Petrocinema: Sponsored Film and the Oil Industry

Description

Petrocinema presents a collection of essays concerning the close relationship between the oil industry and modern media—especially film. Since the early 1920s, oil extracting companies such as Standard Oil, Royal Dutch/Shell, ConocoPhillips, or Statoil have been producing and circulating moving images for various purposes including research and training, safety, process observation, or promotion. Such industrial and sponsored films include documentaries, educationals, and commercials that formed part of a larger cultural project to transform the image of oil exploitation, creating media interfaces that would allow corporations to coordinate their goals with broader cultural and societal concerns. Falling outside of the domain of conventional cinema, such films firmly belong to an emerging canon of sponsored and educational film and media that has developed over the past decade. Contributing to this burgeoning field of sponsored and educational film scholarship, chapters in this book bear on the intersecting cultural histories of oil extraction and media history by looking closely at moving image imaginaries of the oil industry, from the earliest origins or “spills” in the 20th century to today’s post industrial “petromelancholia.” Title Page Copyright Page Contents Figures Acknowledgments Introduction A.R.T., or a Heuristics for Analysis About the Chapters Notes Part 1: Oil Rhetoric Chapter 1: Oil Media Archives Navigating Oil Archives Archiving Oil Media The Oil Media Archive and Its Limits Conclusion: Oil Histories and Energy Futures Notes Chapter 2: “All the Earmarks of Propaganda”: Teapot Dome, The World Struggle for Oil, and Defining Corporate Rhetoric Of Oil, the Interior, and Teapot Dome Industrial/Educational Films Inside and Outside of the Government Production and Release Controversy Over The World Struggle for Oil Conclusion Notes Chapter 3: Shell-BP: A Dialogue Prologue: Hidden Power Act One: Distant Neighbors Act Two: Cast in a New Mold Epilogue: Power in Perspective Notes Part 2: Advertisements and Sponsorship Chapter 4: On the Road with Mickey and Donald: Walt Disney, Standard Oil, and the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939 “A Literature and a Litigation” “The Great West Is Now in Readiness” “Devoted Workers and Millions of Friends”: Collaborating with Disney The Standard Parade of 1939 “Let’s Make Some Advertisements” The Travel Tykes “See Standard First” The Race to Treasure Island “An Exotic Chow-Chow” Notes Chapter 5: Petroleum and Hollywood Stardom: Making Way for Oil Consumption through Visual Culture Petroculture and the Restless Age Hollywood Glamour and Oil Marketing Conclusion Notes Chapter 6: The American Petroleum Institute: Sponsored Motion Pictures in the Service of Public Relations The American Petroleum Institute and the US Bureau of Mines Oil for Victory The Oil Industry Information Committee: Oil Progress Week The Last Ten Feet Style and Genre in the Public Relations Film Conclusion Notes Chapter 7: Industrial Film and the Politics of Visibility in the Early Years of North Sea Oil French Petrocinema Mythmaking on the High Seas Filming Frigg Media Strategy and the Image of Risk Notes Part 3: Transformation of Oil Politics Chapter 8: “In India’s Life and Part of It”: Film and Visual Publicity at Burmah-Shell from the 1920s to the 1950s Oil in South Asia Promoting Consumption: Economies, Aesthetics, Archives Print Publicity Film Publicity Sponsored Film and Film Companies The Affective Fforce of Objects: Burmah-Shell’s Tins Notes Chapter 9: Creating Partners in Progress: Shell Communicating Oil during Nigeria’s Independence The Shell Film Unit Filming Oil Working for the Oil Industry Voices and Music Versions and Release Conclusion Notes Chapter 10: “Fueling Apartheid”: Documentary Film in the Service of Apartheid Production Contexts South Africa’s Life Line and the Threat of Economic Sanctions The Film “On Course” with Caltex Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Contributors Index