Introduction
Philadelphia played an important role in the emergence of film culture: Eadweard Muybridge conducted his famous motion experiments at the University of Pennsylvania; Siegmund Lubin rivaled Thomas Edison in the invention of motion picture equipment and film production; and The Colored Players Film Corporation produced one of the most important extant race movies, Scar of Shame (1929).
The story of these early decades is told in the documentary Before Hollywood: Philadelphia and the Birth of the Movies (Andrew Ferrett, 2017). Classical Hollywood films like The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940) left indelible images of the city's upper-class suburbs and network sitcoms like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005-present) of the city's working class neighborhoods. Community-based media has a long history in the city, exemplified by The Bombing of Osage Avenue, in which Scribe video founder and director Louis Massiah drew on local coverage of investigations into the infamous police bombing of MOVE headquarters in 1985 to produce a counter narrative to the news. Today, the Rocky statue at the foot of the Philadelphia Art Museum is one of the city's major attractions, and successful filmmakers and showrunners from the region, including M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense), Lee Daniels (Empire), Brad Inglesby (Mare of Easttown) and Quinta Brunson (Abbott Elementary) bring production and publicity to the greater Philadelphia area.
Here you can find links to our class's video essays on key Philly films, descriptions of some of our favorite Philadelphia-based shows, and accounts of our placements (internships) at various Philadelphia- based media organizations, film festivals, and publications. Follow the links below to the major sections of the project--when you come to the end of a section, use the Table of Contents in the top left to navigate to the next one. Feel free to comment!
