Synopses & Reviews
"This is an extremely valuable contribution to the history of Hollywood and draws on the moment when a form of disorganized, post-Fordist capitalism came to characterize the industry, thanks to agents and stars breaking away from studio power. A landmark volume."and#151;Toby Miller, author of
Global Hollywood 2and#147;The demeaned and derided figure of the Hollywood agent gets his rightful screen credit in Thomas Kemper's Hidden Talent, an absorbing history of the hustlers, middlemen, and deal-makers who greased the wheels of the star-making machinery in Hollywood's Golden Age. In Kemper's fascinating account, the agent comes off less as Budd Schulberg's Sammy Glick than F. Scott Fitzgerald's Monroe Stahr: a cagey player who apprehended 'the whole equation' of filmmakingand#151;nurturing nobodies into superstars, nursing projects to completion, and, for better and worse, setting the pattern for the way Hollywood does business today. And all for just ten percent off the top.and#8221;and#151;Thomas Doherty, author of Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration
"Tom Kemper's Hidden Talent makes a valuable contribution to the history of the motion picture industry. At a time when studios were closely held entities, the representative class emerged on the scene with great energy, skill, and bravado. Kemper's well-considered discussion of Myron Selznick and Charles Feldman wisely foretells the rise of the modern full service agency. This is a mandatory text for any serious student or practitioner in the film industry."and#151;Jeff Berg, Chairman, International Creative Management
Review
and#8220;[An] original and deeply researched study.and#8221;
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and#8220;Kemperand#8217;s work [is] both groundbreaking and valuable. . . . I learned something new in every chapter. Hidden Talent is a fascinating chronicle of the business side of Hollywood.and#8221;
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and#8220;Has there ever been a biographical film entirely about a Hollywood agent? Probably not. Still, some of the figures in Tom Kemper's new book would make lively subjects.and#8221;
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and#8220;An important new perspective on the dynamics of production in the studio era.and#8221;
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and#8220;Well presented and refreshing. . . . Highly recommended.and#8221;
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and#8220;Kemperand#8217;s witty, engaging prose and skill as a storyteller make the book accessible to a wide audience.and#8221;
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and#8220;Rises impressively to the challenge of examining film and television throughout greater China in all its complexity.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;[A] compelling new study . . . . with entertaining anecdotes about government censors, Canto-pop stars, dodgy dot-com billionaires, and triad stand-over men sprinkled throughout . . . . [An] important work indeed-ambitious and interdisciplinary in scope, and a great read to boot.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Anyone wanting a comprehensive survey of recent and emerging developments in the television systems of Chinese-speaking territories . . . should read this book at the earliest opportunity.and#8221;
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and#8220;Based on solid historical material and extensive interviews, this book provides readers with a panoramic analysis of the Chinese film and TV industryand#8230; [It features] a rare combination of market and cultural analysis.and#8221;
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and#8220;An important work that successfully integrates film and television studies across the Diaspora reach of the and#8216;global China marketand#8217;.and#8221;
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and#8220;Provides both history and contemporary analysis. . . . Playing to the Worldand#8217;s Biggest Audience will attract scholars and business people wanting to understand the dynamics of Asian media.and#8221;
Synopsis
Hollywood Vault is the story of how the business of film libraries emerged and evolved, spanning the silent era to the sale of feature libraries to television. Eric Hoyt argues that film libraries became valuable not because of the introduction of new technologies but because of the emergence and growth of new markets, and suggests that studying the history of film libraries leads to insights about their role in the contemporary digital marketplace.
The history begins in the mid-1910s, when the star system and other developments enabled a market for old films that featured current stars. After the transition to films with sound, the reissue market declined but the studios used their libraries for the production of remakes and other derivatives. The turning point in the history of studio libraries occurred during the mid to late 1940s, when changes in American culture and an industry-wide recession convinced the studios to employ their libraries as profit centers through the use of theatrical reissues. In the 1950s, intermediary distributors used the growing market of television to harness libraries aggressively as foundations for cross-media expansion, a trend that continues today. By the late 1960s, the television marketplace and the exploitation of film libraries became so lucrative that they prompted conglomerates to acquire the studios.
The first book to discuss film libraries as an important and often underestimated part of Hollywood history, Hollywood Vault presents a fascinating trajectory that incorporates cultural, legal, and industrial history.
Synopsis
"Many people are busy trying to figure out the value of film libraries online. Eric Hoyt approaches the question by looking at the earliest decades of the American film industry. In the process, he gives us a new framework for thinking about studio libraries and film historiography. Rather than provide a linear history of technological development, this deeply researched story charts the ups and downs of film libraries as they were subjected to legal, economic, and larger market forces. This is both a groundbreaking historical study and a map for future research." and#151;Peter Decherney, author of
Hollywoodand#8217;s Copyright Wars: from Edison to the Internet "We now take for granted that the 'aftermarket' for movies is far more important commercially, and perhaps even culturally, than theatrical releaseand#151;that the and#147;long tailand#8221; of TV and home video and digital streaming now wags the dog. In this groundbreaking book, Eric Hoyt provides us with an incisive, in-depth, and invaluable backstory to this crucial industry development, explaining how and why the studio vaults of seemingly worthless old movies steadily transformed into libraries of untold worth."
and#151;Thomas Schatz, author of Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s
Synopsis
Katharine Hepburn, John Wayne, Lauren Bacalland#151;behind each of these stars was a hidden force: the talent agent. In this first-ever history of Hollywood agents, Tom Kemper mines agency archives to present an insider's view on their tooth-and-claw rise to power during the studio era. It's a tale of ambitious characters, savvy calculation, muckraking, financial ruin, and ultimate triumph, and establishes the agent's vital role in the Hollywood business world. Existing studies characterize agents as a product of the 1950s, but Kemper revises the record to show how agents emerged from the primordial film industry during the late 1920s and carved themselves a permanent niche. Through case studies of key figures like Myron Selznick and Charles Feldman, we see that the agent's character and social relationships functioned within a business structureand#151;a good reputation and powerful connections were his most precious assets. With wit and precision, Kemper locates Hollywood agents at the crossroads of talent and profit, and captures their central and enduring role in the burgeoning film industry.
Synopsis
Completing the landmark, award-winning, ten-volume series on the first century of American film, The Fifties covers a particularly tumultuous period. Peter Lev explores the divorce of movie studios from their theater chains; the panic of the blacklist era; the explosive emergence of science fiction as the dominant genre (The Thing, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, War of the Worlds); the rise of television and Hollywood's response to the new medium, as seen in widescreen spectacles (The Robe, The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur) and mature Westerns (High Noon, Shane, The Searchers). The richly detailed text elucidates a number of emerging trends as Hollywood, with its familiar stars and genres, reached out as an industry to the newly acknowledged and#147;teenageand#8221; generation with rock and roll films, and movies as diverse as Rebel Without a Cause and Gidget.
Synopsis
In this provocative analysis of screen industries in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, Michael Curtin delineates the globalizing pressures and opportunities that since the 1980s have dramatically transformed the terrain of Chinese film and television, including the end of the cold war, the rise of the World Trade Organization, the escalation of democracy movements, and the emergence of an East Asian youth culture. Reaching beyond national frameworks, Curtin examines the prospect of a global Chinese audience that will include more viewers than in the United States and Europe combined. He draws on in-depth interviews with a diverse array of media executives plus a wealth of historical material to argue that this vast and increasingly wealthy market is likely to shake the very foundations of Hollywoodand#8217;s century-long hegemony.
Playing to the Worldand#8217;s Biggest Audience profiles the leading Chinese commercial studios and telecasters, and delves into the operations of Western conglomerates extending their reach into Asia. Advancing a dynamic and integrative theory of media capital, this innovative book explains the histories and strategies of screen enterprises that aim to become central players in the Global China market and offers an alternative perspective to recent debates about cultural globalization.
Synopsis
"Professor Curtin has woven solid research and interesting tales into a compelling analysis of cultural geography that will make an important contribution to the literature of international communication."and#151;Chin-Chuan Lee, City University of Hong Kong
"In this timely and fascinating examination of the screen industries of 'Global China', Michael Curtin draws on in-depth interviews with key industry players to provide, for the first time, a comprehensive analysis of the extraordinary rise of film and television industries across Chinese-speaking Asia. In so doing he provides a compelling account of how these media industries represent a powerful alternative path of media globalization to that of the West. This will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the dynamics and complexities of globalized media production. But more than this, his deployment of the concept of 'media capital' and his stress on the particularities of culture, creativity and location offer important political-economic and institutional underpinnings for a more rigorous approach to understanding wider patterns of cultural globalization."and#151;John Tomlinson, author of Globalization and Culture
"This is one of the best books I've encountered. Curtin's scholarship is superior and his approach is highly innovative. Playing to World's Largest Audience is a pioneering work in understanding globalization and Chinese media. It will have major impact in numerous fields."and#151;Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, author of Taiwan Film Directors and East Asian Screen Industries
About the Author
Eric Hoyt is Assistant Professor of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-director of the Media History Digital Library. He designed, developed, and produced the MHDLand#8217;s search and visualization platform, Lantern, which received the 2014 Anne Friedberg Innovative Scholarship Award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Media Capital in Chinese Film and Television
1. The Pan-Chinese Studio System and Capitalist Paternalism
2. Independent Studios and the Golden Age of Hong Kong Cinema
3. Hyperproduction Erodes Overseas Circulation
4. Hollywood Takes Charge in Taiwan
5. The Globalization of Hong Kong Television
6. Strange Bedfellows in Cross-Strait Drama Production
7. Market Niches and Expanding Aspirations in Taiwan
8. Singapore: From State Paternalism to Regional Media Hub
9. Reterritorializing Star TV in the PRC
10. Globe Satellites Pursuing Local Audiences and Panregional Efficiencies
11. The Promise of Broadband and the Problem of Content
12. From Movies to Multimedia: Connecting Infrastructure and Content
Conclusion: Structural Adjustment and the Future of Chinese Media
Industry Interviews
Notes
Bibliography
Index