and

Hollywood

MOVIES

EARLY HISTORY OF THE

MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY

Highly competitive with easy access for new business:

interchangeable products smallness of buyers & sellers in relation to market absence of artificial restraints accessibility of resources

EARLY HISTORY OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY

Thomas Edison (1894) The Kiss

The Lumiere Brothers (1895) Employees Leaving the Lumiere Factory Arrival of the Express at Lyons

Georges Melies (1902) A Voyage to the Moon

Edwin S. Porter (1903) The Great Train Robbery

THE MOTION PICTURE PATENTS COMPANY (MPPC)

Thomas Edison formed MPPC (the “Trust”) in 1908 as a PATENTS POOL cooperative of leading U.S. and French film

companies dominated the film industry from 1908-1915 Successfully excluded small companies

from the market

WHY did the MPPC fail?

Could not meet product demand Some independent producers bought film stock

from overseas Some independent producers moved operations

out of the NY and NJ area, eventually to California

Independent distributors set up a non-MPPC distribution network

Declared a monopoly in 1915 as the result of a 1912 anti-trust case brought by Fox

THE RISE OF THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIO SYSTEM (1925-1948)

From Monopoly (the MPPC) to Oligopoly (the Studio System)

The “Big Five” and the “Little Three”

The “Big Five” or the Majors: Warner Brothers Paramount 20th Century Fox Loew's (MGM) RKO (owned by RCA)

The “Little Three”

or the Minors: United

Artists Columbia Universal

How did the Big Five control all three levels of the industry?

VERTICAL INTEGRATION of:

-production

-distribution

-exhibition

How did the studios control exhibition?Run

First, second, thirdZone

Geographic coverage without overlapsClearance

Elapsed time between runsBlock Booking

Rental in packages of assorted films

High Sierra: A Case Study

An A feature, starring Bogart and LupinoStarts first run on January 25, 1941

Studio-run theaters in 100 large cities Ticket price=$1.00 to $1.25

Second run in May, 1941 Second run theaters (smaller cities) Ticket price=$.40 to $.75

Third run in Fall, 1941 Neighborhood and rural theaters Ticket price=$.25

HOLLYWOOD STORYTELLING

THE CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD STYLE

Three Key Elements:

NarrativeTechnologyGenre

Technology: Behind the Art of Movies

The movie industry is dependent on developing new technologies

As an example, let’s consider sound The Jazz Singer (1927) Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

GENRES: How Films Are Sold

GENRE= category in which conventions regarding similar characters, scenes, structures and themes reoccur

Regulated Difference: genres benefit the industry by allowing both product standardization and product differentiation

What are some Hollywood genres?

WHAT UNDERMINED THE STUDIO SYSTEM?

No one thing : four large factors came together in the late 1940s: The House Committee on Un-American

Activities The Paramount Decision of 1948 Postwar Changes in Society The Rise of Television

THE RED SCARE AND HUAC HEARINGS

Cold War paranoia about Communist messages in mass entertainment

Congress formed House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC)

1941 and 1947 HUAC hearings were "witch hunts" to remove so-called subversives from the industry (led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy)

EFFECT OF HUAC HEARINGS

blacklisting of talented members of Hollywood community

tarnished the Hollywood “Dream Machine” image

created a climate of fear and dampened creativity within the industry

wounds continue even today (e.g. 1999 Elia Kazan Oscar controversy)

THE PARAMOUNT DECISION

In 1948, Supreme Court ruled the studios in violation of Sherman Anti-Trust Act, restricting fair trade

Court ordered the Big Five studios to divest their theatre chains

EFFECTS: studios cut their film production by half; opened the way for independent producers, though that opening was short-lived

POSTWAR CHANGES in SOCIETY returning soldiers baby boom suburbanization

and new lifestyle nuclear families

with young children

changing patterns of consumption

less disposable income

decreased attendance at downtown movie palaces

THE RISE OF TELEVISION

decline in motion picture attendance film industry’s technological gimmicks to

emphasize the spectacle of the big screen film industry cooperation with TV movies on TV became a continuous

competitor with theatre for film customers

HOLLYWOOD TODAY marriage of TV and movies: watching

movies now takes place on the home VCR and DVD player as well as at box office

new Hollywood studios produce TV shows as well as feature films

80-90% of new movies flop at box office, but losses recouped through video market

Sources of studio income today

box office revenues video sales and rentals distribution of films globally studio distribution of

independent films product placement in movies

Entertainment Industry Consolidation: the modern movie oligopoly

Ronald Reagan deregulates the industry in the early 1980s, allowing a new “Big Six” to emerge Warner Brothers Paramount Twentieth Century Fox Universal Columbia Walt Disney