In the Studio - by Brian R Jacobson (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Studios are, at once, material environments and symbolic forms, sites of artistic creation and physical labor, and nodes in networks of resource circulation. They are architectural places that generate virtual spaces-worlds built to build worlds. On the outside, they have become icons of corporate identity, while on the inside, they have remained invisible in order to be seen. As such, they have actively faded into the background of critical discourse and into the margins of film and media history. Recovering their hidden role in the history of visual creation, In the Studio demonstrates that when we foreground these worlds, we gain new insights into moving-image culture and the material, ecological, social, political, and economic dynamics that quietly mark the worlds on our screens. Spanning the twentieth century and moving globally, from Japan to Brazil, Mexico to Moscow, and Hollywood to Dubai, this unique collection tells new stories about studio icons--Pinewood, Cinecittáa, Churubusco, and CBS--as well as the experimental workplaces of filmmakers and artists from Aleksandr Medvedkin to Charles and Ray Eames and Hollis Frampton"--

Book Synopsis

Studios are, at once, material environments and symbolic forms, sites of artistic creation and physical labor, and nodes in networks of resource circulation. They are architectural places that generate virtual spaces--worlds built to build worlds. Yet, despite being icons of corporate identity, studios have faded into the background of critical discourse and into the margins of film and media history. In response, In the Studio demonstrates that when we foreground these worlds, we gain new insights into moving-image culture and the dynamics that quietly mark the worlds on our screens. Spanning the twentieth century and moving globally, this unique collection tells new stories about studio icons--Pinewood, Cinecittà, Churubusco, and CBS--as well as about the experimental workplaces of filmmakers and artists from Aleksandr Medvedkin to Charles and Ray Eames and Hollis Frampton.

From the Back Cover

"This volume marks out a space that has remained largely obscured, hiding in plain sight, within cinema and media studies. The contributions to this book engage the studio as a physical location and as a conduit for flows of workers, capital, and media technologies. They redirect and energize longstanding questions about media aesthetics and about the geopolitics of screen cultures."--Kaveh Askari, author of Making Movies into Art: Picture Craft from the Magic Lantern to Early Hollywood

"A major contribution to the recent scholarly interest in the production studio as a neglected subject of film and media studies. It will definitely interest scholars and students not only in film and media studies but also in architectural history, art history, business or industry history, and the history of technology."--Richard Abel, author of Menus for Movieland: Newspapers and the Emergence of American Film Culture, 1913-1916

Review Quotes

"It is certain that In the Studio's holistic methodology will provide a blueprint for the still vital research on the material environments that shape our media."

-- "Screen"

"Consumers in the 1930s understood the importance of the studio; In the Studio argues that contemporary scholars of film and media studies should follow suit. The volume makes an important contribution to these disciplines, helping to advance a new subfield by showing how an emphasis on the material spaces of production expands or nuances our understanding of cinema and television."

-- "The Moving Image"

About the Author

Brian R. Jacobson is Professor of Visual Culture at the California Institute of Technology and the author of Studios Before the System: Architecture, Technology, and the Emergence of Cinematic Space.