Veni, Vidi, Video: The Hollywood Empire and the VCR
by Frederick Wasser
University of Texas Press, 2002 eISBN: 978-0-292-79896-0 | Cloth: 978-0-292-79145-9 | Paper: 978-0-292-79146-6 Library of Congress Classification PN1992.935.W37 2001 Dewey Decimal Classification 384.558
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
A funny thing happened on the way to the movies. Instead of heading downtown to a first-run movie palace, or even to a suburban multiplex with the latest high-tech projection capabilities, many people's first stop is now the neighborhood video store. Indeed, video rentals and sales today generate more income than either theatrical releases or television reruns of movies.
This pathfinding book chronicles the rise of home video as a mass medium and the sweeping changes it has caused throughout the film industry since the mid-1970s. Frederick Wasser discusses Hollywood's initial hostility to home video, which studio heads feared would lead to piracy and declining revenues, and shows how, paradoxically, video revitalized the film industry with huge infusions of cash that financed blockbuster movies and massive marketing campaigns to promote them. He also tracks the fallout from the video revolution in everything from changes in film production values to accommodate the small screen to the rise of media conglomerates and the loss of the diversity once provided by smaller studios and independent distributors.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Frederick Wasser is Professor of Television and Radio at Brooklyn College. As a freelancer in the Hollywood film and television industry, he witnessed the rise of home video throughout its first decade.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Signs of the Time
The American Film Industry before Video
The American Film Industry and Video
The Political Economy of Distribution
Video and the Audience
Structure of the Study
Chapter 1: Film Distribution and Home Viewing before the VCR
A Brief Review of the Early Days of the Movie Industry
From Universal Audiences to Feature-Length Films
Movies at Home
Tiered Releasing
Broadcasting: The Other Entertainment Medium
Postwar Film Exhibition
Distributing Films to Smaller Audiences
Television Advertising and Jaws: Marketing the Shark Wide and Deep
Chapter 2: The Development of Video Recording
Broadcast Networks and Recording Technology
Television and Recording
Home Video 1: Playback-only Systems
Home Video 2: Japanese Recorder System Development
Veni, Vidi, Video: The Hollywood Empire and the VCR
by Frederick Wasser
University of Texas Press, 2002 eISBN: 978-0-292-79896-0 Cloth: 978-0-292-79145-9 Paper: 978-0-292-79146-6
A funny thing happened on the way to the movies. Instead of heading downtown to a first-run movie palace, or even to a suburban multiplex with the latest high-tech projection capabilities, many people's first stop is now the neighborhood video store. Indeed, video rentals and sales today generate more income than either theatrical releases or television reruns of movies.
This pathfinding book chronicles the rise of home video as a mass medium and the sweeping changes it has caused throughout the film industry since the mid-1970s. Frederick Wasser discusses Hollywood's initial hostility to home video, which studio heads feared would lead to piracy and declining revenues, and shows how, paradoxically, video revitalized the film industry with huge infusions of cash that financed blockbuster movies and massive marketing campaigns to promote them. He also tracks the fallout from the video revolution in everything from changes in film production values to accommodate the small screen to the rise of media conglomerates and the loss of the diversity once provided by smaller studios and independent distributors.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Frederick Wasser is Professor of Television and Radio at Brooklyn College. As a freelancer in the Hollywood film and television industry, he witnessed the rise of home video throughout its first decade.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Signs of the Time
The American Film Industry before Video
The American Film Industry and Video
The Political Economy of Distribution
Video and the Audience
Structure of the Study
Chapter 1: Film Distribution and Home Viewing before the VCR
A Brief Review of the Early Days of the Movie Industry
From Universal Audiences to Feature-Length Films
Movies at Home
Tiered Releasing
Broadcasting: The Other Entertainment Medium
Postwar Film Exhibition
Distributing Films to Smaller Audiences
Television Advertising and Jaws: Marketing the Shark Wide and Deep
Chapter 2: The Development of Video Recording
Broadcast Networks and Recording Technology
Television and Recording
Home Video 1: Playback-only Systems
Home Video 2: Japanese Recorder System Development