MCOM72 Week 5 Flashcards
Who dominates the world movie business?
Warner is one of a handful of studios that dominate the
global movie business (an oligopoly in practice)
Nickelodeons:
first form of movie theater
* Name combines admission price with Greek
word for “theater”
* Often converted storefronts
* Live music by piano players
* Transcended language barriers
* Peaked by 1910
Narrative films
movies that tell stories—shift movies to mass medium stage
Edison’s Trust:
cartel of major U.S. and French film
producers formed in 1908
Studio system:
an arrangement in which five powerful movie studios took
control of multiple aspects of the film industry
Vertical integration:
a company’s ability to control the three essential
levels of the movie business (production, distribution, and exhibition)
Big Five:
Paramount, MGM, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and RKO
Little Three:
Columbia, Universal, and United Artists
Division of labor
helps studios maximize
their resources
Star system:
a method of cultivating
and exploiting the allure of certain
actors
Block booking:
exhibitors had to rent B movies in order to gain access to A movies
Movie palaces:
full-time single-
screen movie theaters that offered a
more hospitable moviegoing
environment than nickelodeons
Mid-city movie theaters
Built in convenient locations near
urban mass-transit stations
Designed to attract the urban and
suburban middle class
During Hollywood’s Golden Age (mid 20s to late 1950s)
studio system dictates style of
filmmaking, known as classical Hollywood cinema
Two basic components of Hollywood narratives:
story and discourse
Classical Hollywood narratives fit a genre:
category in which conventions regarding similar
characters, scenes, structures, and themes recur in combination
Continuity editing:
producing and combining
shots so that viewers experience a coherent flow
of action as it plays out within and across scenes
After studio system ends
studios focus energy on film distribution rather than production
Cinema verité:
French for “truth film”; made possible by development of portable cameras
Other countries have a rich history of producing successful films
The new wave in France (Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer)
Auteurs mostly from Europe, but also from other regions
The French New Wave
The Nouvelle Vague in France in the 1960s
influenced all a generation
In the 1960s, political and social discussions
disrupt cinema
Three interconnected developments transform cult filmmaking into wider-reaching indie film movement
Home video rental
New studios to market indie films (Miramax)
Major film festivals (Sundance, Cannes)
New Big Five
Disney, Warner Brothers, Universal, Sony Pictures, and Paramount
* Account for about 83% of commercial film revenues
Mini-majors:
independent studios that have modest market share
synergy:
opportunities to generate profits that
come from interaction and cooperation among a conglomerate’s different subsidiaries
tentpoles
Studios rely on tentpoles being hits in order to offset losses on riskier films
Theatrical exclusivity:
roughly three-month window when studios agree to make
their films available only in theaters in order to drive ticket sales
Megaplexes:
facilities with fourteen or more screens
Studios earn revenue
from distributing films in foreign markets; international box-office
revenues can be nearly triple domestic box-office receipts
Revenues linked to home and mobile viewing
are the biggest source of studio income
Movies function as consensus narratives:
Products that become popular and provide shared cultural experiences
Operate across different times and cultures
Digital environments underscore movies’ complex cultural impacts
Streaming services provide easier access to a wider range of movies and sort them into niche categories
