Vocational Area Report

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.

To begin with, some background information on movies and Hollywood in the 1920’s. In the 1920’s, movie attendance soared (The Rise of Hollywood par. 4). As stated in the introduction, with the influx of money in the American economic system, the average person also had an influx of time on their hands. The normal solution was to spend that time on entertainment and movies were the perfect way to do that. By the mid-decade, movie attendance rose to fifty million and only increased from then. The five main movie studios were Warner Brothers, Paramount, MGM, RKO Radio Pictures, and 20th Century Fox (Dirks 1). Before these studios were formed, every aspect of making movies was separated into different companies. The aspects may include filming, editing, or distributing. With the spark of interest in movies, these five companies took it upon

The media industry in the United States of America (US) is one such industry. As a powerful communication tool, the media has attracted many companies but only a handful has grown big. These media giants have dominated the local market and are currently seeking to conquer the global media industry in search of better profits.

Media surrounds us, from the graphic design on our morning cellophane coffee cups, to the carefully designed spreads in the magazines we religiously read. The world of Media and Film is beautifully complex, and something which I strongly want to be involved with. I have always immersed myself in the world of Media, and have only ever felt truly satisfied when I’ve been involved in broadening my knowledge and understanding of the industry.

opens her own clinic. Next, Ruby and I explored her “Top Ten Strong Occupation”; which were: teacher, professor, director, and administrator. I pointed to Ruby that the majority of these occupations dealt with education and leadership or both. After occupations, we explored the personal style preference. Ruby’s style was listed as so; she is likely to prefer working with people, she prefers to learn through college courses and books. Ruby may be comfortable in taking risks toward owning her own clinic; she will be probably enjoyed both team roles and independent roles.

During this time the film studios grew in power, new stars and directors were discovered and the eight major studios produced more than 7500 feature films. “These films were released by the studios to audiences eager to be entertained. More than 80 million people attended at least one film per week. This period enjoyed the greatest collection of talent gathered in one place.” (Motion Pictures, The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Chicago, Encyclopedia Britannica, 2001)

Outline the main changes the paramount decree effected on the structure of the American film industry and discuss the measures the ex-studios took to remain in control of the film market.

With a wave of patriotism following the war, Canada still had the potential to build its industry, with numerous independent Canadian production companies in operation.4 However, the American film industry was flourishing, with the advantage of a larger urban population and strengthened economy.5 As a result, Canada has been trying to come out with a workable film policy for years to support homegrown films, an effect that can still be sensed today. The National Film Board of Canada was then created, originally as an advisory board to coordinate production, but later shifting towards active production. By 1945, the NFB became one of the world’s largest film studios, with a staff of 800 people and more than 500 films released, shown monthly in Canadian and foreign theatres.6 It was a leading producer of world-class documentaries, animation and experimental films, and its productions have won more than 5,000 international awards. Despite critical success, the NFB “did little to solve the problem posed by the dominance of foreign films”; 7 they brought little commercial success or attention from

During the 1920s, American Film was at the peak of its glory. 1920s Film was the biggest form of entertainment and a weekly pastime for millions of Americans, regardless of race and social background. Silent films continued to improve and innovate the film industry. Hollywood established themselves as an American force and produced hundreds of silent films. Also, Hollywood became the birthplace of “movie stars” such as Janet Gaynor, Rudolph Valentino, and Charlie Chaplin. Movie studios such as Warner Brothers Pictures, RKO, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and 20th Century Fox owned thousands of theaters and received public acclamation for hundreds of films produced. The 1920’s American film industry is the epitome of the ascension of Hollywood and the innovation era of film.

My media career was born of a desire to serve the public with accurate and thorough information. I currently edit intranet pages to help hundreds of Royal Caribbean agents serve customers in that manner, and I served thousands of readers more directly in earlier work with niche publications and community newspapers.

In the late 1960s, the “New Hollywood” era approached a new style of filming geared towards different generations of people. Leading up to new Hollywood, the 1960s brought devastation to the film industry. With the massive production of televisions along with the migration of millions to suburbs away from the cities, movie theaters lost their popularity very quickly. Fewer films were being made, thus hurting Hollywood in every way possible. However, as the late 1960s approached, the new Hollywood era arose with new ways to attract movie-goers once more.

Analyzing the studio system simplistically we see basic capitalism. In the 1920’s movies became more popular, so fulfilling the rules of basic supply and demand, studios were formed to profit from the insatiable public desire to see more films (in

is growing outside of the USA. This kind of growth includes the large countries that previously specialised in film production. For countries such as China and India, the annual release of films has grown progressively for the past decade, followed by a forced growing purchase power and investments in cinemas (Lorenzen, M. 2008). The American film industry must, in a way, watch its back. Especially when the amount of small film countries, such as Denmark and Switzerland, has grown. The smaller countries have attracted attention by not only up-scaling their production, but also winning market shares from Hollywood. Other new filmmaking countries are also on the rise, with Korea, Mexico etc. joining the market, who bring cheaper production technologies to their advantage (Lorenzen, M. 2008).

The most dramatic event in Hollywood did not take place on screen. The decision in the United States vs. Paramount Pictures case, colloquially called the Paramount decision, and the Hollywood blacklist created a great upheaval in the film industry. These events resulted in major changes in the direction of American filmmaking. The most major results of these incidents were the switch to the goal of producing a single show stopping film, later called blockbusters, and the shift to intentionally perpetuating so called “American Ideals” to prevent being accused of being a communist and subsequently blacklisted. Overall, the Paramount decision and Hollywood blacklist altered the filmmaking business by changing the type of movies being made and the themes within them.

The modern film industry was born around the beginning of the twentieth century. On April 23rd 1896 Thomas Edition showed the first publicly-projected motion picture at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City. From there the film industry had an explosive growth rate. In fact,