Though often thought about as pure entertainment, film and television are the products of industrial processes and labor with significant environmental implications. Since the early 2000s, Hollywood has grappled with sustainability and made modest gains but also faced new challenges including globetrotting production practices and the industry’s turn to energy hungry digital distribution models. This presentation discusses the film business’s much longer history of resource dependency and efforts to achieve efficiency. As media industries look to balance climate and economic realities, what lessons can we learn from the past?
Featured Speaker:
Dr. Brian R. Jacobson, Caltech
Professor of Visual Culture
Brian Jacobson is a historian of modern visual culture and media and their intersections with histories of science and technology. His research focuses on world making and the creation of artificial environments, from media architecture and visual representation to energy infrastructure, climate control, and terraforming.
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