Working Musicians: Labor and Creativity in Film and Television Production

Synopsis

In Working Musicians Timothy D. Taylor offers a behind-the-scenes look at the labor of the mostly unknown composers, music editors, orchestrators, recording engineers, and other workers involved in producing music for films, television, and video games. Drawing on dozens of interviews with music workers in Los Angeles, Taylor explores the nature of their work and how they understand their roles in the entertainment business. Taylor traces how these cultural laborers have adapted to and cope with the conditions of neoliberalism as, over the last decade, their working conditions have become increasingly precarious. Digital technologies have accelerated production timelines and changed how content is delivered, while new pay schemes have emerged that have transformed composers from artists into managers and paymasters. Taylor demonstrates that as bureaucratization and commercialization affect every aspect of media, the composers, musicians, music editors, engineers, and others whose soundtracks excite, inspire, and touch millions face the same structural economic challenges that have transformed American society, concentrating wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands.

Copyright:

2023

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9781478024446

Related ISBNs:

9781478017172, 9781478019879

Publisher:

Duke University Press

Date of Addition:

03/26/23

Copyrighted By:

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Entertainment, Nonfiction, Art and Architecture, Business and Finance, Social Studies, Music

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.