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 local 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. Frederick Wasser is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Central Connecticut State University. As a freelancer in the Hollywood film and television industry, he witnessed the rise of home video throughout its first decade.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Few acronyms are more universally known than that of the VCR. Not so long ago, this now-ubiquitous device generated outright perplexity, but by 1994, argues Wasser (communications, Central Connecticut State Univ.), it met both audience and industry needs. Home audiences could tape programs for later viewing, studios could market their films via inexpensive cassettes, and video stores could rent them out. Wasser provides the historical background necessary to understand fully the sociological and technological saga of the home video. He begins with a discussion of the development of radio, film, and television and progresses through the invention of magnetic tape and a general decrease in leisure time. He further discusses copyright litigation, the impact of pornography on the growth of the videocassette market, the decline of independent studios, the rise of multiplex theaters, and more. This thorough history of the increasingly reformatted film medium includes charts and illustrations, such as ads for Betamax and early films available on videocassette. A vital contribution to film and culture studies. Kim Holston, American Inst. for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, Malvern, PA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Review
"This book represents a real addition to our shared knowledge of video, film, and media history, and I have no doubt that it will receive much acclaim. There is no [other] comprehensive history of the video industry, and Wasser's book offers just this in a clear and very useful manner." Justin Wyatt, author of High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood
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