Working in the Global Film and Television Industries: Creativity, Systems, Space, Patronage

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Description

Like many other cultural commodities, films and TV shows tend to work in such a way as to obscure the conditions under which they are produced, a process that has been reinforced by dominant trends in the practice of Film and Television Studies. This collection places the workplace experiences of industry workers at centre stage. It looks at film and television production in a variety of social, economic, political, and cultural contexts. The book provides detailed analyses of specific systems of production and their role in shaping the experience of work, whilst also engaging with the key theoretical and methodological questions involved in film and television production. Drawing together the work of historians, film scholars, and anthropologists, it looks at film and television production not only in Hollywood and Western Europe but also in less familiar settings such as the Soviet Union, India, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Chronologically wide-ranging, interdisciplinary and international in scope, it is a unique introduction, critical for all students of the film industries and film production.

Reviews

We live in a world where work is often about relations between people and place, and about creating an identity. More than that, hidden behind the scenes of the structures within which workers operate are real-life stories that offer unique insights into what the way we work says about our society. That is why I am fascinated by this important book...This book offers a valuable contribution to our reflections on social justice issues and change in work for readers in media and film studies, cinema history, and work and labour studies. One of the many strengths of the text is that it offers revealing and often surprising snapshots of the kinds of politics, restrictions, constraints and pressures under which various workers have had to operate, and that they must delicately navigate...Overall, the collection encourages the reader to reflect on the kind of world in which professionals in creative industries have worked, and invigorates questions about the kind of world in which we might want to work and live. -- Sheree K. Gregory, Swinburne Institute for Social Research * Media International Australia *
There is an absence of work in the literature [on film and television] as a whole that would give voice to the crafts and technical trades whose arcane job titles (focus puller, matte painter or dolly grip) cinema goers glimpse fleetingly as the credits roll. The importance of this text is that it makes a contribution towards filling this gap . . . This is a welcome contribution to the literature on work in film and television production, indeed on work in the creative industries more broadly, offering a grounded and empirically informed insight into production cultures that have been ignored, or arguably worse, hyped as glamorous. -- Keith Randle, University of Hertfordshire, UK * Work, Employment & Society *

Author Bio

Andrew Dawson is Film Studies programme leader at the University of Greenwich. He teaches courses on Film and American Society and Working for Hollywood. Sean Holmes is Subject Leader for Screen Media and a lecturer in Film and Television Studies at Brunel University. He has taught in the U.K. and the U.S. and his current research looks at the politics of cultural production.