The studio system. Flashcards
List the five major studios and the 3 minor studios.
- -M-G-M (Metro-GoldwynMayer), Paramount, Warner Bros., 20th Century-Fox, and RKO (Radio-KeithOrpheum).
- Columbia, Universal, and United Artists.
What did the studio system have in order to create an individualized product A.K.A movie?
a producer, a director, a writer or two, and some actors, but it also had an art director, a set decorator, a staff of carpenters, a props person, a few electricians
to set up the lights, a cinematographer, a camera operator, a costume designer, a wardrobe staff, an editor, and so on through the publicity staff and
distribution executives.
Did the studio system treat their actors inhumanely?
TRUE.
Vertical integration
this term describes a film studio’s ability to
provide a film’s financing, organize the talent necessary to make the film, supervise its filming and editing, and subsequently distribute it, publicize it,
and in many cases even own the theaters in which it was screened.
Vertical integration example.
Universal, for example, makes a film, distributes it,
and books it into the Cineplex Odeon theaters which it owns.
What was the Studio system contract with employees?
LONG-TERM.
The difference between The studio system and an independent contractor, when making a film.
An independent contractor has to worry about writing their own film and finding actors. Would need film equipment, and a method to distribute the film.
A studio system has long-term contracts with actors and writers. Constant flow of talent. Have their own supplies in place and distributor.
Define monopoly
When one company achieves effective control over a given market
Define oligopoly
when a group of companies achieves such control.
Why did companies use methods like block booking and blind bidding to gain control?
to ensure that exhibitors were forced to show a whole string
of a given studio’s films rather than simply the most likely money-makers.
example, to get a high-budget Clark Gable film in the 1930s,
theater owners had to agree to show three low-budget films with lesser stars.
In this way, the studios ensured that all of their films had a market.
How did the studio system collapse?
g in the 1930s, the Justice Department began to attack the studio system on
legal grounds. Using as a basis federal antitrust legislation that had been enacted to keep monopolies and oligopolies from preventing fair competition,
the government launched a series of protracted judicial assaults on the studio
system. Finally, in 1948, the Supreme Court decided in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., et al. that the film industry’s system of vertical integration
did in fact constitute an illegal oligopoly, thereby forcing the studios to divest
themselves of their theater chains
Are certain styles in film a tendency or a rule?
Tendency.
When speaking on Movies and the mass production within the industry. What time period made the possible?
After the second industrial revolution (so-called.)
Define block booking
rental of several films in one package, so companies could sell bad product with good product.
Define Blind bidding.
In those packages, exhibitors would contract with films that were yet to be made, therefore forced to purchase without knowing or seeing the film yet.
