Chapter 6
Film and Home Video
Goals of this chapter
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We will discuss the history (progression) of
motion pictures
– Discussing film genres, studio and industry
organizations, audiences and editorial/policy
issues
Early History
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1877 – Leland Stanford (Railroad millionaire and
founder of Stanford U.)
– $25,000 bet
– Resulted in photographer Muybridge’s first movie
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Retinas and our “Persistence of Vision”
1888 – Edison invented the first motion picture
camera; 4 years later, a projector
– Lumiere brothers and screens
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1900 – NYC had 600 nickelodeons (movie
players)
– These played short motion sequences, like that of a
horse galloping
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The Great Train Robbery (1903) became the first
“movie” (a film that presented a story-the people
ducking in the audience)
Early History
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Edison & Co. and the Motion Picture Patents
Company (MPPC)
– This moved film from NYC to Hollywood
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First Feature Film - Film technique culminates in
1915 with Birth of a Nation, the first longer story
film
– Was the most popular film in U.S. for 20 years
– But was also racist in tone—based in and around the
U.S. Civil War, it had KKK members as the heroes (and
the film was subsequently used as a recruiting tool in
later years for the KKK)
Major Phases in the Movies
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Silent Film Era – 1903-1927
– Established the standard genres still used today
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Westerns: The Great Train Robbery (1903)
War Movies: Birth of a Nation (1915)
Horror: Dracula, Nosferatu (1922)
Romance: The Sheik (1921)
Physical Comedies: Charlie Chaplin, Keystone Cops
Historical dramas: Intolerance (1916)
Documentaries: Nanook of the North (1921)
Action/Adventure: Douglas Fairbank’s Thief of Baghdad
Melodramas: The Perils of Pauline (1914)
– Oriented toward action and set design
– Developed many of the standard camera
techniques/angles
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Along with rules for their understanding
Major Phases (cont’d)
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Talkies
– Warner Brothers & AT&T’s Western Electric Company
pooled to create first talking film (The Jazz Singer, 1927).
– Ended the era of silent films
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Actors had to learn more subtle skills, had to have the voice
to match
Studios had to learn to use sound effects and music
– Use of dialogue expanded the genres to include:
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musicals (Flying down to Rio, 1933)
Crime dramas (Little Caesar, 1930)
Animation (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937)
Screwball comedies (It Happened One Night, 1934)
Character Studies (Citizen Kane, 1941)
Detective Movies (The Maltese Falcon, 1941)
Suspense (Fritz Lang’s M, 1931)
Monster Movies (King Kong, 1933)
Film noir – dark skeptical films (Double Indemnity, 1944)
Serials – played before the features, (Buck Rogers, 1936-40)
Major Phases (cont’d)
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The Studio System
– Major studios gained control of the industry during the Great
Depression causing substantial vertical integration
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Smaller owners went out of business (est. 5000 independent theaters)
5 companies dominated:
– Paramount: Most profitable/powerful (major distribution network)
– Loew’s/MGM – impressive recording facilities, major strides in
technicolor
– Warner Bros. – Comedies, genre films (Robin Hood) and cartoons
– 20th Century Fox – combined power of two studios, developed new
names and produced news reels (Shown in theaters)
– RKO – produced Citizen Kane (1941) but primarily focused on Bmovies
– Studios aimed for prestigious feature films, but earned most of
their money from B-movies (cheaply and quickly produced)
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Since most people would go to the movies 2-3 times per week!
In 1946 (the peak of audience exposure) approx. 90 million Americans went
to the movies every week (a $1.7 Billion/year industry)
– 2003 total was around $9.2 Billion dollars!!
Major Phases (cont’d)
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Film vs. Television 1948-1960
– TV exposure, coupled with a general exodus to the suburbs
reduced people’s time at the movies
– Concurrent with the TV threat, the government decided to break up
the power in Hollywood
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Forced Companies to exit from at least one aspect of the business:
production, distribution or exhibition
– 1950’s RKO and Republic (a smaller co.) started selling broadcast
rights of their movies to TV
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Warner Bros. Followed in 1956 and this made up the majority of their
earnings through the late 1960’s
– Disney began by producing content specifically for Television
(Disneyland for ABC (1954-7) and Mickey Mouse Club (1955-9))
– Eventually TV networks were forced to buy programming from
others (rather than create it themselves) due to the Fin-Syn rules
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Financial Interest in Syndication – Gov’t regulation that promoted diverse
content
Major Phases (cont’d)
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Film vs. TV (cont’d)
– The film industry hoped that Technological Innovation would
keep them profitable
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By the early 1960’s almost all movies (in theaters) were in color (not true
of TV)
Widescreen projection gave audiences a larger viewing area
– For an excellent discussion visit:
• http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/aspectratios/widescree
norama.html
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Studios began producing big budget epics in an attempt to draw more
moviegoers
– Ultimately, this timeframe saw the studio system disappear
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More independent producers would use the studios for distribution (no
longer content considerations)
A Few Good Men
Major Phases (cont’d)
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Partnership: Movie Industry and Cable TV
– 1970-80’s saw HBO (first satellite cable channel)
launch as a “movies-only” channel along with the
invention of the VCR
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This reinforced the market for older movies, and for the direct
sale of movies to consumers
– By the late 1980’s, 90% of American homes owned a
VCR
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This sparked a massive video rental business (beginning with
independent shops and ultimately merging into Blockbuster
and Hollywood Video chains)
– At this point, the film industry began to release the B-
movies straight to video and began producing madefor-TV movies
– Given the potential for subsequent rental/individual
sales, the movie industry began producing for more
segmented audiences—primarily ages 15-24
Major Phases (cont’d)
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Return to Big-Budget Blockbusters
– 1977 – The release of Star Wars is considered another
significant point in the movie industry’s history
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Triggered a massive demand (and interest) in modern special
effects—significantly raising the production costs of each
movie
The “Star System” returns—paying superstar actors to play a
role in a film as producers see profit potential of a big hit
– Major Studios now concentrate on releasing one or two
major blockbusters a year
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They still release many other movies of a lesser scale—but
unlike B-movies of old, these movies do not provide the bread
and butter for the industry (one blockbusters can fund the
company for years)
– By the turn of this past century, rentals and direct-sales
of videos/DVDs account for 2 times the company’s
box-office earnings
Movie Technologies
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Movie Sound
– Edison invented a sound system in 1913, but as
mentioned, The Jazz Singer (1927) was the first
successful film with sound (synchronized record)
– Migration to auditory encoding directly onto the film
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photoreceptor picks up variations in light shining through the
film, turns into a weak electric current that is passed through
amplifiers and transformed into sound
– Digital Theater Sound (DTS) is similar to original
method, using a CD that is synchronized to the film
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This enables multi-dimensional surround sound
Movie Technologies (cont’d)
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Image Quality
– Frame rate increased from 18 or 22 fps (in early films)
to 24 fps
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Got rid of jerky movements—gaps between frames became
difficult to perceive (the whole image persistence thing)
– Film got wider going from 16mm to 35mm to 70mm
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Expanding field of vision to enhance realism
– Color films were introduced in 1910, but frames had to
be painted by hand on each print
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Cinemascope introduced a new color photography process in
1939
Technicolor was introduced in 1922 but was patented and not
shared until gov’t intervention in 1950.
Most films were color by the 1960s.
Movie Technologies (cont’d)
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Special Effects
– Earliest examples were that of stop-action effects
(magician and box)
– As audiences become more sophisticated, other
techniques are needed
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Film background is actually another film being projected (in
car scenes—typically still used, except methods have
improved)
– “Modern” Special Effects date back to King Kong
(1933)
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Used scale models combined with filming techniques
Used fairly standard Rear Projection – images are projected
behind the actor who is in the foreground
– These images were then composited—layers were flattened
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First to use Front Projection – filmed actors in front of an
image so that they appear to be part of it
Movie Technologies (cont’d)
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Digital Revolution
– Within movies:
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Star Wars used computer-driven cameras to construct multilayered space
battles
Tron (1982) – used a 16 minute segment of digital animation in a liveaction film
Pixar’s Toy Story (1995) was the first major full-length computer
animated film
The Matrix’s Bullet-time is similar to Muybridge’s flying horse technique
Computer graphics are beginning to replace scale models
– Postproduction is also benefiting from digital techs
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Digitized film allows for non-linear editing which makes it very easy to
rearrange scenes when splicing together the final cut
Digitized sound is similarly easy to manipulate
– Digital video is emerging now as a better alternative to the older
film medium—cheaper, higher quality, easier to edit and
distribute
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Attack of the Clones (2001) was the first live action to be digitally shot
Movie Technologies (cont’d)
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Movie Viewing
– Theaters try to enhance the aesthetic experience
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Add more impressive sound systems
Higher quality projection
Bigger screens
When converted to DLP, may be able to downlink from a
satellite and present live content (NBA finals?)
– Home Viewing has vastly improved with flat panel TVs
and surround sound—people are building media rooms
– Watching DivX on your PC (1/10 the original size of
the DVD) is primarily done with illegal content, but
should eventually be employed by the Studios to sell
their product
Industry Organization
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The Film Industry
– Today, 8 Major Film Companies exist:
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Columbia, Fox, MGM, Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros.,
Buena Vista (Disney) and Tri-Star (Sony)
Companies on average produce 15-25 movies per year (vs. 4050 during the 40s); spending $50-60 million plus $30 million
in ads per film
These companies make 2/5 of movies in the U.S.
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Top Six Studio Owners (book pg. 176)
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Media Group
Time Warner
Walt Disney
Vivendi
Viacom-CBS
Sony
Main Movie Production Companies
Warner Bros., New Line
Buena Vista, Miramax, Touchstone
Universal, PolyGram Films
Paramount
Columbia, TriStar
Industry Organization (cont’d)
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Independent Film Makers
– Many independent filmmakers use the major companies
for distribution
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Playtone – Tom Hanks’ company
Pixar – Steve Jobs’ company
– Many other “Indies” are produced—the challenge
(aside from initial funding) is typically found in the
distribution
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Major distribution labels often don’t want to take a chance
– National and International Film Festivals are meant to
give exposure to the Independent films
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Super Size Me; Fahrenheit 9/11
Can create substantial media frenzy—catapulting the
director/writer/producer into the larger major players’ view
Offers film students a chance to show their film to larger
audiences
Industry Organization (cont’d)
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Film Distribution
– Most films are distributed by the major film companies
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Distribution includes: theaters, video, cable TV, and overseas
releases
Independent filmmakers typically have trouble making these
connections on their own
– They can choose to sell the TV rights prior to release in order to
finance nonstudio productions
– Films are distributed to a series of windows
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Distribution schedules linked to specific channels (domestic
release, international, pay-per-view, home video rentals and
sales, network tv…
Consolidation and Change in Studio Ownership
– Recent Trends:
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Combination or integration with television networks
Consolidation of studio ownership
Foreign ownership
Integration in International Operations
Film’s Relationship with Society
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Violence, Sex, Profanity, and Film Ratings
– MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America)
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This organization has been rating movies since 1968 to present
expectations of content to the public
– G – For all ages; no sex or nudity, minimal violence
– PG –Parental Guidance suggested; some portions perhaps not
suitable for young children, mild profanity, non-”excessive”
violence, only a glimpse of nudity
– PG-13 –Parents strongly cautioned to give guidance to children
under 13; some material may be inappropriate for young children
– R –Restricted; those under 17 must be accompanied by a parent
or guardian; may contain very rough violence, nudity or sexual
situations
– NC-17 –No one under 17 admitted; generally reserved for films
that have longer or more explicit sexual situations
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These standards are controversial in the filmmaking
community—act as a form of censorship
Some groups feel that the restriction will make the film more
popular with groups that are “too young” for the rating
Standards constantly are adjusted downward
Film’s Relationship with Society
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Film Piracy
– Illegal use of copyrighted material in the film industry
is estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars (in
U.S. and abroad)
– VCRs were the original film piracy concern
– Computers and digital copies of films are of greater
concern to the industry
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Makes it easier to distribute/share
Studios are cracking down on:
– Major violators
– University Campuses
– Private Networks
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Studios try to use anti-hacking technology, but have yet to
succeed
– Every time someone breaks the code, they post the solution on
the net