Crafts, Trades, and Techniques of Early Cinema, edited by Ian Christie, Priska Morrissey, Louis Pelletier, Valentine Robert, Jean-Pierre Sirois-Trahan, and Tami Williams, has been released by Michigan Publishing.
These proceedings of the 16th conference of Domitor includes 26 studies and numerous rarely seen figures dealing with the often overlooked history of the crafts, trades and techniques of early cinema. By examining material culture and the institutionalization of practices into trades during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this new investigation into the skills and the techniques that defined the cinema in its early decades aims to foster a better understanding of the medium in its varied industrial and professional aspects. The art and gestures of craftspersons—including performers, camera operators, editors, directors, designers, engineers, projectionists, programmers, and critics—, like those of the factory or laboratory workers, are considered for their emerging specificity, as well as in relation to existing cultural, material and technological forms. This book shows how the industrialization of cinema, the professionalization of workers, and the standardization of techniques led to the creation (or at times, subversion) of norms, and consequently legitimized certain skills, crafts and techniques at the expense of others.
