Film history
five pre-conditions for invention of cinema
"[...]scientists had to realize that the human eye will perceive motion if a series of slightly different images are placed before it in rapid succession-minimally, around sixteen per second." 2.The "capacity to project a rapid series of images on a surface" had to exist. 3.The "Ability to use photography to make successive pictures on a clear surface." 4. Photographs had to be printed on a base flexible enough to be passed through a camera rapidly." 5. Inventors had to "find a suitable intermittent mechanism for their cameras and projectors."
Cinématographe
A cinematograph is a motion picture film camera, which also serves as a film projector and printer. It was invented in the 1894 in Lyon by Auguste and Louis Lumière.
Kinetoscope
A moving-picture device, invented by Thomas Edison and his associates in 1892, that allowed one person at a time to watch a motion picture by looking through the viewer. With patents on a sprocketed film system, Edison claims right to extract licensing fees on all commercial use of film technology
Nickelodeon boom
Beginning in 1905, a period of rapid expansion in the number of small, inexpensive store-front theaters showing programs of short films. During the 1910s, nickelodeons disappeared as larger theaters were built. The nickelodeon was the first type of indoor exhibition space dedicated to showing projected motion pictures. Usually set up in converted storefronts, these small, simple theaters charged five cents for admission and flourished from about 1905 to 1915. Nickelodeons regularize film exhibition Film exchanges emerge: exhibitors no longer buy film prints, but lease them from distributors The film becomes mass urban entertainment, and subjects turn increasingly to fictional narrative • Film culture moves from exhibitor-centered to producer-centered: develops self-contained narration
block booking
Block booking is a system of selling multiple films to a theater as a unit. Block booking was the prevailing practice among Hollywood's major studios from the turn of the 1930s
Biograph(AM&B)
Edison colleague Dickson joins AM&B, develops a film roller system distinct from the Edison sprocket system. 1902 lawsuit decided in favor of AM&B: not subject to Edison licensing fees, to Edison's chagrin. Buys basic Latham Loop patent, blocking Edison's attempt to control the market. The two join forces in 1908 to control licensing on the entire US motion picture industry
ufa
German Film Production Company. In March 1927, Alfred Hugenberg, an influential German media entrepreneur and later Minister of the Economy, Agriculture, and Nutrition in Hitler's cabinet purchased UFA and transferred it to the Nazi Party in 1933. Forms in 1917 with government support, absorb small companies after the war Vertical and horizontal integration • Consolidation of assets and resources • Develops director unit system
Theater Chains
Multiple theaters across the country owned by large companies. Frequently integrated with production and distribution companies.
high silent style
New sophistication of theme and moral ambiguity paired with stylistic sophistication and bravura: Lyricism, lavish spectacle, lighting, "soft style" and mise-en-scèn
producer system
Put in place in the early 1920s, this gave the producer control over the film from inception to release.
Edison Manufacturing Company
The Edison Manufacturing Company was a company organized in 1889 by the inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Edison that manufactured batteries, machinery and equipment, and also produced kinetoscope films. Its assets and operations were transferred to Thomas A. Edison, Inc. in 1911.
Hays Office and Code
The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States. in 1927, produced and published the following list, titled "The Dont's and Be Carefuls," in an effort to clean up Hollywood's increasingly controversial output and help the studios avoid further clashes with the country's regional censorship boards. The list consisted of 11 things to be completely avoided in future movies (the "Don'ts"), and 25 things that required careful consideration before inclusion (the "Be Carefuls").
The Motion Picture Patents Company (the Edison Trust),
The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC, also known as the Edison Trust), founded in December 1908 and terminated seven years later in 1915 after conflicts within the industry, was a trust of all the major US film companies and local foreign-branches (Edison, Biograph, Vitagraph, Essanay, Selig Polyscope, Lubin Manufacturing, Kalem Company, Star Film Paris, American Pathé), the leading film distributor (George Kleine) and the biggest supplier of raw film stock, Eastman Kodak. The MPPC ended the domination of foreign films on US screens, standardized the manner in which films were distributed and exhibited within the US, and improved the quality of US motion pictures by internal competition. But it also discouraged its members' entry into feature film production, and the use of outside financing, both to its members' eventual detriment.
Independent Motion Pictures
The future moguls of Hollywood take steps toward changing the industry in resistance to the Edison-Biograph oligopoly. In 1909 Carl Laemmle forms Independent Motion Pictures (IMP), the precursor of Universal Studios. In 1912, a court case voids the Latham Loop patent, vindicating independents and bringing down "The Trust:" the path to the new American film industry in Hollywood is opened
the studio system
an early film production system that constituted a sort of assembly-line process for moviemaking; major film studios controlled not only actors but also directors, editors, writers, and other employees, all of whom worked under exclusive contracts. The studio system (which was used during a period known as the Golden Age of Hollywood) is a method of film production and distribution dominated by a small number of "major" studios in Hollywood. Although the term is still used today as a reference to the systems and output of the major studios, historically the term refers to the practice of large motion picture studios between the 1920s and 1960s of (a) producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under often long-term contract, and (b) dominating exhibition through vertical integration, i.e., the ownership or effective control of distributors and exhibition, guaranteeing additional sales of films through manipulative booking techniques such as block booking.
star system
an operation designed to find and cultivate actors under long-term contracts, with the intention of developing those actors into famous "stars" who would enhance the profitability of the studio's films
Vitascope
enabled filmstrips of longer lengths to be projected without interruption and hinted at the potential of movies as a future mass medium. Cast images via film and electric light onto a wall or screen. Developed by Edison.
Kodak
founded by George Eastman and Henry in 1888. During most of the 20th century, Kodak held a dominant position in photographic film. The company's ubiquity was such that its "Kodak moment" tagline entered the common lexicon to describe a personal event that was demanded to be recorded for posterity. Kodak began to struggle financially in the late 1990s, as a result of the decline in sales of photographic film and its slowness in transitioning to digital photography, despite developing the first self-contained digital camera. As a part of a turnaround strategy, Kodak began to focus on digital photography and digital printing and attempted to generate revenues through aggressive patent litigation. the biggest supplier of raw film stock
Lantham Loop
used in film projection and image capture. It isolates the filmstrip from vibration and tension, allowing movies to be continuously shot and projected for extended periods. Longer rolls result in film tension issues, resolved by adding a simple "loop". As Edison consolidates patents, competitor AM&B buys basic Latham Loop patent, blocking Edison's attempt to control the market. The two join forces in 1908 to control licensing on the entire US motion picture industry
Paramount Pictures
was established in 1914 by W.W. Hodkinson as a film distributor, offering Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company, the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, and other producers an outlet for their movies. is an American film studio based in Hollywood, California