Welcome to The Queue — your daily splurge of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re looking at a video essay that looks at the evolution of the home theater.
I think you can teach a very in-depth course of film history through the lens of home theater. In fact, if someone is already doing this, I’d be completely taken aback.
The story of how movies went from disposable diversions to something to collect, cherish, and transform themselves is intertwined with the history of the Western film industry. From commercial interests to film piracy, from the rental market to the Criterion Collection, the movement of films out of movie houses and into our living rooms is like the ebb and flow of Hollywood.
The following video essay details what could double for book chapters: an overview of each twist, turn, and seismic change in the evolution of the home theater. This video essay clearly focuses on the role of physical media in the evolution of home theater. But it’s hard not to let your mind wander to the undeclared disruptive elephant in the room: streaming. This video essay came out in 2013, the same year the first season of House of Cards hit Netflix, so a lot has changed since then…and the home theater story isn’t over.
Watch “The Evolution of Home Theater – Big Tech of the Small Screen”
Who made this?
This video essay on the evolution of the home theater was created by Filmmaker IQ, a YouTube channel spreading all kinds of film history and knowledge. His videos range from the highly technical (What to do if something is green in your green screen footage) to the thought-provoking (Are superhero movies destroying cinema?). Site creator and director John P. Hayes is our narrator. You can subscribe to Filmmaker IQ on YouTube here. And you can follow them on Twitter here.
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