Movies/Television
DVD sales and rentals
account for about a third of film revenues. Some films are released straight to DVD without ever appearing in theaters.
Because of high marketing
and production costs, the major studios have increasingly come to rely on blockbuster films to keep themselves profitable.
Movies shape cultural attitudes and customs,
as audiences adopt the attitudes and styles of the characters they watch on screen. Filmmakers may use their movies to influence cultural attitudes toward certain social issues, as in Fahrenheit 9/11 and Super Size Me.
A film's performance
at the box office is often directly related to the studio marketing budget that backs it.
Out of the cathode ray tube and the scanning disk,
two types of primitive television systems evolved: mechanical systems and electronic systems. Mechanical television systems had several technical disadvantages: Low resolution caused fuzzy images, and the use of a spinning disk limited the number of new pictures that could be seen per second, resulting in excessive flickering. By 1939, all mechanical television broadcasts in the United States had been replaced by electronic broadcasts.
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
was the first big-budget film to be recorded digitally. Since then, many more films have been made with digital cinematography. However a full-scale industry change has been gradual, mainly because of the costs of conversion.
Three-dimensional movies
were a fad in the 1950s. In recent years, because of improved technologies, 3-D movies have seen a resurgence.
The History of Movies The Movie Industry Emerges
● MPCC controls patents on technology ● Feature narratives: audience willing to pay more for longer films ● Feature narratives attract a middle-class audience ● Beginning of the "start system" ● Theaters redesigned for better comfort and are richly decorated to resemble "dream palaces." ● Popularity prompts the develop of Hollywood studio system ● Growing concern about the impact of movies on morals and social order ● Silent film era from inception until "talkie" ● Color is added around 1932
Piracy
Movie piracy used to be perpetrated in two ways: Either someone snuck into a theater with a video camera, turning out blurred, wobbly, off-colored copies of the original film, or somebody close to the film leaked a private copy intended for reviewers. In the digital age, however, crystal-clear bootlegs of
Television & Culture
Broadcasters and audiences turn to escapist fare during the 1960s ● Sit-coms become popular genre ● By the 1970s, programming reflects the changing social attitudes towards controversial issues (i.e. women & work, divorce, single-parent households) ● Sketch comedy: SNL premiers in 1975 ● Cable ushers in new content: CNN, MTV, ESPN ● Revival of family shows in 1980s: Cosby, Family Ties ● Programming is now tailored to a targeted audience
Golden Age of Hollywood
By 1915 most of the major film studios had moved to Hollywood. During the Golden Age of Hollywood, these major studios controlled every aspect of the movie industry, and the films they produced drew crowds to theaters in numbers that have still not been surpassed. After World War II, the studio system declined as a result of antitrust legislation that took power away from studios and of the invention of the television.
The Rise and Fall of the Hollywood Studio Movies and mergers
By 1930, eight studios produced 95 percent of all American films ● Warner Brothers, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, RKO, 20th Century Fox, Paramount ● Vertical Integration: total control of industry, from production to release to distribution and movie theaters. "Golden Age" of movies ● 1930s-1940s ● Unparalleled success for movie industry ● Two-thirds of Americans were going to the movies at least one a week during WWII
Technological Developments
Cathode ray tube (CRT): TV picture tube ● Scanning disk ● Demand grows ● Philo Farnsworth: electronic TV ● Electronic sets replace mechanical sets: better picture quality, no noise, compact size, fewer visual limitations
prime-time television
According to the Nielsen Company, a company that measures TV viewership, households with HDTV watch 3 percent more prime-time television—programming screened between 7 and 11 p.m., when the largest audience is available—than their standard-definition counterparts (Stelter, 2010). The same report claims that the cinematic experience of HDTV is bringing families back together in the living room in front of the large wide-screen TV and out of the kitchen and bedroom, where individuals tend to watch television alone on smaller screens.
The Resurgence of 3-D
After World War II, as movie attendance began to decline, the motion picture industry experimented with new technologies to entice audiences back into increasingly empty theaters. One such gimmick, the 3-D picture, offered the novel experience of increased audience "participation" as monsters, flying objects, and obstacles appeared to invade the theater space, threatening to collide with spectators. The effect was achieved by manipulating filming equipment to work like a pair of human eyes, mimicking the depth of field produced through binocular vision.
Issues & Trends in Film Cultural Imperialism
American films are watched around the world ● Growing concern about the influence/diffusion of American culture that comes with movies. ● Fear of mass culture on a global scale. ● Can have economic (capitalism) and political consequences ● Some argue there is a positive impact. Movies are a way for ideas to flow between cultures.
Digital & HD Television
Analog signals carried over the airwaves, through a cable wire and satellite. ● Analog signals prone to static and distortion resulting in poorer picture quality ● Digital uses signals that convert TV images and sound into binary code, providing far better picture quality ● Makes older analog TVs obsolete. ● HDTV: higher resolution than standard TVs, more pixels per frame. ● Majority of American viewers have high def television
digital signals
Analog signals were replaced by digital signals (signals transmitted as binary code) in 2009.
MPAA: Combating Censorship
As film became an increasingly lucrative U.S. industry, prominent industry figures like D. W. Griffith, slapstick comedian/director Charlie Chaplin, and actors Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks grew extremely wealthy and influential.
Hollywood
As moviegoing increased in popularity among the middle class, and as the feature films began keeping audiences in their seats for longer periods of time, exhibitors found a need to create more comfortable and richly decorated theater spaces to attract their audiences. These "dream palaces," so called because of their often lavish embellishments of marble, brass, guilding, and cut glass, not only came to replace the nickelodeon theater, but also created the demand that would lead to the Hollywood studio system
electronic television system
At the same time Baird (and, separately, American inventor Charles Jenkins) was developing the mechanical model, other inventors were working on an electronic television system based on the CRT. While working on his father's farm, Idaho teenager Philo Farnsworth realized that an electronic beam could scan a picture in horizontal lines, reproducing the image almost instantaneously
electronic television
At the same time Baird (and, separately, American inventor Charles Jenkins) was developing the mechanical model, other inventors were working on an electronic television system based on the CRT. While working on his father's farm, Idaho teenager Philo Farnsworth realized that an electronic beam could scan a picture in horizontal lines, reproducing the image almost instantaneously. In 1927, Farnsworth transmitted the first all-electronic TV picture by rotating a single straight line scratched onto a square piece of painted glass by 90 degrees.
Satellite TV Then and Now
Back in then satellite was really big and now it's the size of big dish plate
presales
Beginning in the 1970s, after the decline of the studio system, the production costs for films increased dramatically, forcing the studios to invest more of their budgets in marketing efforts that could generate presales—that is, sales of distribution rights for a film in different sectors before the movie's release (Hansen & Garcia-Meyers)
As products of mass culture, movies reflect cultural attitudes, trends, and concerns:
D. W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation, presenting a racist perspective on the U.S. Civil War and its aftermath, reflected racist concerns of the era in which it was produced. During World War II, films reflected the patriotic, prowar sentiments of the time. In the 1960s and 1970s with the rise of an antiestablishment youth culture, movies adopted more liberal stances toward sexuality and violence and displayed a cynicism toward established social structures.
parallel editing
D. W. Griffith, who entered the film industry as an actor in 1907, quickly moved to a directing role in which he worked closely with his camera crew to experiment with shots, angles, and editing techniques that could heighten the emotional intensity of his scenes. He found that by practicing parallel editing, in which a film alternates between two or more scenes of action, he could create an illusion of simultaneity.
DVD Revenues and Decline
DVD rentals and sales make up a major source of revenue for the movie industry, accounting for nearly half of the returns on feature films. In fact, for some time the industry has been exploiting the profitability of releasing some films directly to DVD without ever premiering them in theaters or of releasing films on DVD simultaneously with their theater releases. According to one estimate, for every movie that appears in theaters, there are three that go straight to DVD (Court, 2006)
Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA)
Deciding that they needed to protect themselves from government censorship and to foster a more favorable public image, the major Hollywood studios organized in 1922 to form an association they called the Motion Picture Producers and Distributers of America (later renamed the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA). Among other things, the MPAA instituted a code of self-censorship for the motion picture industry. Today, the MPAA operates by a voluntary rating system
The Beginnings: Motion Picture Technology of the Late 19th Century
In 1891, the inventor Thomas Edison, together with William Dickson, a young laboratory assistant, came out with what they called the kinetoscope, a device that would become the predecessor to the motion picture projector
Identify two technological developments that paved the way for the evolution of television.
During the late 1800s, several technological developments set the stage for television. The invention of the cathode ray tube (CRT) by German physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun in 1897 played a vital role as the forerunner of the TV picture tube. Initially created as a scanning device known as the cathode ray oscilloscope, the CRT effectively combined the principles of the camera and electricity. It had a fluorescent screen that emitted a visible light (in the form of images) when struck by a beam of electrons. The other key invention during the 1880s was the mechanical scanner system. Created by German inventor Paul Nipkow, the scanning disk was a large, flat metal disk with a series of small perforations arranged in a spiral pattern. As the disk rotated, light passed through the holes, separating pictures into pinpoints of light that could be transmitted as a series of electronic lines. The number of scanned lines equaled the number of perforations, and each rotation of the disk produced a television frame. Nipkow's mechanical disk served as the foundation for experiments on the transmission of visual images for several decades.
analog signals
In 1941, the panel recommended a 525-line system and an image rate of 30 frames per second. It also recommended that all U.S. television sets operate using analog signals (broadcast signals made of varying radio waves).
Identify the major economic concerns involved in the production and distribution of films.
Even though studios no longer own the country's movie theater chains, the films produced by the big six studios are the ones the multiplexes invariably show. Unlike films by independents, it's a safe bet that big studio movies are the ones that will sell tickets.
History of Television Early televisions
Expensive ● Technology was slow to develop in the 1940s ● Sales were sluggish due to threat of war, high cost and uncertain economic future. ● NBC and CBS begin broadcasting in the 1930s ● Military needs put a hold on television manufacturing ● Color TV replaces black-and-white broadcasting in the 1960s
feature narratives,
For one thing, audiences saw these longer films as special events and were willing to pay more for admission, and because of the popularity of the feature narratives, features generally experienced longer runs in theaters than their single-reel predecessors (Motion Pictures). Additionally, the feature film gained popularity among the middle classes, who saw its length as analogous to the more "respectable" entertainment of live theater (Motion Pictures).
The Rise of Cable Television
Formerly known as Community Antenna Television, or CATV, cable television was originally developed in the 1940s in remote or mountainous areas, including in Arkansas, Oregon, and Pennsylvania, to enhance poor reception of regular television signals. Cable antennas were erected on mountains or other high points, and homes connected to the towers would receive broadcast signals.
auteurs
From the 1940s through the 1960s, for example, American filmmakers admired and were influenced by the work of overseas auteurs—directors like Ingmar Bergman (Sweden), Federico Fellini (Italy), François Truffaut (France), and Akira Kurosawa (Japan), whose personal, creative visions were reflected in their work (Pells, 2006).
Explain why electronic television prevailed over mechanical television.
From the early experiments with visual transmissions, two types of television systems came into existence: mechanical television and electronic television. Having coexisted for several years, electronic television sets eventually began to replace mechanical systems. With better picture quality, no noise, a more compact size, and fewer visual limitations, the electronic system was far superior to its predecessor and rapidly improving. By 1939, the last mechanical television broadcasts in the United States had been replaced with electronic broadcasts.
Mechanical television
From the early experiments with visual transmissions, two types of television systems came into existence: mechanical television and electronic television. Mechanical television developed out of Nipkow's disk system and was pioneered by British inventor John Logie Baird. In 1926, Baird gave the world's first public demonstration of a television system at Selfridge's department store in London. He used mechanical rotating disks to scan moving images into electrical impulses, which were transmitted by cable to a screen.
Recognize the role the major Hollywood studios have in shaping the movie industry today.
Hollywood is an industry, and as in any other industry in a mass market, its success relies on control of production resources and "raw materials" and on its access to mass distribution and marketing strategies to maximize the product's reach and minimize competition (Belton). In this way, Hollywood has an enormous influence on the films to which the public has access.
The Big Budget Flop
However, for every expensive film that has made out well at the box office, there are a handful of others that have tanked. Back in 1980, when United Artists (UA) was a major Hollywood studio, its epic western Heaven's Gate cost nearly six times its original budget: $44 million instead of the proposed $7.6 million
cinématographe
However, it was the invention of two brothers, Auguste and Louis Lumière—photographic goods manufacturers in Lyon, France—that saw the most commercial success. In 1895, the brothers patented the cinématographe (from which we get the term cinema), a lightweight film projector that also functioned as a camera and printer. Unlike the Edison kinetograph, the cinématographe was lightweight enough for easy outdoor filming, and over the years the brothers used the camera to take well over 1,000 short films, most of which depicted scenes from everyday life.
The Optical Disc System
In 1980, around the time when consumers were just beginning to purchase VCRs for home use, Pioneer Electronics introduced another technology, the LaserDisc, an optical storage disc that produced higher quality images than did VHS tapes. Nonetheless, because of its large size (12 inches in diameter) and lack of recording capabilities, this early disc system never became popular in the U.S. market
Television & Culture Since its introduction, television has shaped and reflected cultural values
In the 1950s, programs ignored current events and political issues and focused instead on content that appealed to a family audience. ● Domestic comedies: Leave it to Beaver, Donna Reed, etc ● Standardized version of white middle-class suburban life ● Social issues such as racism and civil rights are avoided ● Edward R. Murrow: CBS journalist tackles social issues/civil liberties ● Other programs cover social issues, racism, meaning of family, etc. ● Walter Cronkite solidifies credibility in journalism in the 1960s, announces Kennedy's assassination. ● Coverage of Vietnam War shows horrors of what's happening there
Vitascope,
In the United States, the Edison Company, having purchased the rights to an improved projector that they called the Vitascope, held their first film screening in April 1896 at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in Herald Square, New York City.
above-the-line costs
In the case of Avatar, the film cost $190 million to make and around $150 million to market (Sherkat-Massoom, 2010; Keegan, 2009). Of that $190 million production budget, part goes toward above-the-line costs, those that are negotiated before filming begins, and part to below-the-line costs, those that are generally fixed. Above-the-line costs include screenplay rights; salaries for the writer, producer, director, and leading actors; and salaries for directors', actors', and producers' assistants. Below-the-line costs include the salaries for nonstarring cast members and technical crew, use of technical equipment, travel, locations, studio rental, and catering (Tirelli).
Cable Television
Initially developed in the 1940 to cater to viewers in rural areas ● Wider variety of channels ● Better reception ● HBO - pay TV ● Broadband services emerge in the 1990s
Movies Shape Culture
Just as movies reflect the anxieties, beliefs, and values of the cultures that produce them, they also help to shape and solidify a culture's beliefs. After the release of Flashdance in 1983, for instance, torn T-shirts and leg warmers became hallmarks of the fashion of the 1980s.
nickelodeons
Known as nickelodeons because of their 5 cent admission charge, these early motion picture theaters, often housed in converted storefronts, were especially popular among the working class of the time, who couldn't afford live theater. Between 1904 and 1908, around 9,000 nickelodeons appeared in the United States. It was the nickelodeon's popularity that established film as a mass entertainment medium (Dictionary of American History).
aspect ratio
Mass Entertainment, Mass Paranoia: HUAC and the Hollywood Blacklist
Movies & Culture Complicated dynamic
Movies influence American culture and they reflect American culture: trends, issues, events, political themes ● D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation presents a racist perspective on the Civil War and its aftermath. ● During WWII, films reflect patriotism and pro-war sentiments ● Youth culture prompts more liberal approaches to sexuality and social structures. ● Ambivalence toward war after Vietnam ● Social issues - American gun culture & Bowling for Columbine - Supersize Me & fast food/health
Issues & Trends in Film Filmmaking is both commercial and artistic
Need to consider production and marketing costs ● Studios like to invest in films they know will be successful ● This is why remakes and sequels are so popular ● Studios want to produce the next blockbuster ● These typically rely on predictable elements and themes ● Independent films became popular in the 1990s partly because they did not include predictable stories/themes released by studios ● Foreign films
Identify the impact of home-entertainment technology on the motion picture industry.
New technologies have a profound impact, not only on the way films are made, but also on the economic structure of the film industry. When VCR technology made on-demand home movie viewing possible for the first time, filmmakers had to adapt to a changing market. The recent switch to digital technology also represents a turning point for film. In this section, you will learn how these and other technologies have changed the face of cinema.
trick film,
Not only did Méliès, a former magician, invent the "trick film," which producers in England and the United States began to imitate, but he was also the one to transform cinema into the narrative medium it is today. Whereas before, filmmakers had only ever created single-shot films that lasted a minute or less, Méliès began joining these short films together to create stories.
Issues & Trends in Film
Oligopoly control: only 6 major studios ● Rising costs - Investments in marketing efforts - Above the line costs - Below the line costs ● Big budget failures ● Piracy
panning shots
Other techniques that Griffith employed to new effect included panning shots, through which he was able to establish a sense of scene and to engage his audience more fully in the experience of the film
The Influence of New Technology
Satellite dishes: originally large and expensive but could receive all signal including cable ● Cable companies push FCC to change restrictions resulting in a slump in satellite sales and a surge in cable subscriptions ● Direct TV/Dish emerge in the 1990s ● DVR: time-shifting (can watch anytime, no need to be home when programming is aired) ● Internet/streaming: space shifting (having a tv is not necessary to watch programming) ● On demand
Issues & Trends in Television
Shift from single sponsor to spot advertising meant no one advertiser controlled the entire program ● PBS: Public Broadcasting Service: educational, cultural, noncommercial (no ads) ● The impact of cable on network television: 3 major networks (NBC, CBS, ABC) until Fox and later UPN, WB ● Television viewers migrate from major networks to niche programming on cable
History of Television The Golden Age
TV experiences massive growth in the 1950s ● Mass production after the war makes them more affordable ● Television "borrows" radio programming and from theater ● Magazine format in news ● Television spectacular: music variety shows ● Length of programming extended to 30 minutes, increased advertising costs and revenue ● Move from single sponsor to "spot" advertising ● Quiz shows highly popular until it was discovered that shows were rigged by advertisers
The History of Movies Technological developments
Technological developments ● Celluloid: ability to capture images ● Kinetoscope: machine to project images ● Lumiere brothers: cinematographe -- improved film projector that was used as a camera and printer too Demand grows ● Lumiere brothers travel throughout Europe ● Cinemas competes with other forms of live entertainment but quickly become most popular form ● Thomas Edison popularizes film in U.S. using Vitascope in 1896 ● Audience's disbelief, delight and fear of what was on screen was an overwhelming experience for many
Television & Culture
Television is a unifying cultural presence: Super Bowl, 9/11, natural disasters, etc. ● Programming and interpersonal relationships, online activity ● Power of images: 1960s and civil rights, Vietnam war ● Television news and politics: viewers are likely to have LESS understanding of opposing political opinions, leading to political polarization ● Social controversy in the 1990s: single parenthood, openly gay characters ● Reality TV: creates phenomenon of instant celebrity, perception of instant wealth without having to try very hard
The 1990s and Beyond
The 1990s and Beyond
The History of Movies Nickelodeons 1904-1908
The Great Train Robbery is the first film to include a realistic narrative and is the first box office hit, drawing interest from audiences AND investors ● Name is related to five cent admission charge ● Often housed in converted storefronts ● Popular among immigrants and working class who couldn't afford live theater ● Nickelodeons popularity establish film as a mass entertainment medium
VCR
The adoption of the VCR by most households in the 1980s reduced audiences at movie theaters but opened a new mass market of home movie viewers. Improvements in computer animation led to more special effects in film during the 1990s with movies like The Matrix, Jurassic Park, and the first fully computer-animated film, Toy Story.
New Wave movement.
The concept of the auteur was particularly important in France in the late 1950s and early 1960s when French filmmaking underwent a rebirth in the form of the New Wave movement. The French New Wave was characterized by an independent production style that showcased the personal authorship of its young directors (Bergan). The influence of the New Wave was, and continues to be, felt in the United States. The generation of young, film school-educated directors that became prominent in American cinema in the late 1960s and early 1970s owe a good deal of their stylistic techniques to the work of French New Wave directors.
motion picture
The concept of the motion picture was first introduced to a mass audience through Thomas Edison's kinetoscope in 1891. However, it wasn't until the Lumière brothers released the cinématographe in 1895 that motion pictures were projected for audience viewing. In the United States, film established itself as a popular form of entertainment with the nickelodeon theater in the 1910s.
Effects of Home Entertainment Technology
The first technology for home video recording, Sony's Betamax cassettes, hit the market in 1975. The device, a combined television set and videocassette recorder (VCR), came with the high price tag of $2,495, making it a luxury still too expensive for the average American home.
vertically integrated;
The five most influential of these studios—Warner Bros., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, RKO, 20th Century Fox, and Paramount—were vertically integrated; that is, they controlled every part of the system as it related to their films, from the production to release, distribution, and even viewing.
The Influence of New Technology
The introduction of the VCR in the early 1980s made home viewing easy ● Video rental stores ● VCRs replaced by DVDs in the late 1990s ● Digital cinematography ● 3-D
Golden Age
The late 1930s and early 1940s are sometimes known as the "Golden Age" of cinema, a time of unparalleled success for the movie industry; by 1939, film was the 11th-largest industry in the United States, and during World War II, when the U.S. economy was once again flourishing, two-thirds of Americans were attending the theater at least once a week (Britannica Online).
Recognize how movies reflect cultural attitudes, trends, and events.
The relationship between movies and culture involves a complicated dynamic; while American movies certainly influence the mass culture that consumes them, they are also an integral part of that culture, a product of it, and therefore a reflection of prevailing concerns, attitudes, and beliefs. In considering the relationship between film and culture, it is important to keep in mind that, while certain ideologies may be prevalent in a given era, not only is American culture as diverse as the populations that form it, but it is also constantly changing from one period to the next. Mainstream films produced in the late 1940s and into the 1950s, for example, reflected the conservatism that dominated the sociopolitical arenas of the time. However, by the 1960s, a reactionary youth culture began to emerge in opposition to the dominant institutions, and these antiestablishment views soon found their way onto the screen—a far cry from the attitudes most commonly represented only a few years earlier.
The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind.
The release of The Jazz Singer in 1927 marked the birth of the talking film, and by 1930 silent film was a thing of the past. Technicolor emerged for film around the same time and found early success with movies like The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind. However, people would continue to make films in black and white until the late 1950s.
Rise and Fall of the Hollywood Studio
The spike in theater attendance that followed the introduction of talking films changed the economic structure of the motion picture industry, bringing about some of the largest mergers in industry history. By 1930, eight studios produced 95 percent of all American films, and they continued to experience growth even during the Depression.
The Impact of Television
Ticket sales decline ● Viewers prefer watching "movies" at home ● Filmmakers attempt to attract audience using higher quality film, changing the aspect ratio ● Senator Joe McCarthy and the Communist "Witch Hunts:" many Hollywood producers and actors are accused of having communist ties and lose their jobs (or are "blacklisted"). ● Youth sub-culture creates a resurgence ● Blockbusters, Knockoffs and Sequels become economic strategy (1970-1990) ● CGI in 1990s and beyond
Movie Distribution at 30,000 ft
Value chain of movie making Process of movie making
celluloid film strip
Virtual Reference Library) (British Movie Classics). A perforated celluloid film strip with a sequence of images on it was rapidly spooled between a light bulb and a lens, creating the illusion of motion (Britannica)
direct-to-DVD
While direct-to-DVD has become synonymous with poor production values and ill-conceived sequels, there are a number of reasons why a studio might bypass the multiplexes
Identify the major economic concerns involved in the production and distribution of films.
While it may seem like the major studios are making heavy profits, moviemaking today is a much riskier, less profitable enterprise than it was in the studio system era. The massive budgets required for the global marketing of a film are huge financial gambles. While it may seem like the major studios are making heavy profits, moviemaking today is a much riskier, less profitable enterprise than it was in the studio system era. The massive budgets required for the global marketing of a film are huge financial gambles.
talkie,
While radio, a new and popular entertainment, had been drawing audiences away from the picture houses for some time, with the birth of the "talkie," or talking film, audiences once again returned to the cinema in large numbers, lured by the promise of seeing and hearing their idols perform (Higham, 1973). By 1929, three-fourths of Hollywood films had some form of sound accompaniment, and by 1930, the silent film was a thing of the past (Gochenour).
The Economics of Movies
With control of over 95 percent of U.S. film production, the big six Hollywood studios—Warner Bros., Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal, Columbia, and Disney—are at the forefront of the American film industry, setting the standards for distribution, release, marketing, and production values. However, the high costs of moviemaking today are such that even successful studios must find moneymaking potential in crossover media—computer games, network TV rights, spin-off TV series, DVD and releases on Blu-ray Disc format, toys and other merchandise, books, and other after-market products—to help recoup their losses.
Cultural Imperialism or Globalization?
With the growth of Internet technology worldwide and the expansion of markets in rapidly developing countries, American films are increasingly finding their way into movie theaters and home DVD players around the world.
The Art of Silent Film
Within the confines of this medium, one filmmaker in particular emerged to transform the silent film into an art and to unlock its potential as a medium of serious expression and persuasion.
digital television.
began to develop technology that provided newer, better-quality television formats, and the broadcasting industry began to lobby the FCC to create a committee to study the desirability and impact of switching to digital television. A more efficient and flexible form of broadcast technology, digital television uses signals that translate TV images and sounds into binary code, working in much the same way as a computer. This means they require much less frequency space and also provide a far higher quality picture.
Mechanical television
developed out of Nipkow's disk system and was pioneered by British inventor John Logie Baird. In 1926, Baird gave the world's first public demonstration of a television system at Selfridge's department store in London. He used mechanical rotating disks to scan moving images into electrical impulses, which were transmitted by cable to a screen. Here they showed up as a low-resolution pattern of light and dark. Baird's first television program showed the heads of two ventriloquist dummies, which he operated in front of the camera apparatus out of the audience's sight.
The MPAA rating system
established in 1968, gave filmmakers greater freedom in the content they were able to portray on screen.
After the failure of the Vietnam War
films reflected a more ambivalent attitude toward war.
Independent films
found increased popularity in the 1990s and 2000s, in part because they represented a break from the predictable material often released by studios.
kinetograph
he images viewers could see in the kinetoscope captured events and performances that had been staged at Edison's film studio in East Orange, New Jersey, especially for the Edison kinetograph (the camera that produced kinetoscope film sequences): circus performances, dancing women, cockfights, boxing matches, and even a tooth extraction by a dentist (Robinson, 1994).
Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC)
heated disputes often broke out among these companies over patent rights and industry control, leading even the most powerful among them to fear fragmentation that would loosen their hold on the market (Fielding, 1967). Because of these concerns, the 10 leading companies—including Edison, Biograph, Vitagraph, and others—formed the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC) in 1908. The MPPC was a trade group that pooled the most significant motion picture patents and established an exclusive contract between these companies and the Eastman Kodak Company as a supplier of film stock.
Two key technological developments
in the late 1800s played a vital role in the evolution of television: the cathode ray tube and the scanning disk. The cathode ray tube, invented by German physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun in 1897, was the forerunner of the TV picture tube. It had a fluorescent screen that emitted a visible light (in the form of images) when struck by a beam of electrons. The scanning disk, invented by German inventor Paul Nipkow, was a large, flat metal disk that could be used as a rotating camera. It served as the foundation for experiments on the transmission of visual images for several decades.
The introduction of the VCR
in the late 1970s made home movie viewing easy. The VCR was replaced by DVD technology in the late 1990s, which is currently being replaced by Blu-ray Disc technology.
Hulu.com
instead of illegally downloading their favorite movies from file-sharing sites, fans can go to legal, commercial-supported sites like Hulu.com, where they can access a selected variety of popular movies and TV shows for the same price as accessing NBC, ABC, and CBS—free. In April 2010, Hulu announced it had already launched a fee-based service, Hulu Plus, in addition to its free service, for users who want access to even more programs, such as Glee (Reuters, 2010
broadband
networks provide a multichannel television service, along with telephone, high-speed Internet, and advanced digital video services, using a single wire.
tracking shots
or shots that traveled with the movement of a scene (Motion Pictures), which allowed the audience—through the eye of the camera—to participate in the film's action.
Three Processes in the Film Industry
production (making films); distribution (Telling film to audience); exhibition (showing films)
With the rise of digital filming
technology and online movies, movie piracy has become an increasing concern for Hollywood.
LaserDisc,
the DVD is an optical storage disc—that is, a device whose encoded information follows a spiral pattern on the disc's surface and can be read when illuminated by a laser diode. However, unlike the analog-formatted LaserDisc, the DVD's information storage is entirely digital, allowing for a smaller, lighter, more compressed medium.
Two new types of programs
the magazine format and the TV spectacular—played an important role in helping the networks gain control over the content of their broadcasts.
