Amateur film has been seen as the junkheap of private culture. Yet music videos recycle home movies as authenticity; commercials copy its style to sell intimacy; documentaries use it to recount history "from below."
Reel Families is the first historical study of amateur film, the most pervasive of media. Patricia Zimmerman charts the history of this medium from 1897 to the present, examining how ideological, technical, and social constraints have stunted amateur film's potential for extending media production beyond corporate monopolies and into the hands of everyday people. She draws on an array of sources camera manufacturers, patents, early film and photography technology journals, amateur filmmaking magazines, professional magazines, and family-oriented popular magazines to investigate how the concept of amateur film was transformed within evolving contexts of technology, aesthetics, social relations, and politics.
Amateur film has been seen as the junkheap of private culture. Yet music videos recycle home movies as authenticity; commercials copy its style to sell intimacy; documentaries use it to recount history "from below."
Reel Families is the first historical study of amateur film, the most pervasive of media. Patricia Zimmerman charts the history of this medium from 1897 to the present, examining how ideological, technical, and social constraints have stunted amateur film's potential for extending media production beyond corporate monopolies and into the hands of everyday people. She draws on an array of sources camera manufacturers, patents, early film and photography technology journals, amateur filmmaking magazines, professional magazines, and family-oriented popular magazines to investigate how the concept of amateur film was transformed within evolving contexts of technology, aesthetics, social relations, and politics.
Imprint | Indiana University Press |
Country of origin | United States |
Release date | May 2014 |
Availability | We don't currently have any sources for this product. If you add this item to your wish list we will let you know when it becomes available. |
Authors | Patricia Rodden Zimmermann |
Format | Electronic book text |
Pages | 177 |
ISBN-13 | 978-0-585-00069-5 |
Barcode | 9780585000695 |
Categories | |
LSN | 0-585-00069-7 |