Book Review: Climate Change and Journalism: Negotiating Rifts of Time, by by Henrik Bødker and Hanna E. Morris (Eds.)

was created by the motion picture industry’s desire for creativity in camera operation and film developing processes, such as purposely underor overexposing a shot for artistic effect. Such deviations were anathema to engineers concerned only with achieving “optimal” scientific results. “While the engineers strove for a standardized and perfected product,” Marzola notes, “the technicians needed a range of possibilities for differing creative effects” (p. 127). The second half of Engineering Hollywood focuses on major innovations of the late 1920s—most notably incandescent lighting and the introduction of sound—that initially created further upheaval but eventually allowed technicians to cement their centrality to the industry. In 1928, the trade groups organized a series of incandescent lighting tests that Marzola contends were more designed to build and nurture relationships within the industry than to achieve scientific results. In that regard, she says, the tests were a success and prepared the industry to deal with the much more contentious issue of sound. Although cinematographers initially saw sound engineers as a threat to their autonomy and supremacy, AMPAS was eventually able to ameliorate problems by establishing a sound fundamentals school and a producers-technicians committee that helped achieve smoother integration of technologies across the industry. “The bureaucratic and organizational structure established in 1928-30 for managing motion picture technology remained in place through the next two decades—the golden age of the Hollywood studios—and contributed to its stability and efficiency,” Marzola argues (p. 196). Engineering Hollywood is meticulously researched, well written and richly footnoted. It is clear that Marzola is well versed in Hollywood history and is sympathetic to the technicians and organizations that she says helped Hollywood enter its golden age. She has written an engaging book that makes a convincing argument for repositioning the lens through which we understand the history of the motion picture industry in America.