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.


 

About Research Seminar and Workshop Series

 


School of Communication and Arts Research Seminar Series

The research seminar and workshop series occur each semester, each with a different topic and guest speaker from UQ or otherwise.

Friday, 16 August
12-1pm

Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the
SCA Writer's Studio
(Level 6, Michie)

Archives: A Knowledge Café on Ways of Knowing, Seeing, Being, and Accessing

A conversation hosted by Kate Newey, Bernadette Cochrane, Madelyn Coupe, and Hannah Mason

Friday, 23 August
12-1pm

Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at 09-738

Dispatches from Trump-World: Preppers, Climate Disasters and a Front Row Seat the 2024 Republican National Convention

Dr Tom Doig

Friday, 30August
12-1pm

Indigenising the Curriculum Pedagogy JamDr Amelia Barikin and Prof. Anna Johnston

Friday, 13 September
12-1pm

Assessment Security Pedagogy JamDr Amelia Barikin and Dr Maureen Engel

Friday, 20 September
12-1pm

Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the
SCA Writer's Studio
(Level 6, Michie)

Upside Down: Adaptation and Digital Affordances in Stranger Things

Dr Bernadette Cochrane

Friday, 11 October
12-1pm

Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at the
SCA Writer's Studio
(Level 6, Michie)

Linking research, teaching and engagement – the PEATLI project

A.Prof Elske van de Fliert

Friday, 25 October
1-2pm

Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in person at 09-738
(Level 7, Michie)

Dissonances: Aesthetic Beauty, Moral Beauty, and Deformity in Crimes of the Future (2022)

Dr Matthew Cipa

 

Venue

Online via Zoom and in-person at the SCA Writer's Studio (Level 6, Michie Building)