Research Seminar - A Wrench in the Works of the Dream Factory: Special/Visual Effects in the Hollywood Studio Era, 1915-1965

A Wrench in the Works of the Dream Factory: Special/Visual Effects in the Hollywood Studio Era, 1915-1965

Presented by: Prof Julie Turnock

Date: Friday 12 April 2024
Time: 12:00-1:00pm
Location: Online via Zoom and in-person at the SCA Writer's Studio (Level 6, Michie Building)

Abstract

This seminar will feature material from my current work in progress, regarding the historical  realist aesthetics and labor history of the midcentury Hollywood studios. Accounting for the differences among the various studios and other production entities of the era (although with an emphasis on RKO), I offer an historical account of this formative moment in American media history that argues that the unpredictability and variability of effects work are wrenches thrown into the “Dream Factory” works. Moreover, the project presents a polemic for considering the “specialness” of effects work not from the point of view of the film but from the position of the specially contracted labor.

Presenter

Julie A. Turnock is Professor of Media and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Plastic Reality: Special Effects, Technology, and the Emergence of 1970s Blockbuster Aesthetics.