Voices of Labor - by Michael Curtin & Kevin Sanson (Paperback)

About the Book

"The film industry in Hollywood now employs a global mode of production run by massive media conglomerates that mobilize hundreds, sometimes thousands, of workers for each feature film or television series. Yet these workers and their labor remain largely invisible to the general audience. In fact, this has been a signal characteristic of Hollywood style for more than a hundred years: everything that matters happens onscreen, not off. Consequently, when it comes to movies and television, the voices heard most often are those belonging to talent and corporate executives. Those we hear least are the voices of labor, and it's that silence we aim to redress in the collection of interviews in this book. Drawing from the detailed and personal accounts in this collection, we offer three interrelated propositions about the current state and future prospects of craftwork and screen media labor: 1. Craftwork exists within an intricate and intimate matrix of social relations. 2. Hollywood craftwork today constitutes a regime of excessive labor. 3. Screen media production is a protean entity. We organized the collection into three sections: company town, global machine, and fringe city. The first section refers to Hollywood's historic roots as a core component of the motion picture business. The second section engages more directly with the spatial dynamics of film and television production to underscore the economic and political structures that are integrating distant locations into the studios' mode of production. We close with a section on the visual effects sector, in which stories shared by vfx artists, advocates, and organizers specifically illustrate how the industry today relies on marginal institutions to sustain its power and profitability"--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Motion pictures are made, not mass produced, requiring a remarkable collection of skills, self-discipline, and sociality--all of which are sources of enormous pride among Hollywood's craft and creative workers. The interviews collected here showcase the ingenuity, enthusiasm, and aesthetic pleasures that attract people to careers in the film and television industries. They also reflect critically on changes in the workplace brought about by corporate conglomeration and globalization. Rather than offer publicity-friendly anecdotes by marquee celebrities, Voices of Labor presents off-screen observations about the everyday realities of Global Hollywood. Ranging across job categories--from showrunner to make-up artist to location manager--this collection features voices of labor from Los Angeles, Atlanta, Prague, and Vancouver. Together they show how seemingly abstract concepts like conglomeration, financialization, and globalization are crucial tools for understanding contemporary Hollywood and for reflecting more generally on changes and challenges in the screen media workplace and our culture at large. Despite such formidable concerns, what nevertheless shines through is a commitment to craftwork and collaboration that provides the means to imagine and instigate future alternatives for screen media labor.

From the Back Cover

"This remarkable collection of interviews with screen industry professionals--from costume designers to location managers--is essential reading for anyone interested in how Hollywood actually works. Voices of Labor is a unique account of the contemporary conditions, experiences, and organization of media workers and is an important contribution to media industry research."--Ramon Lobato, author of Shadow Economies of Cinema

"By listening carefully to their interlocutors, Michael Curtin and Kevin Sanson craft a powerful elegy for organized labor, demonstrating how critical theory is sung to the everyday rhythms of the workplace."--Vicki Mayer, author of Almost Hollywood, Nearly New Orleans: The Lure of the Local Film Economy

"Curtin and Sanson have assembled a star-studded cast of entertainment industry professionals with diverse talents, backgrounds, and perspectives. They tell a varied but consistent tale of the importance of organized labor and the challenges it faces when pitted against the forces of media consolidation and globalization, all set in that magical company town known as Hollywood."--Patric M. Verrone, writer and producer, former president, Writers Guild of America, West

Review Quotes

"In this volume, we find the off-screen workers talking with love and excitement about their craft, the skill taken to accomplish a task, and the precarious condition they now confront in Global Hollywood due to diffusion of labour. ...The book stands out for being an exercise in method--how extensive and in-depth field interviews can illuminate certain conceptual in­terests of screen studies."-- "Synoptique: An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies"

About the Author

Michael Curtin is Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Professor of Film and Media Studies and director of the Global Dynamics Initiative at University of California, Santa Barbara.

Kevin Sanson is a lecturer in the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology and managing editor of Media Industries.