Hollywood Studios

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lev
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Motion Picture ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
The United States ◽  
Entertainment Industry ◽  
Natural Light ◽  
Gradual Change ◽  
American Film ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
American Film Industry

“Studio” and “Hollywood” are interestingly complex terms. “Studio” originally meant a room with abundant natural light. The first motion picture studios were large, glass-walled rooms designed for filming with natural light. The term “studio” expanded to refer to a motion picture production facility, and then it expanded again to mean a company that made motion pictures. By the late 1920s the best-known American studios were large, vertically integrated corporations that produced, distributed, and exhibited films: Paramount, MGM, Fox, Warner Bros., and RKO. Columbia, Universal, and United Artists were also considered major studios, though they owned few or no theaters, and there were smaller B-movie companies such as Monogram and Republic. “Hollywood” refers to a neighborhood north and west of downtown Los Angeles where a number of movie companies settled when they left the East Coast for California in the 1910s. This term has expanded in meaning as well; it now means all film production in the Los Angeles area, and even by synecdoche the entire American film industry. From about 1920 to 1950, film was the dominant entertainment industry in the United States, and the eight major studios firmly controlled this medium. The studios’ top executives, sometimes called “moguls” to emphasize their power, supervised thousands of employees and decided what films were made, how they were made, and how they were released. This is often called the “studio period,” or the “classic period,” or the “golden age of Hollywood.” After 1950 there was a gradual change to independent production as directors, producers, stars, and agents took over the creative aspects of filmmaking, with the studios mainly responsible for financing and distribution. Eventually, the Hollywood film studios expanded to other fields such as television, cable, music, home video, theme parks, and Internet, and they were bought or merged with larger corporations. The giant media conglomerates of the early 21st century (Disney, Time Warner, News Corp., Viacom, Comcast, and Sony) resemble the studios of old in their domination of the entertainment industry. This article will concentrate on the studio period, especially the economic and institutional histories of the eight major studios. However, since almost all of these companies still exist, and they are still called studios, some entries will discuss what happened to the American film industry and to the individual companies since the 1950s.

American Film from the Silent Era to the “Talkies”

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Kornhaber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Motion Picture ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Motion Pictures ◽  
The United States ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
American Film ◽  
American Film Industry ◽  
Silent Era

The first forty years of cinema in the United States, from the development and commercialization of modern motion picture technology in the mid-1890s to the full blossoming of sound-era Hollywood during the early 1930s, represents one of the most consequential periods in the history of the medium. It was a time of tremendous artistic and economic transformation, including but not limited to the storied transition from silent motion pictures to “the talkies” in the late 1920s. Though the nomenclature of the silent era implies a relatively unified period in film history, the years before the transition to sound saw a succession of important changes in film artistry and its means of production, and film historians generally regard the epoch as divided into at least three separate and largely distinct temporalities. During the period of early cinema, which lasted about a decade from the medium’s emergence in the mid-1890s through the middle years of the new century’s first decade, motion pictures existed primarily as a novelty amusement presented in vaudeville theatres and carnival fairgrounds. Film historians Tom Gunning and André Gaudreault have famously defined the aesthetic of this period as a “cinema of attractions,” in which the technology of recording and reproducing the world, along with the new ways in which it could frame, orient, and manipulate time and space, marked the primary concerns of the medium’s artists and spectators. A transitional period followed from around 1907 to the later 1910s when changes in the distribution model for motion pictures enabled the development of purpose-built exhibition halls and led to a marked increase in demand for the entertainment. On a formal and artistic level, the period saw a rise in the prominence of the story film and widespread experimentation with new techniques of cinematography and editing, many of which would become foundational to later cinematic style. The era also witnessed the introduction and growing prominence of feature-length filmmaking over narrative shorts. The production side was marked by intensifying competition between the original American motion picture studios based in and around New York City, several of which attempted to cement their influence by forming an oligopolistic trust, and a number of upstart “independent” West Coast studios located around Los Angeles. Both the artistic and production trends of the transitional period came to a head during the classical era that followed, when the visual experimentation of the previous years consolidated into the “classical style” favored by the major studios, and the competition between East Coast and West Coast studios resolved definitively in favor of the latter. This was the era of Hollywood’s ascendance over domestic filmmaking in the United States and its growing influence over worldwide film markets, due in part to the decimation of the European film industry during World War I. After nearly a decade of dominance, the Hollywood studio system was so refined that the advent of marketable synchronized sound technology around 1927 produced relatively few upheavals among the coterie of top studios. Rather, the American film industry managed to reorient itself around the production of talking motion pictures so swiftly that silent film production in the United States had effectively ceased at any appreciable scale by 1929. Artistically, the early years of “the talkies” proved challenging, as filmmakers struggled with the imperfections of early recording technology and the limitations they imposed on filmmaking practice. But filmgoing remained popular in the United States even during the depths of the Great Depression, and by the early 1930s a combination of improved technology and artistic adaptation led to such a marked increase in quality that many film historians regard the period to be the beginning of Hollywood’s Golden Era. With a new voluntary production code put in place to respond to criticism of immorality in Hollywood fare, the American film industry was poised by the early 1930s to solidify its prominent position in American cultural life.

1. Before Hollywood

2015 ◽  
pp. 5-18
Author(s):  
Peter Decherney
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Motion Picture ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
American Film ◽  
Movie Theaters ◽  
The Creation ◽  
American Film Industry

‘Before Hollywood’ describes how early film technology and storytelling methods developed out of older media. It begins with Thomas Edison’s Vitascope and the first dedicated movie theaters—nickelodeons—which began to appear around 1903. Around 1908–9, filmmaking and the film industry underwent a number of changes: established film companies started to court a middle-class audience in order to expand the industry’s reach; production companies made films based on novels and Broadway plays; and stories began to be told in new ways. The creation of the trust, Motion Picture Patents Company, in 1908 and the rise of independents saw a restructuring of the American film industry.

scholarly journals Insuring Hollywood: A Movie Returns Index and the American Stock Market

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 189
Author(s):  
Davide Lauria ◽  
Wyatt D. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
The United States ◽  
Venture Capitalists ◽  
American Film ◽  
Expected Return ◽  
Risk Return ◽  
The Media ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
American Film Industry

The aim of this paper is the definition of a daily index representing the risk-return on investments in the American film industry. The index should be used to predict the riskiness and the expected return of movie projects at the level of the overall industry and then to determine a premium for insurance for such an investment. Such an index can inform the decision making in relation to risk but also timing. Though not currently legal in the United States, such an index may be relevant at some point in the future or in other countries for film production companies as well as venture capitalists interested in investing in one or a slate of motion picture productions or more broadly in the holdings of a media conglomerate, an exhibition chain, or some other aspect of the media landscape.

American Film Industry in World War I Period

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (5) ◽  
pp. 52-68
Author(s):  
Filipp Kovtonyuk
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Film ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Film Market ◽  
American Film Industry

The paper deals with the history of economic development of the film industry in the United States during the First World War. The beginning of XX century seems to be a very special stage of cinema development, in particular from the point of the history of national economy, since exactly at this time took place a formation of the world film market, and cinema for the first time was used not only as a commodity but also as an instrument of mass propaganda. The purpose of article is to trace the development of the American film business and its key aspects in the early XX century and during the war, based on the analysis of the relevant literature. Film industry is considered as a system of production, distribution and exhibition of audiovisual products. This article contains the conclusions concerning the global expansion of the US film industry in a specified period. Also substantiated the fact that the middle 1900s became an extremely important period in the development of the American film industry, during which the basics of the classical Hollywood business model were established.

Muslims in Film and Muslim Filmmaking in the United States

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hussein Rashid
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Film ◽  
National Narrative ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
The Impact ◽  
American Film Industry ◽  
The Way

This article looks at the American film industry and its relationship to Muslims. It looks at the way films define Muslims, the ways in which Muslims use film to define themselves, the impact of Muslims in the film industry, and ultimately the way film is used to establish Muslims in the American national narrative. Because of the nature of the entertainment industry, reference is also made to television shows as bellwethers for filmic themes. Like all cultural production, film exists in a dialogic continuum, with meanings constantly in flux, so that for Muslims, belonging in America cannot be clearly defined. However, through participation, a narrative can be constructed that enables the integration of Muslims into the American story.

Blind Trust: Market Control, Legal Environments, and the Dynamics of Competitive Intensity in the Early American Film Industry, 1893–1920

2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Mezias ◽  
Elizabeth Boyle
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
American Film ◽  
Market Control ◽  
Early American ◽  
Short Films ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Trust Law ◽  
American Film Industry ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Mortality Analysis

This study of the emergence of the film industry in the U.S. between 1893 and 1920 contributes to the growing literature linking legal environments and population dynamics. This was an era characterized by a shift to active anti-trust policy, which manifested itself in legal action to disband a trust that had dominated the industry, the Motion Pictures Patents Corporation (MPPC). We use archival data to show that mortality was reduced by trust membership and increased with the market share of the trust members. The effects of litigation are varied, with litigation filed by trust members enhancing mortality and litigation filed against trust members decreasing mortality. Analysis of coded headlines from media reports on the emerging industry shows that a shift in the view of the trust in the normative environment toward a more negative view was also associated with decreased mortality. Results also show that learning and the compensatory fitness enjoyed before anti-trust law was enforced prevented the MPPC members from recognizing changes in the marketplace; as a result, they were less likely to move from making short films to making increasingly popular feature-length films.

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