Movies: Magic From The Dream Factory
Chapter Outline
History
Industry Today
Controversies
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Early Movie Technology
 By the early 1860s there were peep shows,
▪ Boxes containing rolls of still pictures hooked up to a crank,

Thomas Edison
 Kinetograph - a camera to take motion pictures,
 Kinetoscope - The device to show them
 Vitascope - His first theater projector
▪ Soon small theaters/nickelodeons were showing up everywhere.

The Move West
 Aspiring filmmakers moved west
▪ To escape Edison’s New York lawyers
▪ Take advantage of great weather and varied
scenery.
 In 1915, in Hollywood, D. W. Griffith made
The Birth of a Nation (huge success)
▪ In which he perfected the close up, flashback, fadeout, and montage.
▪ Racist depiction and glorification of Ku Klux Klan,
▪ An omen of the kind of power films would have to promote
antisocial messages.

The Star System
 1920s theater owners began demanding popular actors,
▪ Studios started placing them under contract and promoting them
heavily.
▪ What star actors would you go to see just because it’s them
▪ Why?
 Studios developed
▪ Block booking Forced theaters to show movies with unknown actors
in order to get movies with established stars.
▪ Blind booking required theaters to take movies without previewing
them.
▪ Enabled studios to make money from low cost films known as B-movies.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

The Golden Age
 In 1930s the efficient studio system, global
influence of film art, sound and color
▪ Mark beginning of Golden Age of motion pictures.
 First full-length sound feature was The Jazz
Singer featuring Al Jolson.
▪ It established both technology and popularity of
sound.
▪ Some audiences stood and applauded when they heard the
dialogue.
▪ What are some movies that stood out to you based
on creative elements
▪ Cinematography, soundtrack, setting , storyline, etc
What are some movies you are planning to see
What factors motivate you to see a movie
 1930s & 1940s movie going became part of American culture.
 Films such as Little Caesar (1930) reflected the influence of
organized crime during prohibition.
 Horror films like Dracula (1931) with Bela Lugosi,
 Screwball comedies like the Marx brothers’ Duck Soup (1933)
became popular diversions from hard times.
 Color was perfected in films such as Gone With The Wind and The
Wizard of Oz, both produced in 1939.
 Special effects came into their own in movies such as King Kong
(1933) and The Invisible Man (1933).
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

African-American Films
 An African-American movie industry emerged to serve blacks
who were not allowed in “white” theaters.
▪ Centered in Harlem, these films featured all-black casts and were shown
in theaters in black neighborhoods throughout the country.

Reacting To TV
 By the early 1960s more than 90 percent of American homes had
television sets.
 What technologies if any have reduced your moviegoing?
 Industry redefined itself
▪ Created drive-ins for car obsessed suburbanites, improving sound systems
▪ Introducing wide screens with futuristic names such as Cinemascope.

Reacting To TV
 Studios began producing spectaculars, which were high budget
films with lavish sets and costumes.
 Other movies were produced with gimmicks,
▪ 3-D effects that required special glasses
▪ Smell-o-Vision - used fans and scent liquids to waft odors into the theater.
▪ What recent 3-D movies can you think of
▪ What experiences do theaters offer that makes you want to go

Adapting To New Media
 By the early 80s the movie industry was convinced
 Home videotaping with (VCRs), would ruin them.
 The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
▪ Fought legal battles to stop the sale of home VCRs.
 In 1983 Supreme court ruled in Sony Betamax case
▪ Video recording for private use not an infringement of copyright.

Adapting To New Media
 VCRs were used by most families to record programs,
▪ Also to play rented or purchased tapes
▪ Created huge profits for movie studios.
 By the time (DVDs) were introduced in 1996,
▪ Industry saw replacement for tapes and didn’t resist as much.
 When DVDs became recordable and people started
downloading movies,
▪ The industry realized it had a problem.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Adapting To New Media
 Internet downloading made it easy to pirate
films & to distribute them illegally via filesharing programs.
 In 2003 the movie industry declared war
against file sharers.
 To prevent widespread copying, the movie
companies devised methods for encrypting
DVDs
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Adapting To New Media
 In the early 1990s, studios began to use computers for
digital editing and special effects.
 Disney’s Toy Story (1995) was the first movie to be
produced entirely on computers.
 Today, digital editing is used in all Hollywood movies,
▪ Many would be impossible to make without this technology e.g.
The X-Men and Superman Returns.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Adapting To New Media
 Digital distribution of movies has been tested.
▪ Digital projection
▪ Makes movies are easy to use & advantageous for theatre owners in
other ways.
▪ Will enable theatres to regularly show live events,
▪ Concerts or sporting events,
▪ Making them “entertainment complexes” rather than just movie
houses.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Adapting To New Media
 Industry feels digital projection would help theatre
business remain viable.
▪ Cheaper Distribution, Increasing Profits, Keeping Cost Down
▪ Would go to the movies more if they were cheaper
 Industry has been able to transmit and project movies
digitally for over a decade.
 Payment for equipment is holding back conversion.
▪ Theaters want studios to pay and vice versa
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Global Dimensions
 Today, the American film industry collects more than 80
percent of the world’s film revenues
▪ Produces only around 15 percent of the world’s films.
 Brazil, China, Japan and India have thriving film industries.
▪ At 800 films a year, India produces more movies than any other
country, including the U.S.

Production
 Preproduction is the planning phase,
▪ includes script development, casting, budgeting, scheduling, set and costume
design, location scouting, set construction, and special effects design.
 Production is the actual shooting phase,
▪ Which the activity becomes very hectic and expensive, as cast and crew swell
into the hundreds.
 Postproduction
▪ Film and sound editing, soundtrack scoring, special effects integration, and
technical improvements such as color correction.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

The Independents: Creative Freedom
 Independent films
▪ Films not made by one of the major studios,
▪ Usually made with lower budgets, rely less on stars & special effects
▪ Have more creative freedom than studio films.

The People In The Credits
 Executive producer
▪ Financing & putting the package together - story, script, stars, and director.
 Line producers
▪ Day-to-day workers -successful if films completed on time & in budget.
 Directors provide creative vision.
▪ Usually involved in preproduction, production and postproduction phases
 The writer turns an idea into a script.
▪ Scripts today are often written by a committee.
▪ One writer spices up the humor, another polishes the romance, and another
creates strong female characters.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
 The editor
▪ Creates the rhythm and pace of a film by choosing the shots and placing
them in sequence.
 The cinematographer
▪ Is the director of photography, and is in charge of the cameras and works
with the director to set up shots.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Home Media
 DVD versions of movies have become extremely popular.
▪ Easy to use and contain a lot of additional material.
 One of the most successful DVD rental companies
▪ NetFlix, Blockbuster online
▪ Mail-order service allows selection of movie titles online
▪ Then delivered by regular mail.
▪ Does anyone have a netflix account in here?
▪ Who uses video on demand function

Exhibition
 Art theaters show experimental, avant garde and
foreign films.
 The vast majority of movies are shown in multiplexes
which are theaters with multiple screening rooms.
 Megatheaters - Multiplexes with 16 or more screens
▪ Accommodations such as high-fidelity sound systems,
stadium-style seats, and cup holders.
 What is the Largest Movie Theater in Northern, CA

The Audience
 In 1930s and 1940s entire families went to the same movie.
 Now there are multiple audiences
▪ young, old, male, and female.
 Studios target young white males with action-adventure and
female nudity
▪ Research shows young men usually select the film for a date
 Summer provides the largest audience for theaters.
▪ The holiday season between Thanksgiving and January provides the
next largest audience.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Effects Of Movie Viewing
 Many critics worry that docudramas,
▪ Fictional movies that dramatize real-life events, distort reality and
mislead audiences about historic facts.
 Also concern that movies can influence violence
 Can you think of films blamed for influencing crimes
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved