Film - Snow White, Shang-Chi Flashcards
outline the general history of Walt Disney + the company’s creation
- 1923: Disney was made
- 1955: opened Disneyland
- 1983: Disney Channel was set up
- 2009: bought Marvel for $4 billion
_ of every dollar spent at the __ is spent on _
- 40% of every dollar spent at the box office is spent on Disney
define oligopoly
- oligopoly = an industry where a small number of powerful companies share the power
outline the Golden Age of Hollywood
- during the 1930s
- the film industry thrived compared to other struggling industries due to the Great Depression - escapism
name the 5 main studios during the period of Snow White’s release
1) MGM Studios: Wizard of Oz
2) Paramount Pictures: Morocco
3) Warner Brothers: Moby Dick
4) 20th Century Fox: Ramona
5) RKO: King Kong
outline the concept of ‘block booking’
- block booking = theatrical ‘packages’ which were a great way of using a big film to simultaneously sell shorter films to cinemas
- Disney/ RKO did this with Snow White
what role did RKO play in terms of Disney
- was the studio Disney worked with
- RKO was the larger company that packaged, marketed and distributed Disney’s short films for cinemas
describe Disney’s reputation in the 1930s
- had an established reputation for short cartoon films, e.g. Silly Symphonies
- known for iconic characters like Mickey Mouse
what was the budget of Snow White
- $150,000, but ended up being $1.5 million - was an extremely costly film to make at the time
- made it a huge risk for Disney
what were the risks of Snow White
- it had a very costly budget ($1.5 million)
- Disney was in debt before SW
- SW, a full length animated feature film wasn’t wanted by audiences
- people thought a full length coloured film would hurt their eyes
- had dark subject matter
outline Walt Disney (the man)
- Walt Disney:
- was a key figure in the company
- his name was recognisable and was a promise of quality, family friendly content
- Walt had a personal interest in darker genres of film and wanted to use SW to explore + experiment with this
what was the marketing of Snow White
- focused on the involvement of Walt Disney himself due to the lack of actors/ voices to promote it
- word of mouth had a main role
- posters promoting the use of technicolour
- at the premieres there were people dressed up as SW characters
- open air concerts using the Disney orchestra where music from the film would be played
- released a trailer
- newspaper reviews
- Disney produced 7 foreign language versions of SW (in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish and Dutch)
what new technology was used in the making of SW
- the multiplane cameras; allowed for filming to be through different layers of animation to create depth in 2D animation, was revolutionary + industry changing
- technicolour; used to make the film in colour
- also; used cells, used different filters, worked with frame rates
what older technology was used in the making of SW
- rotoscoping;
- drawing over a film of real people moving in order to get a realistic animation of movement
outline the release process of Snow White
- due to the film’s high risk nature, RKO released it only in Miami + NYC for a short period after its premiere in LA
- once it had gained popularity, RKO released it more widely in several other countries, e.g. UK, also in 7 different languages
