Description: Conceptualizing production studies from a European perspective, the book evaluates the history of European thought on production: theories of practice, the languages, grammars, and poetics of film, practical theories of production systems such as film dramaturgy, and the self-theorizing of European auteurs and professionals.
Review Quotes:
'A multi-national European contribution to the research of production studies is a welcome addition to the literature in this growing subfield, and Petr Szczepanik and Patrick Vonderau are just the two to bring it to fruition.' - Jennifer Holt, Associate Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
"Behind the Screen explores the complex plays of power and imagination that shape the production of European film and television. Ranging widely, the authors provide revealing case examples of the diverse contexts in which screen media are conceived and produced. Shrewdly observant and conceptually sophisticated, these essays engage brilliantly with enduring debates about creative labor and cultural authority in modern societies." - Michael Curtin, Mellichamp Professor of Global Media Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
"As cinema studies develops beyond obsessions with meaning and viewing, it is finally returning to the world of work - how are pictures made? This groundbreaking volume is a major contribution to a welcome tendency." - Toby Miller, University of California, Riverside, USA