Year 12 Media Studies
Audiences and Institutions
Hollywood vs. UK Cinema
Hollywood Cinema
Starter:
Two adjectives to describe Hollywood film…
Hollywood Cinema
In order to understand British Film, it is important to
compare it to Hollywood film.
Why?
Hollywood Cinema:
Conventions
What do you associate with mainstream
Hollywood film?
Create a spidergram in pairs
Eddie Izzard
British vs. Hollywood Films
Hollywood Cinema: Industry
Originated as a distinctive product of the
Hollywood Studio System from 1930 to 1959
The American film industry has dominated
global film production ever since
Similar model still widely used today
Hollywood Cinema: Industry
Emphasis on industry (money) over art
Major companies undertake production,
distribution and exhibition
Factory production-line approach
Has come to mean ‘mainstream’ (noncontroversial)
Horizontal Integration
Ownership of the same type of company / product
A butcher may become successful and decide to buy more shops
Vertical Integration
Ownership of different types of related companies /
products in order to maximize profit and control the market
A butcher may decide to buy the farm that rears the livestock
and the restaurants that uses the meat
Hollywood Cinema
In pairs, discuss and make bullet point notes
on the following:
Style (consider the 5 areas of film language)
Narrative
Character
Genre
Audience
Hollywood Cinema: Style
Artifice rather than realism (artificial reality or
‘heightened realism’)
Studio sets rather than real locations
Artificial lighting (back lighting)
Use of music to emphasise tone, mood and
atmosphere and to heighten emotion
Hollywood Cinema: Style
Fairly short scenes and tendency for rapid
editing (to keep audience interested)
Use of slo-mo; dissolves etc
Lots of special effects
Emphasis on ‘glamour’
Emphasis on escapism
Emphasis on entertainment
Hollywood Cinema: Narrative
Prioritises ‘story’ using straightforward
narrative techniques
Easily understood by widest possible audience
Avoidance of any narrative complexity
Continuity editing to ‘hide’ constructed nature
of film production
Hollywood Cinema: Narrative
Linear cause and effect narrative
One main narrative strand
Emphasis on action (moving narrative
forward)
High degree of narrative closure – usually a
‘happy ending’
If not happy, then at least ‘satisfying’
Hollywood Cinema: Character
Relatively small number of characters to
maximise audience involvement (identification
and empathy with main protagonists)
Characters have clearly-defined motivations for
their actions (realism?)
Emotional involvement with characters and their
predicaments
Characters have ‘hero’ qualities (they are ego-ideals
rather than ‘real’ people)
Heavily reliant on the ‘star system’
Hollywood Cinema: Genre
Recognisable generic features -audiences
predict actions and events
Fulfil audience expectations (generic unity)
Pleasure
Passive audience?
Hollywood Cinema: Audience
A number of formal features:
Feature length (85 + minutes in duration)
Designed to maximise its potential audience
both home and abroad
Mass-market, global appeal
Hollywood Cinema
Carry out your own research on:
Classical Narrative Cinema
Apply what you have learned to a recent
American film of your choice.
British Cinema
British film has always had its ups and downs
Unfortunately, the British film industry has never been
capable of generating worldwide commercial success
on its own.
This is partly down to the major power, success and
control of…
The basic fact is that the British cinema market is too small for
the British film industry to successfully produce Hollywoodstyle blockbusters over a sustained period
UK Film
Industry
Hollywoo
d
How many British film production
companies can you think of?
How do your expectations of British films produced by
Working Title differ from your expectations of British
films produced by Warp Films?
Why?