Formatting Film Studies. Issue 1 (1st May 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wasson, Haidee
• Is Part Of: Film studies. Volume 12:Issue 1(2015)
• Page Start: 57
• Page End: 61
• Publication Date: 2015-05-01
• Subjects: Motion pictures -- History -- Periodicals; Motion pictures -- Periodicals; 791.43
• DOI: 10.7227/FS.12.0007
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1469-0314

Abstract

Abstract : Film studies is currently undergoing a needed and healthy expansion of methodologies and critical approaches, including media, cultural and technology studies. This is crucial not just for examining cinema's present but also its past. Using 'format theory', this article opens up our understanding of what cinema has been, rather than what it should have been. It does this by documenting the minor technological footprint of movie theatres when compared to the expansive one consisting of 8mm and 16mm small-gauge projectors. In the United States by 1980, these portable devices outnumbered commercial theatres by an estimated factor of 1000:1.