In Hollywood's search for cheap, distinctive, and authentic locations, producers and directors are taking their business to foreign soil. Only one of the five 2002 Best Picture nominees was shot in the United States_The Hours, filmed in Hollywood, Florida. Contracting Out Hollywood addresses the American trend of 'runaway productions'_the growing practice of producing American films and television programs on foreign shores. Greg Elmer and Mike Gasher have gathered a group of contributors who seek to explain the phenomenon from historical, political, economic, and cultural perspectives, using case studies, challenges to contemporary screen, media, and globalization theories, and analyses of changing government politics toward cultural industries.

Greg Elmer is the Bell Globemedia Research Chair of the Rogers Communications Centre/School of Radio-TV Arts at Ryerson University, Toronto. Mike Gasher is associate professor in the Department of Journalism at Concordia University, Montreal.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Catching up to Runaway ProductionsChapter 2Chapter I: Contemporary Televisual Production: Markets and StudiosChapter 3 1 Divide and Conquer: Regional Competition in a Concentrated Media IndustryChapter 4 2 The Policy Environment of the Contemporary Film StudioChapter 5Chapter II: Digital Displacement: Animating Post-ProductionChapter 6 3 OffShore Pot o'Gold: The Political Economy of the Australian Film IndustryChapter 7 4 Hollywood's Effects, Bollywood FXChapter 8Chapter III: International Cities, Spaces, and AudiencesChapter 9 5 Projecting Placelessness: Industrial Television and the Authentic Canadian CityChapter 10 6 The Ice Storm: Ang Lee, Cosmopolitanism, and the Global AudienceChapter 11 7 World-Class Budgets and Big-Name Casts: The Miniseries and International Coproductions