The American Film Industry

By the time the late 50s rolled around filmmakers and cinephile’s attitudes towards classical films began to change drastically. As most new wave film movements begin, the new American cinema film movement was established as a way of breaking away from typical classical Hollywood conventions. The most notable of this film movements were the French new wave, which helped pave the way for many other new waves like the New American Cinema. The filmmakers of these new waves wanted to make movies that were more personal, stylized, and independent from the classical Hollywood system. They were able to achieve this “on September 28th, 1960, [when] a group of twenty-three independent filmmakers” were invited by Jonas Mekas, the spokesperson of the movement, and “unanimously” voted to bound together and form “the new American cinema group” (New American Cinema Group, 79). This group of filmmakers; made up of narrative, experimental, and documentary filmmakers, wanted to change the way films were made and how they were distributed. Up until this point in film history, Mekas stated that “there is no American art film” (Mekas, 127). He believed that even though there were avant-garde films, the United States did not have the same kind of art film traditions as the filmmakers like Godard and Truffaut in

The Australian film industry is currently in a point of crisis due to the lack of audiences attending Australian films, hence creating a decline in the revenue received towards our national industry. However, this is not due to the lack of creative talent, it is rather the many underlying issues that don?t allow the Australian public with the awareness and accessibility of these films. These problems are within the distribution, marketing and funding of these Australian films, allowing the national Australian community to not seek for films made by people within their nation due to negative pre-conceived notions and the convenience of going to see a Hollywood Blockbuster. These issues are seen through the poor release of both critically received films, Jennifer Kent?s The Babadook (2014) and Hugh Sullivan?s The Infinite Man (2014), both not gaining a wide audience. Through these issues within the industry, Australian filmmakers have not been able to create the revenue needed for these films to branch out to be easily attained by the public.

Throughout my life I have repeatedly heard everyone around me say “Change is for the better”, a generic phrase that gives false hope to something that does not have a clear answer. The truth is that change can be both good and bad depending on the situation. Hollywood is currently in the process of a major change as it keeps branching further and further away from what it once was. As the popularity of movies continues to rise, the boundaries of what is possible in the movie industry are becoming limitless. With the help of modern technology, Hollywood has turned its attention to how well they can make a movie look, rather than the actual acting itself.

The United States vs. Paramount decision changed the filmmaking business by making block booking illegal. It also made the ‘Big Five’ movie studios sell their movie theaters. The ‘Big Five’ consisted of Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and RKO Radio Pictures.

In “Could This Be the Year Movies Stopped Mattering?” by Brian Raftery, Raftery empathizes how present-day individuals are constantly absorbed towards social media and discover other alternatives to satisfy their entertainment needs. This led to the belief that movies are considered less significant. Furthermore, the author provides us with examples for instance, music, considered an unappreciated category of entertainment, yet unexpectedly, it is a resurgence and recurring item in today’s pop culture, and television, cinema’s long-time competitor in the entertainment industry. He also blames the sudden advancement based on the unexpected deaths of talented artists and a surplus of must hear albums from present artists. Meanwhile, in the year

Hollywood has had an obsession with well, Hollywood from the black-and-white golden era until now. While a smart business move, you run into problems where your movies may be seen as something by Hollywood for Hollywood that celebrates their industry. An industry historically built on underrepresentation and both thematic and screen “white-washing”.

The producers will develop a test and the audience will tell the producers whether it is something they want to see or they are not going to see. This can affect the next text to be produced in an attempt to conform to the audience demands. Looking at the development of different types of genres and the development of films within the same genre, it’s possible to look at similarities and differences and identify changes in society and audience ideologies and tastes.

Have you been left thoroughly underwhelmed by the latest blockbuster? Did Terminator Genisys not deliver the electric jolt the 1984 original did? Did the new Spider-man movie conjure up strange feelings of Déjà vu? Well you're not just being nostalgic, production companies are definitely not making them like they used to. Today the film industry consists of Regurgitated storylines, Reanimated dinosaurs and Repackaged books, and it's only getting worse. Cinema should have a meaning, it should inspire you, educate you and above all make you think, sadly these traits are rare in films nowadays.

‘The Studio System – A model of industrial organisation in the film industry from about 1915 – 1946, characterised by the development of major and minor studios that produced, distributed and exhibited films and held film actors, directors, art directors and other directors under contract’ (1 – Page 456-7)

IT has also changed the way movies are shot particularly through application of film special effects. The film industry heavily relies on illusions to simulate imaginary events in a story (McClean, 2007). Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) is another key technology that is applied to special effects to enhance films. CGI is mainly used in special effects to enable filmmakers to control the scenes instead of using many extra actors. This has simplified film production and reduced the costs incurred. A lot of movies especially those classified under fiction, action, and horror genres rely on CGI.

The film industry has always been somewhat of a dichotomy. Grounded firmly in both the worlds of art and business the balance of artistic expression and commercialization has been an issue throughout the history of filmmaking. The distinction of these two differing goals and the fact that neither has truly won out over the other in the span of the industry's existence, demonstrates a lot of information about the nature of capitalism.

The studio system was a method of film production and distribution dominated by a small number of studios in Hollywood during the Hollywood Golden Age. During the early 1900’s many of the movie production companies moved from the East Coast to warmer climates in states like California, Texas, and New Mexico. Relocating to these locations with warmer weather climates provided more settings for movies to be shot outdoors utilizing beautiful natural scenery, abundant sunlight for scenes, and eventually formed a small conglomerate of studios that we now call Hollywood. During the Golden Age the studio system consisted of eight major studios and out of these eight studios, five of them were major conglomerates. (Looking at Movies, page 468-469) The studio system was challenged by a Supreme Court ruling in 1938; the court decided that the major films studios represented a monopoly and went on to implement anti-trust laws to disband the monopoly. It then took another six years before the studios complied and decided to leave the production of films. (www.cybercollege.com)

The United States is responsible for a film industry that is forever expanding and making a world of difference to films being screened worldwide. Primarily there are two types of films that a studio will choose to produce. The first being a blockbuster film which is defined as “a very popular or successful, usually big budget production.” Blockbuster films are generically very popular with the public and captivate the audience. The public become invested in these movies through the advertising of the film and have a strong inclination to watch the film when they’re released. Their intention as defined by Wikipedia is to“emphasize spectacle, star power, and high production value, all of which entail an enormous budget” (Wikipedia, 2015). The second type of film produced is an independent film produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. Whilst both films have differing objectives and production techniques, they both share a common requirement; the ability to make a profit from their effort. The overall expenditure of a film is usually split into creative and technical costs which cover all bases of the costs involved with creating a film. It is therefore considerably important for a film to earn ample profit in order to not only cover the cost involved with creating the movie, but for a sizeable profit to be made.

Every so often a movie is released with such tense anticipation and glamorous visual art that the public is drawn to this dramatic rendition of life in the theatre. For even just two hours or so, you are put into a different lifestyle. Action, drama or comedy it may be. We are thrust into a different way of thinking. We are forced to learn the characters thoughts and feelings. The hard work and artistic skill that goes into these magnificent films is not an easy thing to mimic. Out of the thousands of movies released worldwide each year only a handful are truly worthy of the label film art. Most of the great movies are either produced by a multi million dollar

A work is said to be meta if it refers to itself or the conventions of the genre it is in, for example a movie about the film industry would be considered meta. In this way a good portion of Rosmarie Waldrop 's work would be meta as it is literature that repeatedly makes reference to language itself. She references the language of her work within said work but not merely as a self-conscious reference but as a way to make the reader pay as much attention to the language she uses as she did while writing. So Waldrop draws attention to how we use language as well as how we must navigate it in order to make use of it properly.