What does oil have to do with making movies? On March 26, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. PDT in Caltech's Beckman Auditorium, Brian Jacobson, professor of visual culture, will discuss how Hollywood grew up alongside the oil industry in Los Angeles and how the extractive industries used films to influence how people thought about our world. In a public talk called "How Technology Shaped the Movies (and How Movies Shaped Technology)," Jacobson will explore how early cinema technologies required materials—