Inventing The Movies: Hollywood's Epic Battle Between Innovation And The Status Quo, From Thomas Edison To Steve Jobs

by Scott Kirsner

From Edison to the iPod, from the Warner Brothers to George Lucas, the story of how the movies became America's favorite form of escapist entertainment - and retained their hold on our imaginations for more than a century - is a story of innovators prevailing again and again over skeptics who prefer to preserve the status quo. Inventing the Movies unspools the never-before-told story of the innovators who shaped how a chance meeting at the Saratoga Race Track led to the end of black-and-white movies ... how Bing Crosby brought you the VCR ... how Walt Disney tamed television ... how a shotgun blast signaled the end of hand-made models and the beginning of digital special effects ... and how even the almighty Morgan Freeman had trouble persuading theater-owners that the Internet wasn't their mortal enemy. Inventing the Movies is an important read not just for fans of Hollywood's history, but for innovators trying to make change happen in any industry.

218 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2008

About the author

Scott Kirsner is a journalist and author who writes about innovation. He writes regularly for Variety and The Boston Globe, and has been a contributing writer for Fast Company and Wired. He edits the blog CinemaTech, and is the author of Inventing the Movies, a technological history of Hollywood, and The Future of Web Video, a guide to the opportunities of Internet-delivered video content. Scotts writing has also appeared in the New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Salon, BusinessWeek, the San Jose Mercury News, and Newsweek, among other publications. Scott is a frequent moderator, speaker, and event host, and is also one of the founders of the annual Nantucket Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Future Forward: The New England Technology Summit. He is a graduate of Boston Universitys College of Communications and the New World School of the Arts, in Miami. He can be reached at kirsner@pobox.com."

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kirsner is a terrific reporter, taking as his subject the yin-yang relationship between Hollywood and the technologies that have made it such a powerhouse industry. From its very earliest days of Nickelodeons, the movie business has been defined by new technologies that disrupted the status quo. New players have routinely overturned the incumbent rulers, whether it be in production, distribution, story formats, and much more. Kirsner tells the earlier tales with reference to many sources. As his narrative moves into the contemporary era, he relies upon primary sources, mostly interviews he conducted himself with the principals, and at events he covered as a reporter. If you have even the faintest interest in how Hollywood processes technological change, this book is a must.