FILM 2700: HISTORY OF THE MOTION PICTURE
PROFESSOR SHELDON SCHIFFER
MAYMESTER VERSION
Office hours: 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM Daily
Office: 25 Park Place South – Room 1023
phone: 404-413-5623
email: schiffer@gsu.edu
http://schiffer.gsu.edu/wordpress/history
Lecture Slides: Day 2
Universal Struggles – The Commodification of
Cinema, The Competition of Nations
Cinema at its origins was an expensive enterprise, and it was intended
to provide profit to those who took the risk to invent the technology
and sponsor the content. Like other commodities, markets formed to
sell the product, and nation states rallied to support their
entrepreneurs. How might the conditions of industrial capitalism
accelerate the infancy of cinema?
Historical Question 2.1
What are the basic phases of business in the
creation of commercial cinema product
(movies for public consumption)?
Three Basic Phases of Production
• Development – acquisition, adaptation or
original authoring of literary material,
commitment of performers to appear, and
directors to direct, budgeting and borrowing
• Production – filming, editing and duplication
• Distribution – marketing, advertising, delivery
of print, management of theatrical
presentation, accounting of box office receipts
Historical Question 2.2
What business strategies did film companies
use to gain or maintain economic advantage,
and what policies did their host nation use to
enable or disable this advantage?
Capitalist Strategies of the
Film Industries
Horizontal integration – A company or business
entity expands into many markets and/or buys
out equivalent entities within the same sector.
Vertical integration – A company or business
expands into or buys out other entities in
dependent or subordinate sectors of an industry.
Business entities and the nation states that support
them compete for control of markets through
industrial integration.
Agents of Integration
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Nation states
Laws that govern product, sale and exchange
Production methods and technologies
Content
Venues
Revenue stream from distribution back to
development
• Taxes and duties on foreign imports
Historical Question 2.3
What nation states were the dominant film
producers during the early commercialization
of cinema, and how and why were there
market strategies different?
[For the how/why, consider the language,
history, population and economy size, and
geography of the nation.]
Europe in 1910
Notice border differences. Germany extends to Russia.
The World in 1910
Notice colonial possessions color coded. Film industries developed
along legacy colonial relations. Language and politics connected
and separated national cinemas.
Nation States and their Corporations
• France
– Pathé
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Manufactured production and project equipment
Produced films
Film stock
Distribution of rentals
Ownership and management of theaters
Nurtured Ferdinand Zecca, Max Linder
Nation States and their Corporations
• France
– Gaumont
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Produced films
Ownership and management of theaters
Nurtured Louis Feuillade, Alice Guy
Spread risk by diversifying genres
– Comedies, Histories, Thrillers, Melodramas
Nation States and their Corporations
• France
– Film d’Art
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Produced “prestige” and “art” films for high class
Employed famous stage actors, playwrights, composers
Nurtured Louis Feuillade, Alice Guy
Established genre of the “art film”
Nation States and their Corporations
• Italy
– Late arriver benefits
• Less need to experiment to find audience & business
model
– Late arriver detriments
• More difficult to access markets, get investment talent,
technologies, and famed talent, already taken by early
arrivers
Nation States and their Corporations
• Italy
– Using established conditions
• Rich theater, opera and music cultures
• Distinct companies for each region
• Use of cinema narratives to create national identity for
young nation (founded 1848)
Nation States and their Corporations
• Italy
– Cines (based in Rome)
– Itala
• Fall of Troy (1910)
• Stole international talent from France (Andre Deed)
– Ambrosia
• Last Day of Pompeii (1908)
• Roman historical creates Roman identity for Italians
Nation States and their Corporations
• Denmark
– Most powerful nation in Europe during age of
Vikings (8th century to 11th century)
– Nordisk / Great North
• Lion Hunt (1907), scenic with narrative
• The Abyss (1910), launches Asta Nielsen femme star
• Had to internationalize because too few Danes, had to
produce in English or German to penetrate larger
markets to recoup capital on films
• Had to diversify genres
Nation States and their Corporations
• United States
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International v. Domestic market concentration
Large mono-linguistic, multi-nations with English
Legal System enforced patents and tariffs
Numerous growing cities throughout nation
Competing venues for screenings
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Nickelodeon (winner)
Vaudeville
Theaters
Circuses
Meeting Halls
National Cinemas – National Merchants
French
Also
Danish
Italian
German
British
American
Architecture, Venue
and Presentation Apparatus
• Competing Models
– Nickelodeon
– Vaudeville
– Theaters
– Circuses
– Civic Meeting Halls
Historical Question 2.4
Why did the Nickelodeon (aka movie theater
for 5 cents each three-reeler) overtake all
other forms of distribution?
Why Nickelodeons Won
• Single form entertainment (no live shows, no
other kinds of competing forms)
• Predictable price (.05 or .10 for longer programs,
cheaper than live entertainment)
• Predictable conditions for consumption (chairs,
seats, fans, screen, lobby)
• Predictable schedule of exhibition
Why Nickelodeons Won
• Predictable location, not a traveling show
• Pedestrian access, locations positioned for casual
daily pedestrian access (not just Friday night out)
• Regular annual availability, not seasonal, open
like every other business daily/nightly
• Attractive improving novelties (e.g. sound! After
moving image novelty, sound was expected, used
live sound and phonograph)
Nickelodeons
Pittsburgh, PA
1905
First Nickelodeon,
exterior
Pittsburgh, PA
1905
First Nickelodeon,
interior
Detroit’s Princess Theatre
Theater Owners Who Benefitted
• Warner Brothers: Sam and Jack
– New York owners
• Carl Laemmle
– Chicago
• Louis B. Mayer (MGM)
– Boston area
Historical Question 2.5
What tactics and obstacles did early film
companies face to achieve market
integration?
Market Integration
• Integration requires business expansion
• Penetrated markets have limits of size
• Tactics for control are exercises in a free
market
Methods of Controlling Markets
• Patents
– Registered with government
– licensed to all who use the invention
– Expensive to enforce using courts
– Expensive to lose infringement suits
– Owner can choose who to license to control
gateway to market, and protect vertical and
horizontal assets
Rival Patent Tactics
• Edison v. American Mutoscope (AM & B)
– Dispute over camera pulley, sprockets vs. roller
• Ediston sues projector manufacturers over use
of “Latham loop”
Industrial Promotion in Trades
Trade ads support market valuation of
companies. Mutoscope Biograph dominated
until the 1910s.
Market Access Restriction Tactic
• Edison forms Motion Picture Patent Company
• Extracts license fee for use of “his” Vitagraph
project and Kinetoscope camera
• Exclusion of Laemlle’s Independent Motion
Picture Company
• Market segregation of Danish and Italian
Companies from imports/exports
• Industry leaves for Los Angeles to avoid
Edison’s legal spies and eyes
Integration Conflict
With State Agencies
State Interest
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Interest in opportunity for broadest swath of citizens
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Interest in free flow of ideas (against oligopoly and monopoly)
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Interest in community definition of moral code
Business Interest
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Restrict competition, and therefore free flow of ideas
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Exploit attraction to “vulgar” and “prurient” subjects
Conflict Resolution
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Anti-trust courts and censorship boards intervene
Important Cases
• Edison v. American Mutoscope Company, 1902
– Edison claimed to own right to all motion picture
technology, court disagreed
• Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial
Commission of Ohio, 1915
– Court ruled free speech protection of Ohio
Constitution was substantially similar to the First
Amendment of the United States Constitution —
did not extend to motion pictures, censorship
allowed
Integration of Film
Product Specifications
• Use of projected 35mm sprocketed film stock
• One reelers vs. Features (length)
– Initialized by serial one-reelers whose attraction
grew with each reel
– Concentrates audience on fewer film products,
but for longer time, higher ticket price
– Greater efficiency to concentrate artistic activity
around few products
– Riskier to invest more in one product
Integration of Audience (Consumers)
Into Star System
• Fan magazines
– journalism and advertising to create fan magazine
culture
– Extra-cinematic persona of actors beyond
characters and films
– Leverage interest in actor personality (persona
continues after movie ends in audience
imagination) Pays for risk of long form films that
might
Carl Laemlle and the Star System
• Studio refused to give actor credits though 1910
• Biograph Girl was a persona without a name,
marketing a brand of films (played by Florence
Lawrence and Mary Pickford)
• Laemlle lured Lawrence to join his Independent
Motion Picture Company
• Plants false rumor that Biograph girl killed in New
York by street car. Newspaper nationally reveal
name
• Releases first film with Lawrence with name on
marquis
Carl Laemlle, Florence Lawrence and
the Birth of the Star System
Fan magazine with first
movie star on cover.
Florence Lawrence
promoted headshots
After release of the
Broken Oath. The lie
“nailed” misprints the
title
Historical Question 2.6
What are the principles and techniques of
Hollywood Style, and how did they integrate
the visual form of cinema?
[Hint: The first part is easy. Look ahead to the next slides. The how-did question is
answered by considering how directing the audience’s eye to objects and people
distract the viewer from an awareness of the cinematographic act.]
Integration of Production Method
And Narrative Style
• Audience problems of comprehending time, space, causality
– Theatrical model of time, space, causality – expensive, timeconsuming and culturally specific to theater of host nation
– Gesturing, thinking, talking vs. action, movement, physical
conflict
– Search for most efficient cinematic language
– Yield more story information in less screen and production time
– Yield more audience attraction
– Yield more predictable audience response
– Density and frequency of film activity in Hollywood in a purely
capitalist business environment results in most efficient system
Classical Hollywood Style Set-up
Axis of action is the
180 degree line.
The profile angles are rarely
used. They make viewer
aware of the photographic
production methods.
Dan North provides this diagram. http://drnorth.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/the-180-degree-rule/
Early Classical Hollywood
Principles of Style
• Staging parallel to the lens axis vs. perpendicular
(creating depth and 180 degree line/action axis)
• Use of inter-titles for narration and subject POV
• Expository wide angles
• Subjective (dialog or thoughts) in reaction shots
• Authorial control over character improvisation
• Camera position for controlling information
• Framing used to construct false spatial
orientation
• Position actor for eye-line direction
Early Production Techniques of
Classical Hollywood Style
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Privileged view of faces, eyes, hands
9-foot line
Shot-counter shot for action-reaction
Tripod heads and reframing
Framing and staging for continuity
Color as visual effect for interpretive mood
Specialized studios for constructing sets
Specialized sets and backdrop design techniques
Specialized lights, make-up and costume
Early Continuity System
• Intercutting, same or continuous time, different
setting/location
• Analytical editing, same location, broken down into
multiple views and shots, through continuous time
• Contiguity editing, shots when edited together,
connect character movement and causality, as progress
across removed time to different locations
• 180-degree line/system
• Point of view shot
• Eye-line match
Historical Question 2.7
How did non-U.S. nation states resist the
Hollywood methods of integration of artistic
form and production method?
Resistance to Industrial Integration
• International style depends on cultural
specificity
• Stories told from national/ethnic heritage
• Structures/plots used to tell story
• Mise-en-scene (all in front of camera
elements) on-location of nation/culture, not in
studio