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‡ History and Development of film industry and films as a

medium
‡ Cultural value of film and the implications of
blockbuster mentality
‡ Production-distribution and exhibition
‡ How film industry shapes film content

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Ä



 
 

‡ The Early Entrepreneurs

± Mid-1800s: Eadweard Muybridge invented the
r

 ‰machine for projecting slides onto
a distant surface
‡
  ‰images our eyes gather
are retained in the brain for about 1/24th of a
second.
‡ Photographic frames move at 24 frames a second
and people perceive them as being in motion

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Ä



 
 

± 1816: Process of photography first developed

by French inventor Joseph Nicépce
‡ Thomas Edison¶s top scientist, William Dickson,
developed the º 
 which took 40
photographs a second.
± 1839: Louis Dabuerre, introduced the
 
‰process of recording images
on polished metal plates

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Ä



 
 

‡ 1839: British inventor William Henry Fox Talbot

introduced  
‰used translucent paper (the
negative) from which several prints could be made
± Thomas Edison built first motion picture studio in
New Jersey
± Films run through a º 
‰sort of peep show
device

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‡ 1895: Lumiére Brothers patented  
‰

photographed and projected action

‡ April 23, 1896: American movie business born when

Edison¶s Vitascope premiered in New York City

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݀ 
 


‡ ÷   

± 1902: Frenchman Georges Méliès released ›
 

 
 a narrative motion picture that told a story.
± 1903: Edwin W. Porter¶s
  
 

used  ‰tying together two separate but
related shots in such a way that they took on new,
unified meaning‰to create an instant hit

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÷   

m º   opened across the US

m     ±production companies were started

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Ä



 
 

± 1915: Writer, actor, and cameraman D. W. Griffith

released
    

‡ NAACP unsuccessfully fought the film in court and on

the picket line.
‡ Lincoln Motion Picture Company and Micheaux Film
and Book Company, black-run companies, founded to
tell black stories to black audiences, and counter the
depiction of blacks in
    

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Ä



 
 

‡ ÷   

± 1908: Edison founded Motion Picture Patents
Company (MPPC, often called The Trust)
‡ Many independent film companies sprang up in
defiance of The Trust
‡ Moved to California to avoid MPPC scrutiny and
reprisal
‡ Triangle Company, Paramount, Fox, and
Universal controlled the movie industry from
California

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Ä



 
 

‡ Change Comes to Hollywood

± ÷º - First sound film one of three films produced
by Warner Brothers, but historians disagree what
constitutes a sound film
‡ ^

(1926) with synchronized music and
sound effects
‡
   
 (1927) starring Al Jolson had
several sound and speaking scenes but was largely
silent
‡     (1928) was all sound

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Ä



 
 

‡ Scandal
± 1922: State legislatures introduced more than
100 separate legislation bills to censor or
control movies and their content
‡ Industry responded by creating Motion Picture
Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA)
to improve image of movies
± 1934: Motion Picture Production Code (MPPC)
released

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‡ New Genres, New Problems

± The industry able to weather the Depression with
new genres
‡ Documentaries
‡ Musicals
‡ Comedies
‡ Gangster movies
‡ Horror films
‡ ^   with a  ‰typically a less
expensive movie

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± The industry survived the Depression because of its

size and power
‡ Both resided in system of operation called
  

± 1948: Supreme Court issued Paramount Decision

ruling vertical integration and  º  º illegal

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‡ Red Scare
± House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
feared communist, socialist, and ³leftist´ propaganda
was secretly inserted into entertainment films
± Industry abandoned the ³Hollywood 10´
‡ Writers and directors accused committee of being in
violation of the Bill of Rights
± Movies became increasingly tame for fear of being too
controversial

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‡ Fighting Back
± Industry worked to recapture audiences from
television by using technical and content
innovations
‡ Paid more attention to special effects
‡ Developed greater dependence on, and
improvements in, color
‡ CinemaScope introduced

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‡ Three Component Systems

‡
  ‰making of movies
‡ Average cost of producing and marketing a
Hollywood feature is $103 million
‡ Technology has affected production

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Ä


  
 



‡ ^ ‰supplying movies to theaters, television
networks, cable and satellite networks, and makers of
videocassettes and videodiscs
‡ Green Light Process
‡ Platform Roll out

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‡ Currently 36,485 movie screens  motion

pictures in the US
‡ More than 80% of theaters have two or more
screens
‡ Concession sales account for 25% of a theater¶s
total revenue

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‡ ÷  
± The  ‰finance films primarily through profits
of business
± Corporate Independents‰combine their money with
outside financing to make movies
± 
  ‰find money to make movies
from outside sources; films tend to have smaller
budgets
‡ Majors finance many independent film companies
production and control distribution of their films

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Ä



 
 

  ! 
‡ Conglomeration and the Blockbuster Mentality
± All studios except MGM is a major part of large
conglomerate
± Corporization of Independent Films
± The combination of conglomeration and foreign
ownership forces  º ‰
filmmaking characterized by reduced risk taking and
more formulaic movies

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  ! 

‡ Marketing and publicity departments love  


‰movies that can be described in one line
‡ Studios conduct audience research
± Film¶s concept, plot, and characters subjected to
market testing
‡ Hollywood increasing use of  ‰movies
produced with full intention of producing several sequels

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  ! 
‡ Many movies are adaptations of television shows,
comic books, and videogames
±  ÷ accounted for $2.5 billion
dollars in payments in 2001
±
 
 allows many movies to serve
as commercials

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Ä





   !
 

"##"$"##%

  
1. Movies are not very good
2. Fewer successful blockbusters
3. People do not consider movies as an entertainment
form
4. Average ticket prices increased 48.6% (Stanley 2006)
5. New wired homes

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   !
 

"##"$"##%
‡ Overseas box office accounts for 55% of the US movie
industry¶s income
‡ Audience research determines movie story line
‡ Sequels, remakes, and franchises
Franchise Films are produced with full intention of
producing several sequels
‡ TV, comic books and videogame remakes

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   ! 



  
| 

± Growing relationship between 

‰those produced originally for theater
exhibition‰and television is result of
technological changes in television
± Convergence of film with satellite, video on
demand etc provides new distribution and
exhibition opportunities beginning to reshape
production, distribution and exhibition

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Ä



 
   ! 



  
| 

± 1999 hit
     !"  most visible

success of   movement

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Ä


^  &   


‡ Changing exhibition, production and distribution

Today 1% of all screens have digital projection systems
(Jardin 2005a)
‡ Digital shooting will be the standard by 2015 (Taylor
2005)

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Ä


^  &   


‡ Online distribution of Feature Films taking hold

‡ In the Future: Simultaneous release of movies to
theaters, DVD and cable video on demand

McGraw-Hill © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Ä


^   ' 
! 

‡  r
 

± Movie industry product placement expanded into a
business in its own right
‡ Product that appears in movie becomes a
commercial that lives forever
± Awareness of efforts of movie industry to maximize
income from films is central to good film literacy

McGraw-Hill © 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.