Over the past year, our viewing consumption habits have changed a lot. We spent months indoors streaming everything — including new release films — largely through new media platforms like Netflix and Disney Plus. These new production models have drastically changed box office results, profit models, and production budgets that reverberate across the industry — affecting every member of film crews so profoundly that the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) is voting this week to potentially authorize the first industry-wide strike in the history of cinema. For this week's episode Monica, Hannah and Katya are joined by labor historian Sean O'Brien and LA-based costume designer Elissa Alcala to discuss the terms and implications of the potential IATSE strike, the often invisible labor behind film and television production, and the...
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e181. Entertainment and Other Unions — IATSE Solidarity
Over the past year, our viewing consumption habits have changed a lot. We spent months indoors streaming everything — including new release films — largely through new media platforms like Netflix and Disney Plus. These new production models have drastically changed box office results, profit models, and production budgets that reverberate across the industry —…
e180. So, You Say You Wanna Host a Pseudoacademic Pop Culture Analysis Podcast (with Drinking and Swearing)
Oddly enough, for a show that is devoted to talking about pop culture, one of the things we don’t talk about so much is podcasts. In a way, podcasting might very well be the epitome of pop culture in the current cultural moment… and also… we are one! So, on today’s very special meta episode,…
Call For Comments: Let’s Talk About Film Unions
From Monica: When a movie ends, do you stay for the credits? Not the cutscene at the end, Marvel. But do you actually read the scroll of names that represent the hundreds of people who worked to bring that project to theaters? Or, if you tuned in at home, the nature of television flow means…
Call For Comments: All of the Marvels
From Wayne: As a comics retailer for twenty-three years, one of the questions I was asked most frequently by new readers of Marvel Comics was, ‟Where do I begin?” It’s a fair question. With decades of history, thousands of characters, and tens of thousands of pages of intertwined stories and continuity it can be more…
e178. Pop History vs. Public History
How do we learn history? The easy answer is to say we learn it from history books, but is that true? How many of us ever read a history book after 10th grade? It’s more likely that we get the majority of our history either from museums or from historic entertainment… things like Hamilton… or,…
CFC: Improv in the Living Room
From Mav: Way back in April — which granted, wasn’t actually that long ago, but in the world of COVID, feels like a lifetime — we did a show about how stand-up comedy works in a world where everyone’s socialization is socially distant. Since that time, the world got a little better and then a…
e175. Game Studies: Ludology vs. Narratology
We don’t talk about games as much as we should on this show, but arguably they’re one of the most enduring mediums of popular culture. They’re certainly one of the most popular. There’s much comparison of modern video games to movies. This makes sense… if we want people to consider games to be a legitimate…