Brandon R. Green

Brandon Robert Green

Brandon Robert Green’s dissertation explores the people, products and practices that sustain Hollywood’s self-help culture since the late 1990s, roughly the period when digital media technologies have transformed Hollywood’s labor and economic conditions. By examining objects both digital and analog — including online educational resources, mobile and desktop applications and self-help publications — this project studies how self-help discourses in and around Hollywood incorporate digital technologies and technoculture into artistic practice through new modes and ideologies of professional development. This project focuses on objects that offer utilities or sources of advice for those aspiring to write, direct, or produce popular media, but the stakes of this investigation extend beyond the entertainment industries. Symptomatic readings of creative self-help culture illuminate how its various forms and functions suggest the influence of the “digital revolution” on notions of art, imagination and success, Hollywood’s working conditions, and ideologies of creativity in contemporary society.

Research Interests

Digital media studies, media industry studies, work sociology

Education

B.A., Radio, TV and Film, Northwestern University, 2015
M.A. Film and Television, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, 2017

Presentation

“How to Win Fans and Influence Pupils: Branding and Self-Help on Masterclass.com,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Seattle, WA (2019).