The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies, 7 Volume Set

20

Hollywood Elsewhere

The Runaway Locations Industry and Transnational Production Cultures

Serra Tinic

ABSTRACT

In an era of rapid media globalization, transnational production practices have been transformed to the extent that Hollywood, both as a metaphorical state of mind and as a literal mode of cultural production. This chapter examines the cultural and economic debates surrounding the runaway productions through a case study of Vancouver, British Columbia – a city that has been dubbed “Hollywood North” and is now considered the model upon which other international cities attempt to build their own service industries to attract and accommodate US television and film productions. Drawing upon my previous fieldwork within the Vancouver television production community (Tinic, 2005), I argue for a reconsideration of the ways in which we study media production to better address the local, regional, and global reconfigurations of space and culture that accompany the economic dimensions of the international locations industries.

In one of the first ethnographic studies of the US motion picture industry, Hortense Powdermaker (1950, p. 23) stated: “Hollywood itself is not an exact geographical area, although there is such a postal district. It has commonly been described as a state of mind, and it exists wherever people connected with the movies live and work.” Sixty years later, the rapid pace of media globalization has transformed transnational production practices to the extent ...