Key Companies Flashcards
Edison
In 1890, before his lab had perfected any motion-pic apparatus, Edison predicted that moving pictures and his phonograph would provide home entertainment for families of wealth.
1893- Edison’s kinetoscope peep show: showed short motion pictures up to a minute (p 11)
1896- large screen motion-picture projection
Edison: inventor, entertainer, and entrepreneur (p9) He had an imperial state of mind: planted his flag and laid claim to everything he could imagine. He made claims to discourage competitors (p 11)
1890: telephone transmitter, phonograph, electric light
Biograph
As the kinetoscope business began to wane, a 2nd American motion-picture producer came on the market with a competing machine. American Mutoscope and Biograph Company–> mutoscope viewing machine= contained postcard-size flip cards rather than strip film. Idea came from WKL Dickson.
The Motion Picture Patents Company “the Trust”
Organized by the 9 principal producing companies: had the intention of creating a complete monopoly over production, distribution and exhibition.
see p 34/35
IMP/Universal (independent)
f
Famous Players/Paramount (independent)
i
Fox (independent)
n
First National
i
United Artists
s
Loew’s (MGM)
h
Western Electric
Sound cam from outside the industry: Warner Bros got its Vitaphone sound system from WESTERN ELECTRIC, a subsidiary of American Telephone and Telegraph (p156).
Although 2 producing companies, Fox and Warner Bros, and been instrumental in pioneering sound processes, by the mid 1930s, they have been forced after litigation/other struggles to yield the power over sound to outside communication companies such as AT&T (through its subsidiary Western Electric) and Radio Corporation of America (through its RCA-Photophone Company) which were linked to Morgan and Rockefeller interests, respectively.
Warner Bros
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RCA and RKO
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