communities, engagement, politics, and social struggles. Through the lens of reverse engineering--the concept that ideas just like objects can be disassembled to learn how they work and then rebuilt into something new and better--Zimmermann explores how numerous small-scale documentary works present strategies of intervention into existing power structures. Adaptive to their context, modular, and unfixed, the documentary practices she explores exploit both sophisticated high-end professional and consumer-grade amateur technologies, moving through different political terrains, different platforms, and different exhibition contexts. Together these essays demonstrate documentary's role as a conceptual practice to think through how the world is organized and to imagine ways that it might be reorganized with actions, communities, and ideas.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780253043467Publication Date: 2019-10-01
Entertainment Industry Economics, Tenth Edition by
Already among the most important sectors of the US economy, the entertainment and media industries are continuing to grow worldwide. Fully updated, the tenth edition of Entertainment Industry Economics is the definitive reference on the economics of film, music, television, advertising, broadcasting, cable, casinos, publishing, arts and culture, performing arts, toys and games, sports, and theme parks. Its synthesis of a vast amount of data provides an up-to-date guide to the economics, financing, accounting, production, marketing, and history of these sectors in the United States and countries across the globe. This edition offers new material on streaming services, the relationship between demographics and entertainment spending, electromagnetic spectrum for broadcasters, and revised FASB accounting rules for film and television. Financial analysts and investors, economists, industry executives, accountants, lawyers, regulators, and journalists, as well as students preparing to join these professionals will benefit from this invaluable source.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1108493084Publication Date: 2020-07-23
The Franchise Era: managing media in the digital economy by
As Hollywood shifts towards the digital era, the role of the media franchise has become more prominent. This edited collection, from a range of international scholars, argues that the franchise is now an integral element of American media culture. As such, the collection explores the production, distribution and marketing of franchises as a historical form of media-making - analysing the complex industrial practice of managing franchises across interconnected online platforms. Examining how traditional media incumbents like studios and networks have responded to the rise of new entrants from the technology sector (such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google), the authors take a critical look at the way new and old industrial logics collide in an increasingly fragmented and consolidated mediascape.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781474419222Publication Date: 2019-05-18
Gender, Media and Voice: Communicative, Injustice, and Public Speech by
This book explores the increasing imperatives to speak up, to speak out, and to 'find one's voice' in contemporary media culture. It considers how, for women in particular, this seems to constitute a radical break with the historical idealization of silence and demureness. However, the author argues that there is a growing and pernicious gap between the seductive promise of voice, and voice as it actually exists. While brutal instruments such as the ducking stool and scold's bridle are no longer in use to punish women's speech, Kay proposes that communicative injustice now operates in much more insidious ways. The wide-ranging chapters explore the mediated 'voices' of women such as Monica Lewinsky, Hannah Gadsby, Diane Abbott, and Yassmin Abdel-Magied, as well as the problems and possibilities of gossip, nagging, and the 'traumatised voice' in television talk shows. It critiques the optimistic claims about the 'unleashing' of women's voices post-#MeToo and examines the ways that women's speech continues to be trivialized and devalued. Communicative justice, the author argues, is not about empowering individuals to 'find their voice', but about collectively transforming the whole communicative terrain.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9783030472863Publication Date: 2020-07-21
Race and Media: Critical Approaches by
A foundational collection of essays that demonstrate how to study race and media From graphic footage of migrant children in cages to #BlackLivesMatter and #OscarsSoWhite, portrayals and discussions of race dominate the media landscape. Race and Media adopts a wide range of methods to make sense of specific occurrences, from the corporate portrayal of mixed-race identity by 23andMe to the cosmopolitan fetishization of Marie Kondo. As a whole, this collection demonstrates that all forms of media--from the sitcoms we stream to the Twitter feeds we follow--confirm racism and reinforce its ideological frameworks, while simultaneously giving space for new modes of resistance and understanding. In each chapter, a leading media scholar elucidates a set of foundational concepts in the study of race and media--such as the burden of representation, discourses of racialization, multiculturalism, hybridity, and the visuality of race. In doing so, they offer tools for media literacy that include rigorous analysis of texts, ideologies, institutions and structures, audiences and users, and technologies. The authors then apply these concepts to a wide range of media and the diverse communities that engage with them in order to uncover new theoretical frameworks and methodologies. From advertising and music to film festivals, video games, telenovelas, and social media, these essays engage and employ contemporary dialogues and struggles for social justice by racialized communities to push media forward. Contributors include: Mary Beltrán Meshell Sturgis Ralina L. Joseph Dolores Inés Casillas Jennifer Lynn Stoever Jason Kido Lopez Peter X Feng Jacqueline Land Mari Castañeda Jun Okada Amy Villarejo Aymar Jean Christian Sarah Florini Raven Maragh-Lloyd Sulafa Zidani Lia Wolock Meredith D. Clark Jillian M. Báez Miranda J. Brady Kishonna L. Gray Susan Noh
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1479895776Publication Date: 2020-12-15
Sports Media History: Culture, Technology, Identity by
This research collection explores the ongoing interaction between sports, media, and society throughout important periods in history, from the nineteenth century to the present day. It examines both historical moments and broader trends in sports, with an emphasis on the media's role. Encompassing a variety of research approaches and perspectives, the book looks at the individuals, mass media outlets and communication technologies that have affected societies on a global scale, including print, photography, broadcast (radio and television), Internet-based media, and public relations/marketing. It presents fascinating new case studies covering topics as diverse as sports journalism and the Third Reich, Argentina at the Mexico World Cup, post-9/11 sports reporting, Martina Navratilova and women's tennis, the growth of fantasy sport, and the significance of Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson in the history of US sports reporting. This is essential reading for any researcher, student or media professional with an interest in the relationships between sports, culture, and society or in the history of media, culture, or technology. 　
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780429287756Publication Date: 2020-10-27
Superhero Culture Wars: Politics, Marketing, and Social Justice in Marvel Comics by
The reactionary Comicsgate campaign against alleged "forced" diversity in superhero comics revealed the extent to which comics have become a key battleground in America's Culture Wars. In the first in-depth scholarly study of Marvel Comics' most recent engagement with progressive politics, Superhero Culture Wars explores how the drive towards greater diversity among its characters and creators has interacted with the company's commercial marketing and its traditional fan base. Along the way the book covers such topics as- e Major characters such as Miles Morales's Spider-man, Kamala Khan's Ms. Marvel, Jane Foster's Thor, Sam Wilson's Captain America and the Secret Empire series' turncoat Captain America e Creators such as G. Willow Wilson, Jason Aaron, Nick Spencer and Michael Bendis e Marketing, the Marvel Universe, and online fan culture Superhero Culture Wars demonstrates how the marketing of Marvel comics as politically progressive has both indelibly shaped its in-world universe and characters, and led to conflicts between its corporate interests, its creators, and it audience.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1350148636Publication Date: 2021-01-14
Radio Books
Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media by
Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media is the first comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of academic research exploring the definition, status, practices and implications of podcasting through a Media and Cultural Studies lens. By bringing together research from experienced and early career academics alongside audio and creative practitioners, the chapters in this volume span a range of approaches in a timely reaction to podcasting's zeitgeist moment. In conceptualizing the podcast, the contributors examine its liminal status between the mechanics of 'old' and 'new' media and between differing production contexts, in addition to podcasting's reliance on mainstream industrial structures whilst retaining an alternative, even outsider, sensibility. In the present tumult of online media discourse, the contributors frame podcasting as indicative of a 'new aural culture' emerging from an identifiable set of industrial, technological and cultural circumstances. The analyses in this collection offer a range of interpretations which begin to open avenues for further research into a distinct Podcast Studies.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 3319900552Publication Date: 2018-08-03
Television Books
The Business of Television by
In this book, esteemed television executive and Harvard lecturer Ken Basin offers a comprehensive overview of the business, financial, and legal structure of the U.S. television industry, as well as its dealmaking norms. Written for working or aspiring creative professionals who want to better understand the entertainment industry -- as well as for executives, agents, managers, and lawyers looking for a reference guide -- The Business of Television presents a readable, in-depth introduction to rights and talent negotiations, intellectual property, backend deals, licensing, streaming platforms, international production, and much more. The book also includes breakdowns after each chapter summarizing deal points and points of negotiation, a glossary, a list of referenced cases, and a wealth of real-world examples to help readers put the material into context.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781351254182Publication Date: 2018-07-11
A Companion to Television, Second edition by
The latest edition of the acclaimed volume on television studies, featuring new original essays from leading scholars in the field Although the digital age has radically altered the media and communications landscape worldwide, television continues to play a significant part of our lives. From its earliest beginnings through to the present day, television and its influence has been the subject of extensive study, critique, and analysis. A Companion to Television brings together contributions from prominent international scholars comprising a wide range of perspectives on the medium. Original essays define television in its current state, explore why it is still relevant, survey the ways in which television has been studied, discuss how television has changed, and consider what television might look like in the future. Now in its second edition, this compendium includes fresh chapters that cover technological changes affecting television, contemporary approaches to understanding television audiences, new programming trends and developments, and more. Addressing nine key areas of television studies, such as industry, genres, programs, and audiences, the Companion offers readers a balanced, well-rounded, integrative approach to scholarship in the field. This volume: Provides overviews of extensive original research from leading scholars and theorists Examines television's development and significance in various regions of the world Includes national and regional outlines of television around the world Features theoretical overviews of various critical approaches to television studies Explores historical, economic, institutional, political, and cultural issues studied by media scholars Presenting diverse perspectives on topics ranging from television advertising to satirical representations of the industry, A Companion to Television, Second Edition is an invaluable resource for those in undergraduate courses in television studies, as well as in general media studies and communications.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781119269441Publication Date: 2019-12-30
Difficult Women on Television Drama: The Gender Politics of Complex Women in Serial Narratives by
Difficult Women on Television Drama analyses select case studies from international TV dramas to examine the unresolved feminist issues they raise or address: equal labor force participation, the demand for sexual pleasure and freedom, opposition to sexual and domestic violence, and the need for intersectional approaches. Drawing on examples from The Killing, Orange is the New Black, Big Little Lies, Wentworth, Outlander, Westworld, Being Mary Jane, Queen Sugar, Vida, and other television dramas with a focus on complex female characters, this book illustrates how female creative control in key production roles (direct authorship) together with industrial imperatives and a conducive cultural context (indirect authorship) are necessary to produce feminist texts. Placed within the larger context of a rise in feminist activism and political participation by women; the growing embrace of a feminist identity; and the ascendance of post-feminism, this book reconsiders the unfinished nature of feminist struggle(s) and suggests the need for a broader sweep of economic change. This book is a must-read for scholars of media and communication studies; television and film studies; cultural studies; American studies; sociology of gender and sexualities; women and gender studies; and international film, media and cinema studies.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781003031598Publication Date: 2021-02-15
Masterpiece: America's 50-Year-Old Love Affair with British Television Drama by
On a wintry night in 1971, Masterpiece Theatre debuted on PBS. Fifty years later, America's appetite for British drama has never been bigger. The classic television program has brought its fans protagonists such as The Dowager Countess and Ross Poldark and series that include Downton Abbey and Prime Suspect. In Masterpiece: America's 50-Year-Old Love Affair with British Television Drama, Nancy West provides a fascinating history of the acclaimed program. West combines excerpts from original interviews, thoughtful commentary, and lush photography to deliver a deep exploration of the television drama. Vibrant stories and anecdotes about Masterpiece's most colorful shows are peppered throughout, such as why Benedict Cumberbatch hates Downton Abbey and how screenwriter Daisy Goodwin created a teenage portrait of Queen Victoria after fighting with her daughter about homework. Featuring an array of color photos from Masterpiece's best-loved dramas, this book offers a penetrating look into the program's influence on television, publishing, fashion, and its millions of fans.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781538134474Publication Date: 2020-11-27
Millennials Killed the Video Star by
Between 1995 and 2000, the number of music videos airing on MTV dropped by 36 percent. As an alternative to the twenty-four-hour video jukebox the channel had offered during its early years, MTV created an original cycle of scripted reality shows, including Laguna Beach, The Hills, The City, Catfish, and Jersey Shore, which were aimed at predominantly white youth audiences. In Millennials Killed the Video Star Amanda Ann Klein examines the historical, cultural, and industrial factors leading to MTV's shift away from music videos to reality programming in the early 2000s and 2010s. Drawing on interviews with industry workers from programs such as The Real World and Teen Mom, Klein demonstrates how MTV generated a coherent discourse on youth and identity by intentionally leveraging stereotypes about race, ethnicity, gender, and class. Klein explores how this production cycle, which showcased a variety of ways of being in the world, has played a role in identity construction in contemporary youth culture--ultimately shaping the ways in which Millennial audiences of the 2000s thought about, talked about, and embraced a variety of identities.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781478011309Publication Date: 2021-02-26
Representations of Black Womanhood on Television by
Being Mara Brock Akil: Representations of Black Womanhood on Television examines the body of work of Mara Brock Akil, the showrunner who produced Girlfriends, The Game, Being Mary Jane, and Love Is__. The contributions to this volume are theoretically anchored in Patricia Hill Collin's Black Feminist Thought, with a focus on how Brock Akil's shows intentionally address Black humanity and specifically provide context for Black women's lived experiences and empathy for Black womanhood by featuring woman-centered characters with flaws, strength, and complexity. Shauntae Brown White and Kandace L. Harris have compiled a volume that analyzes themes that define Black womanhood and examines audience reception of and social media interaction with Brock Akil's work.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 149859266XPublication Date: 2019-07-01
Sitcom Writers Talk Shop by Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781538109199Publication Date: 2018-09-01
Sit Down and Cheer: A History of Sport on TV by
Television and sport is the ultimate marriage of convenience. The two circled each other warily for a while - sport anxious the sofa-bound might spurn the live product, TV reluctant in a limited channel world to hand over too much screen time to flannelled fools and muddied oafs. But they got together, and stayed together, for the sake of the money, and now you cannot imagine one without the other. They are indivisible, like an old couple sitting in a teashop finishing each other's sentences, and there is little doubt which is the dominant partner. You have only to think of the recent sports stars who have left their muddy fields to don sequins, grab partners and tango their way across the stage in ultimate Saturday night television style, to see how far the two have come on their journey together.In Sit Down and Cheer Martin Kelner traces the development of this relationship from its humble origins in the 1960 Olympics, by way of the first-ever Match of the Day in 1964, through to the financial impact of Sky, right up to the high-tech gadgetry of our present-day viewing. Insightful and very funny, this is an entertaining exploration of two major national pastimes and not to be missed.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781408171066Publication Date: 2012-09-27
Transnational Latin American Television: Genres, Formats and Adaptations by
This book examines the process of transnationalization of Latin American television industries. Drawing upon six representative case studies spanning the subcontinent's vast and diverse geo-political and cultural landscape, the book offers a unique exploration of the ongoing formation of interrelated cultural, technological, and political landscapes, from the mid-1980s to the present. The chapters analyse the international circulation of the genres and formats of entertainment television across the subcontinent to explore the main driving forces propelling the production and consumption of television contents in the region, and what we can learn about the cultural and social identities of Latin American audiences following the journey of genres, formats, and media personalities beyond their own national borders. Taking a contemporary interdisciplinary approach to the study of transnational television industries, this book will be of significant interest to scholars and students of television and film studies, communication studies, Latin American studies, global media studies, and media and cultural industries.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781003058076Publication Date: 2020-12-28
Univision, Telemundo, and the Rise of Spanish-Language Television in the United States by
In the most comprehensive history of Spanish-language television in the United States to date, Craig Allen traces the development of two prominent yet little-studied powerhouses, Univision and Telemundo. Allen tells the inside story of how these networks fought enormous odds to rise as giants of mass communication within an English-dominated society. The book begins in San Antonio, Texas, in 1961 with the launch of the first Spanish-language station in the country. From it rose the Spanish International Network (SIN), which would later become Univision. Conceived by Mexican broadcasting mogul Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta and created by unsung American television pioneers, Unvision grew to provide a vast amount of international programming, including popular telenovelas, and was the first U.S. network delivered by satellite. After Telemundo was founded in the 1980s by Saul Steinberg and Harry Silverman, the two networks battled over audiences and saw dramatic changes in leadership. Today, Univision and Telemundo are multibillion-dollar television providers that equal ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox in scale and stature. While Univision remains a beacon of U.S. television's internationalization, Telemundo--owned by NBC--is a worldwide leader in producing Spanish-language programs. Using archival sources and original interviews to reconstruct power struggles and behind-the-scenes intrigue, Allen uses this exciting narrative to question monolingual and Anglo-centered versions of U.S. television history. He demonstrates the endurance, innovation, and popularity of Spanish-language television, arguing that its story is essential to understanding the Latinx history of contemporary America. A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781683401919Publication Date: 2020-11-16
We Now Disrupt This Broadcast: how cable transformed television and the internet revolutionized it all by
The collision of new technologies, changing business strategies, and innovative storytelling that produced a new golden age of TV. Cable television channels were once the backwater of American television, programming recent and not-so-recent movies and reruns of network shows. Then came La Femme Nikita, OZ, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead. And then, just as "prestige cable" became a category, came House of Cards and Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and other Internet distributors of television content. What happened? In We Now Disrupt This Broadcast, Amanda Lotz chronicles the collision of new technologies, changing business strategies, and innovative storytelling that produced an era termed "peak TV." Lotz explains that changes in the business of television expanded the creative possibilities of television. She describes the costly infrastructure rebuilding undertaken by cable service providers in the late 1990s and the struggles of cable channels to produce (and pay for) original, scripted programming in order to stand out from the competition. These new programs defied television conventions and made viewers adjust their expectations of what television could be. Le Femme Nikita offered cable's first antihero, Mad Men cost more than advertisers paid, The Walking Dead became the first mass cable hit, and Game of Thrones was the first global television blockbuster. Internet streaming didn't kill cable, Lotz tells us. Rather, it revolutionized how we watch television. Cable and network television quickly established their own streaming portals. Meanwhile, cable service providers had quietly transformed themselves into Internet providers, able to profit from both prestige cable and streaming services. Far from being dead, television continues to transform.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780262345545Publication Date: 2018-04-06
Film Books
- American Cinema / American Culture, Fifth edition byCall Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1260214540Publication Date: 2018
Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodiment, and Critical Muscle Memory on Screen by
Sporting Blackness examines issues of race and representation in sports films, exploring what it means to embody, perform, play out, and contest blackness by representations of Black athletes on screen. By presenting new critical terms, Sheppard analyzes not only "skin in the game," or how racial representation shapes the genre's imagery, but also "skin in the genre," or the formal consequences of blackness on the sport film genre's modes, codes, and conventions. Through a rich interdisciplinary approach, Sheppard argues that representations of Black sporting bodies contain "critical muscle memories": embodied, kinesthetic, and cinematic histories that go beyond a film's plot to index, circulate, and reproduce broader narratives about Black sporting and non-sporting experiences in American society.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780520973855Publication Date: 2020-06-16
News Parade: the American newsreel and the world as spectacle by
A fascinating look at the United States' conflicted relationship with news and the media, through the lens of the newsreel When weekly newsreels launched in the early twentieth century, they offered the U.S. public the first weekly record of events that symbolized "indisputable evidence" of the news. In News Parade, Joseph Clark examines the history of the newsreel and how it changed the way Americans saw the world. He combines an examination of the newsreel's methods of production, distribution, and reception with an analysis of its representational strategies to understand the newsreel's place in the history of twentieth-century American culture and film history. Clark focuses on the sound newsreel of the 1930s and 1940s, arguing that it represents a crucial moment in the development of a spectacular society where media representations of reality became more fully integrated into commodity culture. Using several case studies, including the newsreel's coverage of Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight and the Sino-Japanese War, News Parade shows how news film transformed the relationship between its audience and current events, as well as the social and political consequences of these changes. It pays particular attention to how discourses of race and gender worked together with the rhetoric of speed, mobility, and authority to establish the power and privilege of newsreel spectatorship. In the age of fake news and the profound changes to journalism brought on by the internet, News Parade demonstrates how new technologies and media reshaped the American public's relationship with the news in the 1930s--a history that can help us to better understand the transformations happening today.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781452963617Publication Date: 2020-05-19
On the Screen: Displaying the Moving Image, 1926-1942 by
Ariel Rogers rethinks the history of moving images by exploring how experiments with screen technologies in and around the 1930s changed the way films were produced, exhibited, and experienced. She challenges conventional narratives about the novelty of the twenty-first-century multiscreen environment.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780231548038Publication Date: 2019-07-22
Paris Is Burning: A Queer Film Classic by
Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1991) captures the energy, ambition, wit, and struggle of African-American and Latino participants in the 1980s New York drag ball scene. This book contextualizes the film within the longer history of drag balls, the practices of documentary, the fervor of the culture wars, and the development of queer theory and critical race studies.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781551525204Publication Date: 2013-11-25
Picturing Indians: Native Americans on Film, 1940-1960 by
Standing at the intersection of Native history, labor, and representation, Picturing Indians presents a vivid portrait of the complicated experiences of Native actors on the sets of midcentury Hollywood Westerns. This behind-the-scenes look at costuming, makeup, contract negotiations, and union disparities uncovers an all-too-familiar narrative of racism and further complicates filmmakers' choices to follow mainstream representations of "Indianness." Liza Black offers a rare and overlooked perspective on American cinema history by giving voice to creators of movie Indians--the stylists, public relations workers, and the actors themselves. In exploring the inherent racism in sensationalizing Native culture for profit, Black also chronicles the little-known attempts of studios to generate cultural authenticity and historical accuracy in their films. She discusses the studios' need for actual Indians to participate in, legitimate, and populate such filmic narratives. But studios also told stories that made Indians sound less than Indian because of their skin color, clothing, and inability to do functions and tasks considered authentically Indian by non-Indians. In the ongoing territorial dispossession of Native America, Native people worked in film as an economic strategy toward survival. Consulting new primary sources, Black has crafted an interdisciplinary experience showcasing what it meant to "play Indian" in post-World War II Hollywood.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781496223777Publication Date: 2020-10-01
A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post-Civil Rights Hollywood by
Hollywood is often thought of?and certainly by Hollywood itself?as a progressive haven. However, in the decade after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the film industry grew deeply conservative when it came to conflicts over racial justice. Amid black self-assertion and white backlash, many of the most heated struggles in film were fought over employment. In A Piece of the Action, Eithne Quinn reveals how Hollywood catalyzed wider racial politics, through representation on screen as well as in battles over jobs and resources behind the scenes. Based on extensive archival research and detailed discussions of films like In the Heat of the Night, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, Super Fly, Claudine, and Blue Collar, this volume considers how issues of race and labor played out on the screen during the tumultuous early years of affirmative action. Quinn charts how black actors leveraged their performance capital to force meaningful changes to employment and film content. She examines the emergence of Sidney Poitier and other African Americans as A-list stars; the careers of black filmmakers such as Melvin Van Peebles and Ossie Davis; and attempts by the federal government and black advocacy groups to integrate cinema. Quinn also highlights the limits of Hollywood's liberalism, showing how predominantly white filmmakers, executives, and unions hid the persistence of racism behind feel-good stories and public-relations avowals of tolerance. A rigorous analysis of the deeply rooted patterns of racial exclusion in American cinema, A Piece of the Action sheds light on why conservative and corporate responses to antiracist and labor activism remain pervasive in today's Hollywood.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 023116436XPublication Date: 2019-12-31
Produced by Irving Thalberg: Theory of Studio-Era Filmmaking by
Explores Irving Thalberg's importance as not only a producer, but also a theorist of studio-era filmmaking Offers a critical reappraisal of Thalberg's legacy Provides in-depth analyses of Thalberg's productions at MGM from 1924 through 1936 Examines Thalberg's impact on film-historical turning points, including the transition to sound cinema and the development of the Production Code Irving Thalberg was not just a critically important producer during Hollywood's Golden Age, but also an innovative theorist of studio-era filmmaking. Drawing on archival sources, this is the first book to explore Thalberg's insights into casting, editing, story composition and the importance of the mass audience from a theoretical perspective. It examines Thalberg's impact on film-historical turning points, such as the transition to sound cinema and the development of the Production Code, and features in-depth analyses of Thalberg's productions at MGM from 1924 to 1936, including films like The Big Parade (1925), The Broadway Melody of 1929 (1929) and Romeo and Juliet (1936). The book argues that Thalberg's views represent a unified conceptual understanding of filmmaking - one that is still significant in the modern day.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1474451047Publication Date: 2020-08-08
Southeast Asia on Screen by
After the end of World War II when many Southeast Asian nations gained national independence, and up until the Asian Financial Crisis, film industries here had distinctive and colourful histories shaped by unique national and domestic conditions. Southeast Asia on Screen: From Independence to Financial Crisis (1945-1998) addresses the similar themes, histories, trends, technologies and sociopolitical events that have moulded the art and industry of film in this region, identifying the unique characteristics that continue to shape cinema, spectatorship and Southeast Asian filmmaking in the present and the future. Bringing together scholars across the region, chapters explore the conditions that have given rise to today's burgeoning Southeast Asian cinemas as well as the gaps that manifest as temporal belatedness and historical disjunctures in the more established regional industries.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9462989346Publication Date: 2020-08-03
Sporting Realities: Critical Readings on the Sports Documentary by
Despite the increasing number of popular and celebrated sports documentaries in contemporary culture, such as ESPN's 30 for 30 series, there has been little scholarly engagement with this genre. Sports documentaries, like all films, do not merely showcase objective reality but rather construct specific versions of sporting culture that serve distinct economic, industrial, institutional, historical, and sociopolitical ends ripe for criticism, contextualization, and exploration. Sporting Realities brings together a diverse group of scholars to probe the sports documentary's cultural meanings, aesthetic practices, industrial and commercial dimensions, and political contours across historical, social, medium-specific, and geographic contexts. It considers and critiques the sports documentary's visible and powerful position in contemporary culture and forges novel connections between the study of nonfiction media and sport.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781496222473Publication Date: 2020-09-01
Black Oscars: From Mammy to Minny, What the Academy Awards Tell Us About African Americans by
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hosts an annual award show affectionately and commonly known as "the Oscars." Yet, these awards are more than a mere ceremony; they are a phenomenon. More so than the amorphous, loosely-organized, multi-faceted entities that comprise Hollywood, the Oscars are the pinnacle of fantasy, beauty, romance and high class. They are eagerly anticipated and are heavily discussed. Only the National Football League's annual televised event entitled the Super Bowl eclipses the Oscars in terms of viewing size and revenue stream. But to be the second-most popular television event on the planet is not bad - not bad for an organization that only boasts fifty-one board of governor members. For over ninety years, Oscar winners have been considered the standard bearers of all things imaginable within American culture. Not that Oscar winners are dispositive of all matters within Hollywood and entertainment, however, given their presence and popularity, it begs the question of what do these awards reflect and reinforce about larger society, particularly when it comes to the public participation of African Americans. This book will therefore draw upon American history, African American history, sociology and film studies, thereby broadening its appeal to multiple audiences. Each chapter provides a thorough analysis and overview of any blacks that were nominated for their Hollywood roles during the designated decade. Historical commentary will contextualize the socio-political meaning of the symbology of such images and the black characters as political images onscreen. Black Oscar winners (more of which occur in the latter decades) will be highlighted and cross-referenced with other winners for proper analysis of trends and patterns. Ultimately the Oscars serve as an excellent litmus test as to how what degree our society has truly embraced diversity within the hallowed confines of our sacred imaginations.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781538123720Publication Date: 2020-05-24
The stardom film: Creating the Hollywood fairy tale by Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 0231851146Publication Date: 2021
The Traumatic Screen: The Films of Christopher Nolan by
Christopher Nolan occupies a rare realm within the Hollywood mainstream, creating complex, original films that achieve both critical acclaim and commercial success. In The Traumatic Screen, Stuart Joy builds on contemporary applications of psychoanalytic film theory to consider the function and presentation of trauma across Nolan's work, arguing that the complexity, thematic consistency, and fragmentary nature of his films mimic the structural operation of trauma. From 1997's Doodlebug to 2017's Dunkirk, Nolan's films highlight cinema's ability to probe the nature of human consciousness while commenting on the relationship between spectator and screen. Joy examines Nolan's treatment of trauma--both individual and collective--through the formal construction, mise-en-scène, and repeated themes of his films. The argument presented is based on close textual analysis and a methodological framework that incorporates the works of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. The first in-depth, overtly psychoanalytic understanding of trauma in the context of the director's filmography, this book builds on and challenges existing scholarship in a bold new interpretation of the Nolan canon.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781789382020Publication Date: 2020-10-09
Twentieth Century Fox by
This is the first scholarly history of Fox from its origins in 1904 to the present. It builds upon research and histories of individual periods to describe how one company responded to a century-long evolution of the audience, nationally and globally. In the beginning, William Fox grabbed a once-in-a-millennium opportunity to build a business based on a genuinely new art form. This study explores the enduring legacy of F.W. Murnau, Will Rogers, Shirley Temple, John Ford, Spyros Skouras, George Lucas, James Cameron, and many others, offering discussion of those behind and in front of the camera, delving deeply into the history and evolution of the studio. Key films covered include The Iron Horse, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, Forever Amber, All About Eve, Cleopatra, The Sound of Music, Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, Titanic, and Fight Club, providing an extensive look at the successes and flops that shaped not only Twentieth Century Fox, but the entire Hollywood landscape. Through a chronological study, the book charts the studio's impact right up to the present day, providing a framework to allow us to look to the future of moviemaking and film consumption. Lively and fresh in its approach, this book is a comprehensive study of the studio for scholars, students, and enthusiasts of Hollywood cinema, film history, and media industries.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781315686486Publication Date: 2020-08-18
Twenty-First-Century Hollywood: Rebooting the System by
Twenty-First-Century Hollywood looks into the contexts of studio film production in the new century. In an era dominated in box-office terms by the franchise and the family film, this book combines close textual readings and industrial analysis, illustrating why these kinds of movies are favored by producers and audiences alike.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780231549455Publication Date: 2019-06-17
United Artists by
Established in 1919 by Hollywood's top talent United Artists has had an illustrious history, from Hollywood minor to industry leader to a second-tier media company in the shadow of MGM.　This edited collection brings together leading film historians to examine key aspects of United Artists' centennial history from its origins to the sometimes chaotic developments of the last four decades. The focus is on several key executives - ranging from Joseph Schenck to Paula Wagner and Tom Cruise - and on many of the people making films for United Artists, including Gloria Swanson, David O. Selznick, Kirk Douglas, the Mirisch brothers and Woody Allen. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, individual case studies explore the mutually supportive but also in places highly contentious relationships between United Artists and its　producers, the difficult balance between artistic and commercial objectives, and the resulting hits and misses (among them The General, the Pink Panther franchise, Heaven's Gate, Cruising, and Hot Tub Time Machine). The second volume in the Routledge Hollywood Centenary series, United Artists is a fascinating and comprehensive study of the firm's history and legacy, perfect for students and researchers of cinema and film history, media industries, and Hollywood.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780429058332Publication Date: 2020-01-29
Unruly Cinema: History, Politics, and Bollywood by
Between 1931 and 2000, India's popular cinema steadily overcame Hollywood domination. Bollywood, the film industry centered in Mumbai, became nothing less than a global cultural juggernaut. But Bollywood is merely one part of the country's prolific, multilingual cinema. Unruly Cinema looks at the complex series of events that allowed the entire Indian film industry to defy attempts to control, reform, and refine it in the twentieth century and beyond. Rini Bhattacharya Mehta considers four aspects of Indian cinema's complicated history. She begins with the industry's surprising, market-driven triumph over imports from Hollywood and elsewhere in the 1930s. From there she explores how the nationalist social melodrama outwitted the government with its 1950s cinematic lyrical manifestoes. In the 1970s, an action cinema centered on the angry young male co-opted the voice of the oppressed. Finally, Mehta examines Indian film's discovery of the global neoliberal aesthetic that encouraged the emergence of Bollywood.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 025204312XPublication Date: 2020-06-22
When Women Wrote Hollywood: Essays on Female Screenwriters in the Early Film Industry by
This collection of 23 new essays focuses on the lives of female screenwriters of Golden Age Hollywood, whose work helped create those unforgettable stories and characters beloved by audiences--but whose names have been left out of most film histories. The contributors trace the careers of such writers as Anita Loos, Adela Rogers St. Johns, Lillian Hellman, Gene Gauntier, Eve Unsell and Ida May Park, and explore themes of their writing in classics like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Ben Hur, and It's a Wonderful Life.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1476668876Publication Date: 2018-06-19- Narrative and Narration: Analyzing Cinematic Storytelling byCall Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780231543590Publication Date: 2021
MGM by
The winner of the 2019 Peter C. Rollins Book Award This is the first comprehensive history of MGM from its origins in 1905 to the present. Following a straightforward chronology corresponding to specific periods of film industry history, each chapter describes how successive managements adjusted their production strategies and business practices in response to evolving industrial and market conditions. As the production subsidiary of the Loew¿s Inc. theatre chain, MGM spent lavishly on its pictures and injected them with plenty of star power. The practice helped sustain MGM¿s preeminent position during the heyday of Hollywood. But MGM was a conservative company and watched as other studios innovated with sound and widescreen, adjusted to television, and welcomed independent producers. By the 1960s, the company, sans its theatre chain, was in decline and was ripe for a takeover. A defining moment occurred in 1969, when Kirk Kerkorian, a Las Vegas entrepreneur, made a successful bid for the company. There followed a tumultuous thirty-six-year period when Kerkorian bought and sold MGM three times. Meanwhile, MGM never regained its former status and has functioned as a second-tier company to this day. Focusing on MGM¿s top talent ¿ such as Louis B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg, David O. Selznick, and Arthur Freed; directors King Vidor and Vincente Minnelli; and stars of the screen Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, Clark Gable, and Mickey Rooney ¿ and award-winning films, this book highlights the studio¿s artistic achievements and status within the industry.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781138913646Publication Date: 2018-03-23
Mainstream Maverick: John Hughes and New Hollywood Cinema by
In the 1980s and 1990s, John Hughes was one of Hollywood's most reliable hitmakers, churning out beloved teen comedies and family films such as The Breakfast Club and Home Alone, respectively. But was he an artist? Hughes, an adamantly commercial filmmaker who was dismissed by critics, might have laughed at the question. Since his death in 2009, though, he has been memorialized on Oscar night as a key voice of his time. Now the critics lionize him as a stylistic original. Holly Chard traces Hughes's evolution from entertainer to auteur. Studios recognized Hughes's distinctiveness and responded by nurturing his brand. He is therefore a case study in Hollywood's production not only of movies but also of genre and of authorship itself. The films of John Hughes, Chard shows, also owed their success to the marketers who sold them and the audiences who watched. Careful readings of Hughes's cinema reveal both the sources of his iconic status and the imprint on his films of the social, political, economic, and media contexts in which he operated. The first serious treatment of Hughes, Mainstream Maverick elucidates the priorities of the American movie industry in the New Hollywood era and explores how artists not only create but are themselves created.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1477321292Publication Date: 2020-09-01
Letters from Hollywood: Inside the Private World of Classic American Moviemaking by
Rare notes, memos, and telegrams from Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, Jane Fonda, and more Letters from Hollywood reproduces in full color scores of entertaining and insightful pieces of correspondence from some of the most notable and talented film industry names of all time--from the silent era to the golden age, and up through the pre-email days of the 1970s. Culled from libraries, archives, and personal collections, the 135 letters, memos, and telegrams are organized chronologically and are annotated by the authors to provide backstories and further context. While each piece reveals a specific moment in time, taken together, the letters convey a bigger picture of Hollywood history. Contributors include celebrities like Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Elia Kazan, Cary Grant, Francis Ford Coppola, Tom Hanks, and Jane Fonda. This is the gift book of the season for fans of classic Hollywood.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781683356660Publication Date: 2019-09-10
The Cinema of Disorientation: Inviting Confusions by
Precisely, perhaps, because they are so immediately absorbing, narrative films can also be profoundly confusing and disorienting. This fascinating book neither proposes foolproof methods for avoiding confusion; nor does it suggest that disorientation is always a virtue. Instead it argues that the best way to come to terms with our confusion is to look closely at exactly what is confusing us, and why. At the heart of the book are original close readings of four important recent films: David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE (2006), Leos Carax's Holy Motors (2012), Pedro Costa's Colossal Youth (2006) and Jean-Luc Godard's Goodbye to Language (2014). Clearly written but critically and theoretically bold, The Cinema of Disorientation: Inviting Confusions explores both how we get (or fail to get) our bearings with respect to a film, and what we might discover by (and while) doing so.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1474462774Publication Date: 2020-09-15
Classical Hollywood Film Cycles by
This book explores the ways in which Hollywood film cycles from the 1930s to the 1960s were shaped by their surrounding industrial contexts and market environments, to build an inclusive conception of the form, operation, and function of film cycles. By foregrounding patterns of distribution, spaces of exhibition, and modes of consumption as key components of the form and mechanics of cycles, this book develops a methodology for defining cycles based on an analysis of the industry and trade discourse. Applying her unique framework to six case studies of different cycles, Zoe Wallin blends a wide range of historical sources to analyze the many cultural, social, political, aesthetic, and industrial contexts relevant to these films. This book makes an important contribution to the literature in the area of film historiography, and will be of interest to any scholars of film studies, history and media studies.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780367199531Publication Date: 2019-03-07
The Computer-Animated Film: Industry, Style and Genre by
Widely credited for the revival of feature-length animated filmmaking within contemporary Hollywood, computer-animated films are today produced within a variety of national contexts and traditions. Covering thirty years of computer-animated film history, and analysing over 200 different examples, The Computer-Animated Film: Industry, Style and Genre persuasively argues that this body of work constitutes a unique genre of mainstream cinema. Informed by wider technological discourses and the status of animation as an industrial art form, the book not only theorises computer-animated films through their formal properties, but connects elements of film style to animation practice and the computer-animated film's unique production contexts.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781474427883Publication Date: 2018-06-15
Contemporary Hollywood Animation: Style, Storytelling, Culture and Ideology since The 1990s by
Until the 1990s, animation occupied a relatively marginal presence in Hollywood. Today, it is at the very heart of both the film industry and contemporary popular culture. Charting the major changes and continuities in Hollywood animation over the past thirty years, this groundbreaking book offers an authoritative history of Hollywood animation since the 1990s. Analysing dozens of key films, including The Lion King, Toy Story, Shrek, Despicable Me, Frozen and Moana, it examines the emergence of new genres and stylistic approaches, as well as the ongoing blurring of boundaries between animation and live-action. Identifying narrative and thematic patterns, and the developments in industry and style, the book explores how animation in the United States both responds to and recapitulates the values, beliefs, hopes and fears of the nation.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1474410561Publication Date: 2021-01-19
The Contemporary Superhero Film: Projections of Power and Identity by Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 0231549792Publication Date: 2020
Death in Venice: A Queer Film Classic by
A Queer Film Classic on Luchino Visconti's lyrical and controversial 1971 film based on Thomas Mann's novel about a middle-aged man (played by Dirk Bogarde) vacationing in Venice who becomes obsessed with a youth staying at the same hotel as a wave of cholera descends upon the city. The book analyzes its cultural impact and provides a vivid portrait of the director, an ardent Communist and grand provocateur. Will Aitken's novels include Realia and Terre Haute. Arsenal's Queer Film Classics series cover some of the most important and influential films about and by LGBTQ people.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781551524191Publication Date: 2011-12-27- A Dictionary of Film Studies by A Dictionary of Film Studies covers all aspects of its discipline as it is currently taught at undergraduate level. Offering exhaustive and authoritative coverage, this A-Z is written by experts in the field, and covers terms, concepts, debates, and movements in film theory and criticism;national, international, and transnational cinemas; film history, movements, and genres; film industry organizations and practices; and key technical terms and concepts.Since its first publication in 2012, the dictionary has been updated to incorporate over 40 new entries, including computer games and film, disability, ecocinema, identity, portmanteau film, Practice as Research, and film in Vietnam. Moreover, numerous revisions have been made to existing entriesto account for developments in the discipline, and changes to film institutions more generally.Indices of films and filmmakers mentioned in the text are included for easy access to relevant entries. The dictionary also has 13 feature articles on popular topics and terms, revised and informative bibliographies for most entries, and more than 100 web links to supplement the text.Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 0198832095Publication Date: 2020-07-12
The Dynamic Frame: Camera Movement in Classical Hollywood by
The camera's movement in a film may seem straightforward or merely technical. Yet skillfully deployed pans, tilts, dollies, cranes, and zooms can express the emotions of a character, convey attitude and irony, or even challenge an ideological stance. In The Dynamic Frame, Patrick Keating offers an innovative history of the aesthetics of the camera that examines how camera movement shaped the classical Hollywood style. In careful readings of dozens of films, including Sunrise, The Grapes of Wrath, Rear Window, Sunset Boulevard, and Touch of Evil, Keating explores how major figures such as F. W. Murnau, Orson Welles, and Alfred Hitchcock used camera movement to enrich their stories and deepen their themes. Balancing close analysis with a broader poetics of camera movement, Keating uses archival research to chronicle the technological breakthroughs and the changing division of labor that allowed for new possibilities, as well as the shifting political and cultural contexts that inspired filmmakers to use technology in new ways. An original history of film techniques and aesthetics, The Dynamic Frame shows that the classical Hollywood camera moves not to imitate the actions of an omniscient observer but rather to produce the interplay of concealment and revelation that is an essential part of the exchange between film and viewer.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 0231190506Publication Date: 2019-02-19
Everyday Movies: Portable Film Projectors and the Transformation of American Culture by
Everyday Movies documents the twentieth-century rise of portable film projectors. It demonstrates that since World War II, the vast majority of movie-watching did not happen in the glow of the large screen but rather took place alongside the glitches, distortions, and clickety-clack of small machines that transformed home, classroom, museum, community, government, industrial, and military venues into sites of moving-image display. Reorienting the history of cinema away from the magic of the movie theater, Haidee Wasson illustrates the remarkable persistence and proliferation of devices that fundamentally rejected the sleek, highly professionalized film show. She foregrounds instead another kind of apparatus, one that was accessible, affordable, adaptable, easy to use, and crucially, programmable. Revealing rich archival discoveries, this book charts a compelling and original history of film that brings to light new technologies and diverse forms of media engagement that continue to shape contemporary life.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780520974371Publication Date: 2020-11-10
Fat on Film: Gender, Race and Body Size in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema by
Over the last two decades, fatness has become the focus of ubiquitous negative rhetoric, in the USA and beyond, presented under the cover of the medicalized ''war against the obesity epidemic''. In Fat on Film, Barbara Plotz provides a critical analysis of the cinematic representation of fatness during this timeframe, specifically in contemporary Hollywood cinema, with an emphasis on the intersection of gender, race and fatness. The analysis is based on around 50 films released since 2000 and includes examples such as Transformers (2007), Precious (2009), Kung Fu Panda (2008), Paul Blart (2009) and Pitch Perfect (2012).Plotz maps the common cinematic tropes of fatness and also shows how commonplace notions of fatness that are part of the current ''obesity epidemic'' discourse are reflected in these tropes. In this original study, Plotz brings critical attention to the politics of fat representation, a topic that has so far received little attention within film and cinema studies.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1350114588Publication Date: 2020-02-20
Film Reboots by
Bringing together the latest developments in the study of serial formatting practices - remakes, sequels, series - Film Reboots is the first edited collection to specifically focus on the new millennial phenomenon of rebooting. Through a set of vibrant case studies, this collection investigates rebooting as a practice that seeks to remake an entire film series or franchise, with ambitions that are at once respectful and revisionary. Examining such notable examples as Batman, Ghostbusters, and Star Trek, among others, this collection contends with some of the most important features of contemporary film and media culture today.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781474451369Publication Date: 2020-09-15
Hollywood's Artists: the Directors Guild of America and the construction of authorship by
Today, the director is considered the leading artistic force behind a film. The production of a Hollywood movie requires the labor of many people, from screenwriters and editors to cinematographers and boom operators, but the director as author of the film overshadows them all. How did this concept of the director become so deeply ingrained in our understanding of cinema? In Hollywood's Artists, Virginia Wright Wexman offers a groundbreaking history of how movie directors became cinematic auteurs that reveals and pinpoints the influence of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). Guided by Frank Capra's mantra ?one man, one film,? the Guild has portrayed its director-members as the creators responsible for turning Hollywood entertainment into cinematic art. Wexman details how the DGA differentiated itself from other industry unions, focusing on issues of status and creative control as opposed to bread-and-butter concerns like wages and working conditions. She also traces the Guild's struggle for creative and legal power, exploring subjects from the language of on-screen credits to the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigations of the movie industry. Wexman emphasizes the gendered nature of images of the great director, demonstrating how the DGA promoted the idea of the director as a masculine hero. Drawing on a broad array of archival sources, interviews, and theoretical and sociological insight, Hollywood's Artists sheds new light on the ways in which the Directors Guild of America has shaped the role and image of directors both within the Hollywood system and in the culture at large.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 0231195680Publication Date: 2020-07-21
The Hollywood Jim Crow: The Racial Politics of the Movie Industry by
The story of racial hierarchy in the American film industry The #OscarsSoWhite campaign, and the content of the leaked Sony emails which revealed, among many other things, that a powerful Hollywood insider didn't believe that Denzel Washington could "open" a western genre film, provide glaring evidence that the opportunities for people of color in Hollywood are limited. In The Hollywood Jim Crow, Maryann Erigha tells the story of inequality, looking at the practices and biases that limit the production and circulation of movies directed by racial minorities. She examines over 1,300 contemporary films, specifically focusing on directors, to show the key elements at work in maintaining "the Hollywood Jim Crow." Unlike the Jim Crow era where ideas about innate racial inferiority and superiority were the grounds for segregation, Hollywood's version tries to use economic and cultural explanations to justify the underrepresentation and stigmatization of Black filmmakers. Erigha exposes the key elements at work in maintaining Hollywood's racial hierarchy, namely the relationship between genre and race, the ghettoization of Black directors to black films, and how Blackness is perceived by the Hollywood producers and studios who decide what gets made and who gets to make it. Erigha questions the notion that increased representation of African Americans behind the camera is the sole answer to the racial inequality gap. Instead, she suggests focusing on the obstacles to integration for African American film directors. Hollywood movies have an expansive reach and exert tremendous power in the national and global production, distribution, and exhibition of popular culture. The Hollywood Jim Crow fully dissects the racial inequality embedded in this industry, looking at alternative ways for African Americans to find success in Hollywood and suggesting how they can band together to forge their own career paths.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781479886647Publication Date: 2019-02-05
The Independent Filmmaker's Guide to the New Hollywood by
Netflix and its competitors like Disney+, Amazon Prime and Hulu have brought unprecedented levels of entertainment to consumers everywhere, providing the richest, most abundant aggregate of motion pictures and cinematic television the world has ever seen. Behind the facade, however, things are not as pleasant. A very costly paradigm shift is underway, altering not only conventional business and finance models, but also threatening long-established avenues of entertainment such as movie theaters, traditional television, and home video, and wreaking havoc on independent filmmakers and veteran producers alike. This book attempts to make sense of ongoing economic and creative shifts of infrastructure and intellectual property, to understand where the industry is headed, and to distinguish which business models should be maintained and which ones should be left behind. Featuring exclusive interviews with some of the industry's most prolific filmmakers and executives, it dives into the trenches of Hollywood to provide readers with the knowledge necessary to rethink the business, see past the turmoil, recognize the new opportunities, and take advantage of exciting new possibilities. Change sparks innovation, and innovation brings about great opportunity--but only for the well-informed and prepared.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781476673011Publication Date: 2020-09-14
Josephine Baker's Cinematic Prism by
A history and in-depth analysis of the film career of the iconic Black star, activist, and French military intelligence agent. Josephine Baker, the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture, was both liberated and delightfully undignified, playfully vacillating between allure and colonialist stereotyping. Nicknamed the "Black Venus," "Black Pearl," and "Creole Goddess," Baker blended the sensual and the comedic when taking 1920s Europe by storm. Back home in the United States, Baker's film career brought hope to the Black press that a new cinema centered on Black glamour would come to fruition. In Josephine Baker's Cinematic Prism, Terri Simone Francis examines how Baker fashioned her celebrity through cinematic reflexivity, an authorial strategy in which she placed herself, her persona, and her character into visual dialogue. Francis contends that though Baker was an African American actress who lived and worked in France exclusively with a white film company, white costars, white writers, and white directors, she holds monumental significance for African American cinema as the first truly global Black woman film star. Francis also examines the double-talk between Baker and her characters in Le Pompier de Folies Bergère, La Sirène des Tropiques, Zou Zou, Princesse Tam Tam, and The French Way, whose narratives seem to undermine the very stardom they offered. In doing so, Francis illuminates the most resonant links between emergent African American cinephilia, the diverse opinions of Baker in the popular press, and African Americans' broader aspirations for progress toward racial equality. Examining an unexplored aspect of Baker's career, Josephine Baker's Cinematic Prism deepens the ongoing conversation about race, gender, and performance in the African diaspora.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780253052179Publication Date: 2021-01-19
Lesbian Cinema after Queer Theory by
The unprecedented increase in lesbian representation over the past two decades has, paradoxically, coincided with queer theory's radical transformation of the study of sexuality. In Lesbian Cinema after Queer Theory, Clara Bradbury-Rance argues that this contradictory context has yielded new kinds of cinematic language through which to give desire visual form. By offering close readings of key contemporary films such as Blue Is the Warmest Colour, Water Lilies and Carol alongside a broader filmography encompassing over 300 other films released between 1927 and 2018, the book provokes new ways of understanding a changing field of representation. Bradbury-Rance resists charting a narrative of representational progress or shoring up the lesbian's categorisation in the newly available terms of the visible. Instead, she argues for a feminist framework that can understand lesbianism's queerness. Drawing on a provocative theoretical and visual corpus, Lesbian Cinema after Queer Theory reveals the conditions of lesbian legibility in the twenty-first century.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781474435369Publication Date: 2019-03-12
Women in the International Film Industry by
The chapter Experiencing Male Dominance in Swedish Film Production" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 3030390691Publication Date: 2020-08-09
The Movie Business Book, Fourth edition by
Drawing from a variety of experts in an industry that has seen major disruptions and technology advancements since the third edition, The Movie Business Book offers a comprehensive, authoritative overview of this fascinating, global business. A must-read for film students and industry newcomers, this new edition features key movers and shakers, such as filmmaker-actor Jay Duplass, (The Puffy Chair, Cyrus), Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn, director Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Bourne Identity), National Amusements President Shari E. Redstone, Warner Bros. Pictures Worldwide Marketing Executive Vice President Blair Rich, and many others. A definitive sourcebook, it covers the nuts-and-bolts details about financing, revenue streams, marketing, globalization, micro-budgets and much more.
Call Number: PN1993.5.U6 M666 2017ISBN: 9781138656277Publication Date: 2016-07-25
Free and Easy? A Definitive History of the American Film Musical Genre by
A History of the American Musical narrates the evolution of the film musical genre, discussing its influences and how it has come to be defined; the first text on this subject for over two decades, it employs the very latest concepts and research. The most up-to-date text on the subject, with uniquely comprehensive coverage and employing the very latest concepts and research Surveys centuries of music history from the music and dance of Native Americans to contemporary music performance in streaming media Examines the different ways the film musical genre has been defined, what gets counted as a musical, why, and who gets to make that decision The text is written in an accessible manner for general cinema and musical theatre buffs, whilst retaining theoretical rigour in research Describes the contributions made to the genre by marginalized or subordinated identity groups who have helped invent and shape the musical
Call Number: PN1995.9.M86 G84 2018ISBN: 9781405194969Publication Date: 2017-07-24
Understanding Disney by
Since the 1930s, the Walt Disney Company has produced characters, images, and stories that have captivated audiences around the world. How can we understand the appeal of Disney products? What is it about the Disney phenomenon that attracts so many children, as well as adults? In this updated second edition, with new examples provided throughout, Janet Wasko examines the processes by which the Disney company - one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world - continues to manufacture the fantasies that enthrall millions. She analyses the historical expansion of the Disney empire into the twenty-first century, examines the content of Disney's classic and more recent films, cartoons and TV programs and discusses how they are produced, considering how some of the same techniques have been applied to the Disney theme parks. She also discusses the reception (and sometimes, reinterpretation) of Disney products by different kinds of audiences. By looking at the Disney phenomenon from a variety of perspectives, she provides an updated and comprehensive overview of one of the most significant media and cultural institutions of our time. This important book by a leading scholar of the entertainment industries will be of great interest to students in media and cultural studies, as well as a broader readership of Disney fans.
Call Number: PN1999.W27 W37 2020ISBN: 9780745695631Publication Date: 2019-12-31
Animation / Motion Graphics Books
After Effects Apprentice: Real-World Skills for the Aspiring Motion Graphics Artist by
Whether you're new to After Effects and want to get up to speed quickly, or already a user who needs to become familiar with the new features, After Effects Apprentice was created for you. With 12 core lessons including a trio of projects combining After Effects with CINEMA 4D Lite, you'll learn how to tap this program's vast potential - whether you create motion graphics for network television, corporate communications, or your own projects. Fully updated to cover the major new features added in After Effects CC, this edition of the book presents a professional perspective on the most important features a motion graphics artist needs to master in order to use After Effects effectively. You'll learn to creatively combine layers; animate eye-catching titles; manipulate 3D space; color key, track or rotoscope existing footage to add new elements; and use effects to generate excitement or enhance the realism of a scene. Easy to follow, step-by-step instructions guide you through the features, with explanations of the "why" instead of just the "how" behind each technique. You'll learn more than just the tools; you'll learn skills that you can immediately put to work expressing your own ideas in your productions. USER LEVEL: Novice-Intermediate Topics include how to: * Animate, edit, layer, and composite a variety of media. * Manipulate keyframes and the way they interpolate to create more refined animations. * Use masks, mattes, stencils and blending modes to add sophistication to your imagery. * Create, animate, and extrude text and shape layers. * Explore 3D space, including using CINEMA 4D Lite. * Use tracking and keying to create special effects, such as replacing screen displays. A companion website at www.routledge.com/cw/meyer makes available for download all exercise source material and After Effects CC project files required to get the most out of this book.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781138643086Publication Date: 2016-02-17
Becoming a Video Game Designer by
A revealing guide to a career as a video game designer written by acclaimed journalist Daniel Noah Halpern and based on the real-life experiences of legendary designer Tom Cadwell of Riot Games--required reading for anyone considering a path to this profession. Becoming a Video Game Designer takes you behind the scenes to find out what it's really like, and what it really takes, to become a video game designer. Gaming is a $138 billion-dollar entertainment industry, and designers are the beating heart. Long-form journalist Daniel Noah Halpern shadows top video game designer Tom Cadwell to show how this dream job becomes a reality. Cadwell is head of design at Riot Games, the company behind award-winning blockbuster games like League of Legends, which has an active user base of 111 million players. Creating a massive multiplayer online game takes years of visionary R&D--it is a blend of art and science. It is also big business. Learn the ins and the outs of the job from Cadwell as well as other designers, including Brendon Chung, acclaimed founder of Blendo Games. Successful designers must be creative decision makers and also engineers and collaborators. Gain professional wisdom by following Tom's path to prominence, from his start as a passionate gamer to becoming one of the most revered designers in the business.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781982137946Publication Date: 2020-12-01- The Computer-Animated Film: Industry, Style and Genre by
Widely credited for the revival of feature-length animated filmmaking within contemporary Hollywood, computer-animated films are today produced within a variety of national contexts and traditions. Covering thirty years of computer-animated film history, and analysing over 200 different examples, The Computer-Animated Film: Industry, Style and Genre persuasively argues that this body of work constitutes a unique genre of mainstream cinema. Informed by wider technological discourses and the status of animation as an industrial art form, the book not only theorises computer-animated films through their formal properties, but connects elements of film style to animation practice and the computer-animated film's unique production contexts.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781474427883Publication Date: 2018-06-15
Synchronization and Title Sequences: audio-visual semiosis in motion graphics by
Synchronization and Title Sequences proposes a semiotic analysis of the synchronization of image and sound in motion pictures using title sequences. Through detailed historical close readings of title designs that use either voice-over, an instrumental opening, or title song to organize their visuals--from Vertigo (1958) to The Player (1990) and X-Men: First Class (2011)--author Michael Betancourt develops a foundational framework for the critique and discussion of motion graphics' use of synchronization and sound, as well as a theoretical description of how sound-image relationships develop on-screen.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1138085065Publication Date: 2017-05-17
Typography and Motion Graphics: The 'Reading-Image' by
In his latest book, Michael Betancourt explores the nature and role of typography in motion graphics as a way to consider its distinction from static design using the concept of the 'reading-image' to model the ways that motion typography dramatizes the process of reading and audience recognition of language on-screen. Using both classic and contemporary title sequences--including The Man With the Golden Arm (1955), Alien (1979), Flubber (1998), Six Feet Under (2001), The Number 23 (2007) and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)--Betancourt develops an argument about what distinguishes motion graphics from graphic design. Moving beyond title sequences, Betancourt also analyzes moving or kinetic typography in logo designs, commercials, film trailers, and information graphics, offering a striking theoretical model for understanding typography in media.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780367029289Publication Date: 2018-11-29
Wild Minds: the artists and rivalries that inspired the golden age of animation by
The vivid and untold story of the Golden Age of classic animation and the often larger-than-life artists who created some of the most iconic cartoon characters of the twentieth century In 1911, famed cartoonist Winsor McCay debuted one of the first animated cartoons, based on his sophisticated newspaper strip "Little Nemo in Slumberland," itself inspired by Freud's recent research on dreams. McCay is largely forgotten today, but he unleashed an art form, and the creative energy of artists from Otto Messmer and Max Fleischer to Walt Disney and Warner Bros.' Chuck Jones. Their origin stories, rivalries, and sheer genius, as Reid Mitenbuler skillfully relates, were ascolorful and subversive as their creations--from Felix the Cat to Bugs Bunny to feature films such asFantasia--which became an integral part and reflection of American culture over the next five decades. Pre-television, animated cartoons were aimed squarely at adults; comic preludes to movies, they were often "little hand grenades of social and political satire." Early Betty Boop cartoons included nudity; Popeye stories contained sly references to the injustices of unchecked capitalism. "During its first half-century," Mitenbuler writes, "animation was an important part of the culture wars about free speech, censorship, the appropriate boundaries of humor, and the influence of art and media on society." During WWII it also played a significant role in propaganda. The Golden Age of animation ended with the advent of television, when cartoons were sanitized to appeal to children and help advertisers sell sugary breakfast cereals. Wild Minds is an ode to our colorful past and to the creative energy that later inspiredThe Simpsons,South Park, andBoJack Horseman .
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 0802129382Publication Date: 2020-12-01
