Noshing With Andrew A. Erish – July 22, 2021

Ira's Everything Bagel

Author, Vitagraph, America’s First Great Motion Picture Studio

This week, Ira spoke with Andrew A. Erish, author of Vitagraph, America’s First Great Motion Picture Studio. In this celluloid episode of Ira’s Everything Bagel, Andrew talks about the two men responsible for creating Vitagraph, which became the leading producer of motion pictures for much of the silent era; how, despite Hollywood mythology, Vitagraph gave birth to the studio system; why the history of the studio was not widely known after it created many firsts in the motion picture industry; who renamed the factory into “the studio”; how and why Vitagraph moved west, first to Santa Monica, California, then inland; and the biggest surprise that he discovered about the studio.

Andrew is the author of Vitagraph: America’s First Great Motion Picture Studio, published this summer by the University Press of Kentucky. His first book, Col. William N. Selig, the Man Who Invented Hollywood, was published in 2012 by the University of Texas Press. He participated in the 2012 Oxford Literary Festival, co-hosted a program of Vitagraph films with Kevin Brownlow at London’s Cinema Museum in 2016, programmed Selig Polyscope movies for the 2012 Pordenone Silent Film Festival, and has served as lecturer and consultant for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills.

He received his bachelor’s degree in film production from New York University and earned a master’s degree in film studies at Chapman University. Andrew taught film history for several years at universities and colleges throughout Southern California, including, Chapman, Loyola Marymount, and Pepperdine.