The History And Evolution Of Sony Pictures

In chapter two of The Cultures of American Film, the main focus is the establishment of studios. As demand for films rose in the early 1900’s, production companies needed to expand; this lead to the creation of large scale studios.

A company owning the means of production, distribution, and exhibition called vertical integration. It was first seen with Thomas Edison and others setting up The Motion Picture Patent Company, “The Trust”, in 1908. The companies controlled over the production and exhibition by enforcing the patent and ruling out other competitors. Edison wanted to control the distribution system across the country and the first nationwide distributor, General Film Co., was created by the MPPC in 1910. Fox Film Company who did not sell out to the Trust pioneered in vertical integration as Fox intended to produce films as a distributor. W.W. Hodkinson started fist nationwide feature film distribution and created Paramount. Zukor & Famous Players Lasky later

On January 15th, 2015, The Toronto Star published a news article detailing the recent decision of Sony to close all fourteen of their stores located in Canada. Sony decided that they close all outlets across Canada over the course of the next two months, which would directly affect 90 of their employees. In their company statement, it was stated that the company would instead be directing their sales through telesales and online stores and the Tokyo-based Sony Corporation forecasts a $2.3 billion (U.S) deficit for the business year to March. Sony has been cutting retail operations since 2014 such as by closing their outlet in Toronto Eaton Center and will continue to close their outlets located in areas such as Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, and Ottawa.

Hollywood today spends more money on movies than ever before, with an average budget of $140 million per movie. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides; the most expensive movie ever made; cost approximately $378.5 million and that was five years ago. This isn’t surprising since history is witness to a rising trend in money spent on movies, even after adjusting for inflation, however, their impact on the industry isn’t as large as their budgets. Over the years, lower cost productions like B-Movies have played a major role in carrying the industry forward by keeping it stable, moving and profitable in times of trouble. B-Movies came to be the need of the hour after The Great Depression and World War II. Money was tight everywhere and Hollywood could not continue making extravagant movies therefore they turned to low budget commercial films. These movies not only have an economical significance in Hollywood, they have made more than one contribution to the industry. These low risk movies provided directors, writers and producers with a wide scope for experimentation and led to the creation of many a genres and sub-genres. The origins of B-Movies are humble but over the years that they grew in Hollywood, they became more significant and successful, yet their progress from “Rags to Riches” remains more a behind-the-scenes heroic act than a superhero effort.

There were the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. During all of this tumultuous change, the New American Cinema was born. The changes that occurred from the “old” American Cinema to the “new” American Cinema has been referred to as a “phenomenon.” When the old studio system collapsed, it was replaced with scattered enterprises known as “independent filmmakers.” This change had both positive and negative impacts on the cinema industry. There were declining audiences, competition from television networks, and escalating production costs. The upside was that there were conventions adapted such as; new modes of expression to better meet the audience expectations and more shooting on location, which resulted in better quality

The decline of the American film industry was marked by two very important events that date back to 1947 – 1948: the Paramount decision and the Hollywood blacklist. Prior to each event, the production studio companies reaped the benefits of monopolizing every facet of the entire life-cycle of movie production: from development thru release. They were “too big to fail” or for that matter “too big to be challenged”. However, the Supreme Court had other plans in mind. In 1938, the Department of Justice initially challenged the studios to break up their trust entities but very minimal action resulted from it. It was not until ten years later that, the studios were taken back to court to face anti-trust violations. The result was devastating to

Columbia Pictures will also be of help because “Columbia's films will provide the "software" for Sony videocassette recorders, for example, and for the 8-millimeter recorder Sony is trying to popularize” (Richter, 1989, para. 8). This whole acquisition revolved around Sony wanting to ultimately build the total entertainment package which includes the audio and video aspects. This deal between Sony and Columbia Pictures gives Sony what is called vertical integration. This is basically having the “ownership of both programming and the mechanisms for distributing the programming” (Fabrikant, 1989, para. 8). With Columbia Pictures owning more than 3,000 films and close to 2,600 TV shows, this will allow Sony to be able to utilize these films and videos in their marketing efforts to promote the new video camera. This new technology was very popular and they were fortunate to have had a product for the new player. There were talks about what it would indicate if a Japanese company such as Sony bought an American company like Columbia Pictures. Talks were about what people may start to think that “foreign capital is taking over American culture” (Sanger, 1989,

The story of the American motion picture industry begins with the eccentric ‘photographic artist’, Eadweard Muybridge. In 1872, Eadweard Muybridge was sought out by former governor of California and railroad tycoon, Leland Stanford, because of his expertise with the camera. Stanford thought that if Muybridge could capture equine motion in a series of photographs, it would be possible to discern whether or not all four of a horse’s legs were simultaneously aloft at any point when running. However, initial series of photographs taken by Muybridge was unsuccessful in resolving Stanford’s query.

Sony Corporation was founded on the 7th of May 1946 in Tokyo, Japan as a joint stock company under Japanese law. To start it, the founders incurred a cost of 190,000 yen. The co-founder of Sony Corporation in May 1946 was Masaru Ibuka. The other co-founder who founded the Sony Corporation in America iin160 was called Akio Morita.

A Lithium-ion battery is a “battery where the negative electrode (anode) and positive electrode (cathode) materials serve as a host for the lithium ion (Li+). Lithium ions move from the anode to the cathode during discharge and are intercalated into (inserted into voids in the crystallographic structure of) the cathode. The ions reverse direction during charging.” [2]

Discussion 3- How might Sony plan for the future in the electronics industry? What opportunities and threads do you see coming in Sony’s future?

Sony always opts for differentiation in order to stand out from rest of the competitors. Their unique product readily catches the eye of consumer and attracts them. The figure below is called Porter Generic Matrix. The competitive scope in the figure shows when a company follows has a broad or narrow target. If a company has low competitive advantage the focus will be on low cost & if a company has high competitive advantage, the focus will remain on differentiation strategy. The matrix tells the position of a company in that industry. Sony Corporation has a broad target and high competitive advantages which allows the company to follow differentiation strategies. The company could follow this strategy due to its high spending on scientific research and their highly skilled, creative product development teams. Premium pricing is also achieved by this way by the company.

Sony is a long-term focused, experienced organisation in the electronic industry which is recently facing some serious management issues. The organisation was founded in 1946 is one of the most extensive entertainment companies in the world. The management issue being discussed in this report is that sony is some environmental shocks led the organisation to face too many loses and crisis which led to leadership changes as the leader was too contingent in his style and couldn’t cope up with the environmental changes. A new leader has been appointed to bring changes and save it from the crisis by changing the environment to more situation oriented approach." There is no recipe for success when it comes to running an organization. Similarly, when speaking of the management styles, it can be indicated none which has been successful in all situations and in every type of organization. The leadership style represents the manner in which a leader exercises his role within an organization.” Novac, C., & Bratanov, C. I. (2014). This report will argue what king=d of leadership style and attribute should the new leader follow to get Sony out of crisis and regain its market strength

Akio Morita, the long time Sony Corporation co-founder was a very unique man. He accomplished so much in his 78 years of life. He was the co-founder of one of the most successful consumer electronic companies. He also is known for opening the gates for Japan sales in the United States.

* Increased market shar through psychical sales strong demand of new releases and catalogue albums