Hollywood Studios

Question 1

What is vertical integration?

Answer 1

Production, distribution and exhibition

Question 2

When was the kinetoscope invented and when did kinescope parlours open?

Answer 2

1889 and 1894

Question 3

Who were the big 5 and the little 3?

Answer 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

Question 4

Warner Bros timeline

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Who was rin tin tin?

Answer 5

Dog actor who started in 1923 and earned $1000 a week

Question 6

What type of sound did the Warner Bros use to save money?

Answer 6

Synchronised

Question 7

Problems of early sound

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Solutions of early sound

Answer 8

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)

Question 9

When did WB start making their own films?

Answer 9

1915

Question 10

When was the first all-talking picture?

Answer 10

Lights of New York 1928

The Jazz Singer 1927- ad-libbing

Question 11

When was the first all colour all talking film?

Answer 11

On With the Show 1929

Question 12

When did 42nd Street come out?

Answer 12

1933- afterwards people stopped caring as much about musicals

Question 13

How much money did WB lose during the Depression?

Answer 13

$8 million in 1931 and $14 million in 1932

Question 14

WBs strengths

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Before 1920 how many films were colour?

Answer 15

80% of films had colour but are mostly lost

Question 16

What were Dyer’s 5 main points on Stars?

Answer 16

• 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)

Question 17

How is stardom constructed?

Answer 17

• 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)

Question 18

How many films did Cagney make in 1931?

Answer 18

5- gangster, melodrama, comedy

Question 19

Between 1931 and 1938 how many gangster films was Cagney put in?

Answer 19

6

Question 20

1931 salaries for actors

Answer 20

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

Question 21

By 1925 how much did Hollywood account for British and French revenues?

Answer 21

95% of British movie revenues and 70% of French ones

Question 22

1928 and 1929

Answer 22

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

Question 23

How many French films were distributed?

Answer 23

1 for every 7 US films

Question 24

Film noir characteristics

Answer 24

• 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”

Question 25

Hays Code timeline

Answer 25

‘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

Question 26

Adolph Zuker and Paramount Pictures timeline

Answer 26

1912 Famous Players Film Company- literary adaptations
1914 Paramount Pictures Corporation became first successful nationwide distributor
1916 merger of FP and PP

Question 27

1933 Warner Bros film

Answer 27

42nd street success after depression

Question 28

Ernst Lubitsch

Answer 28

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

Question 29

What was Harry Warner’s aim with his films?

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Genre

Answer 30

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

Question 31

Most films are…

Answer 31

Multi-generic

Question 32

Richard deCordova (1990)

Answer 32

• ‘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