Hollywood Studios Flashcards
What is vertical integration?
Production, distribution and exhibition
When was the kinetoscope invented and when did kinescope parlours open?
1889 and 1894
Who were the big 5 and the little 3?
The Big 5: Paramount Pictures Warner brothers 20th Century Fox (Loew’s) MGM RKO
The Little 3: (not vertically integrated)
Columbia Pictures- only made them
Universal Pictures- only made them
United Artists- only distributed them
Warner Bros timeline
The Warner Bros: Sons of Polish immigrants to Canada 1900 travelling exhibitors 1903 bought first movie theatre 1904 distributors 1915 producers- making films themselves 1918 opened first studio in Hollywood 1923 Warner bros incorporated as a company Worked their way up to all 3 vertically integration
Who was rin tin tin?
Dog actor who started in 1923 and earned $1000 a week
What type of sound did the Warner Bros use to save money?
Synchronised
Problems of early sound
Fidelity- when recording actors voice, it doesn’t sound like them
Volume- hard to capture sound with enough volume
Synchronisation- would create a comic effect if unsynchronised if sound is out of synch with the image
Solutions of early sound
Sound on disk (advantages- it was cheaper - to record sound onto disks, plus disks and playback devices were cheaper to make and install- it was of better quality - at least to start with disks had good volume and fidelity
Sound on film (advantages-Easier to synchronise as could put on same film strip, Possible to edit like if censorship wouldn’t show a scene, eventually cheaper – disks wore out quickly and needed to be replaced)
When did WB start making their own films?
1915
When was the first all-talking picture?
Lights of New York 1928
The Jazz Singer 1927- ad-libbing
When was the first all colour all talking film?
On With the Show 1929
When did 42nd Street come out?
1933- afterwards people stopped caring as much about musicals
How much money did WB lose during the Depression?
$8 million in 1931 and $14 million in 1932
WBs strengths
Prepared to invest money when they had to, to take advantage of market tastes
Innovation
Prepared to be experimental when they needed to be
Cost reduction- low cost operation, operated on a volume basis, retakes and rehearsal time were rare, preferred star-laden conventional genre films for steady profits, recycled music, scripts, costumes, sets (buy revolving stage for one musical use it in more)
Spread messages about society
Developed identity as a studio for the people
Sound allowed genres to develop but dialogue also exposed social issues
Before 1920 how many films were colour?
80% of films had colour but are mostly lost
What were Dyer’s 5 main points on Stars?
- Stars are texts within particular contexts
- Three elements to stardom: production; reception; semiotics
- Star image – “persona” - created through media texts
- Stars (cf actors) constructed intertextually
- Star/character “fit” (selective/perfect/problematic)
How is stardom constructed?
- promotion (in-house studio-sanctioned press)
- publicity (outside of star and studio control)
- film roles, characters
- criticism and commentaries on roles (professionals – academics, film critics)
How many films did Cagney make in 1931?
5- gangster, melodrama, comedy
Between 1931 and 1938 how many gangster films was Cagney put in?
6
1931 salaries for actors
Kay Francis: $3000 per week x 40 weeks
William Powell: $300,000 x two films
James Cagney: $450 per week
After negotiations – $1400 per week
• 1932: $3000 per week x four films a year
• 1936: Grand National studio
• 1938: WBs: $150,000 per picture x three films per year PLUS ten% of the gross
By 1925 how much did Hollywood account for British and French revenues?
95% of British movie revenues and 70% of French ones
1928 and 1929
By 1928 big five exported sound movies and by end of 1929 only 18% of European theatres could present talkies while nearly half cinemas in us could
How many French films were distributed?
1 for every 7 US films
Film noir characteristics
- a mood of anxiety and dismay
- A ‘non-classical’ visual style
- unflattering representations of law and order, of society
- disturbed or excessive sexuality
- Remember “film noir” is a “post-constructed category”
Hays Code timeline
‘Hays Code’/ The Production Code
• 1909 New York Board of Motion Picture Censorship- if you can get your movie past New York you can get it anywhere
• 1915 became National Board of Review- films in local areas would cut them how they wanted
• 1922 MPPDA (Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Act)
• 1927 “the Don’ts and the Be Carefuls” (using religious swearwords, scenes of childbirth, nudity, drugs, sex perversion, wilful offence to any nation race or creed) had no power to punish or change films
• 1930 “Production Code”
• 1934 Production Code Administration
Adolph Zuker and Paramount Pictures timeline
1912 Famous Players Film Company- literary adaptations
1914 Paramount Pictures Corporation became first successful nationwide distributor
1916 merger of FP and PP
1933 Warner Bros film
42nd street success after depression
Ernst Lubitsch
Singed to WB for $60,000, had complete control over movies
‘The Marriage Circle’ cost $212,000- made double that- made 3 movies for the company after a 6-movie deal
What was Harry Warner’s aim with his films?
To inform not just entertain and give messages about what a good society is which is why they were so affiliated with working class values
Genre
French for ‘type’ or ‘kind’
Multi-dimensional
Ubiquitous- ‘everywhere’ not just films and stories but in journalism and theatre etc.
Verisimilitude- ‘realistic in sense of the film’ – real life would break out into song and dance but in a musical that is what you would expect
Films are multiply generic- possess “hybridity” not just one genre- 95% of all Hollywood films have romance and 100% have comedy- genre as a construct rather than being inevitable
Visual characteristics ‘iconography’- city streets, dark, wet, men, white gangs, Irish, sharp suits with hats and guns (gangster films), narrative patterns ‘tropes’- drive by shooting, higher up the gangster ladder the more attractive and glamorous they are (reoccurring small moments) ‘arcs’- rise and fall- in time can’t show people using criminal means to get successful as didn’t want to radically influence audience (big overarching moments), ideology- American dream anyone can get rich wherever they come from if they work hard but undermined by the gangster
Most films are…
Multi-generic
Richard deCordova (1990)
• ‘discourse on acting’ (from 1907 to 1909) focus on audience how pictures move and the technology not the people involved, discourse disseminated in newspapers and trade journals for insiders no one else, the fact the image is moving is exciting and new so interest in the stars- didn’t see names of actors at beginning or end of films- were not marketing the individuals that starred for them marketing the ‘Jones’ series
• ‘picture personality’ (from 1910 to 1914)- first movie magazine in February 1911 Motion Picture Story Magazine excitement about people in them, ask the answer man at the end of magazine people would ask questions about stars and he refused to answer them, actors on theatre didn’t want to be recognised as cinema as low class, keep mystery around characters- audience recognition of actors led to their un- anonymity- star magazines advanced publicity and keeping audiences interested- studios want to keep names quiet so they can pay less, and they won’t move to other studios- heart of stardom is secrecy- if you don’t tell people their names then they want to know their name
• Biograph girl Florence Lawrence left Biograph went to IMP- Carl Lemley said it was a lie that she had been run over and it was a way for people not to watch the films
- The name of the player
- His/her intertextual personality arising from being recognised in several films, building a reputation
- The circulation of information about players professional work
• The star- the actor became a character in a narrative separable from their work in any film, stars appear like us and unlike us in short marriages and bigger houses but focused on the private family life, good role models representing good middle-class values, begin to promote the values of consumerism with fur and cars etc. only nice things so fans come back to see your next movies “with the star the actor became a character in a narrative quite separable from his or her work in any film” excess means stars can lead viewers and fans to a new relationship with consumerism so star endorsements good way to sell things- if you use to project you can be like them too
Develop from picture personality to star was good as it gave them better bargaining power as they were now brands but there was also scandal
• Scandal- “stars became a site for the representation of moral transgression and social unconventionality” more opportunity and money for their vices, movie magazines found star scandals sell and sell equally well tearing them down than building them up- secrets
