Custom essays on The influence and dominance of the major Hollywood studios

“HOLLYWOOD” –is a district in Los Angeles, California, located in northwest of downtown Los Angeles. It is famous as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars.
The first studio in Hollywood was founded by Centaur Company, located in New Jersey, that wanted to shoot westerns in California. They rented an abandoned roadside diner at 6121 Sunset Boulevard at the corner of Gower-street, and turned it into the studio in October 1911, calling it “Studio Nestor” in honor of the western branch of the company. Later the building became “film lab in Hollywood, which is now called« Hollywood Digital Laboratory”. (Bowser, 1990)
The first feature film made in the studio Hollywood, in 1914, was the film “an Indian husband,” created by Cecil B. DeMille and Oscar Apfel. Feature films, made in Los Angeles before “Indian Husband” were the films “From Dusk Till Dawn” (1913) and “Sea Wolf” (1913). (Bowser, 1990, p. 160.)
Hollywood had a lot of advantages: there was a lot of sun, spread out around the magnificent scenery – mountains, valleys, islands, lakes, beaches, deserts, forests – where it was possible to recreate any character that comes on the planet. The land here is cheap cost, around there were numerous labor for construction and maintenance of studios. By 1915 it was concentrated 60% of American filmmaking, and for the next five years, an system of film studios, which allowed Hollywood to become a cinema capital of the world.
The word “Hollywood” is often used as the word “movie” in the United States. Alias refers to Tinseltown shiny surface typical of Hollywood and the film industry. Currently, most of the industry dispersed in nearby cities such as Burbank and the Los Angeles Westside, but such auxiliary industries like editing, effects, props, post-production and lighting companies, remain in Hollywood, as well as for location filming in Paramount Pictures.
In 1911 the company Nestor Company opened in Hollywood at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and the streets Gouner first studio. By 1920 years in Hollywood studios have opened such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, and Hollywood became the center of American cinema. The growing film industry require appropriate infrastructure. In Hollywood, they built homes for many film companies, employees, opened a lot of banks, restaurants, clubs, cinemas. After World War II look of Hollywood once again changed. Although most studios were in the Hollywood, many movie stars and show business have moved to Beverly Hills, was followed by fashionable restaurants and shops.
Many historic Hollywood theaters are used as places of filmmaking and concert venues in major theatrical releases and prime of the Academy of Awards.
Very often the notion of “American Cinema’ and “Hollywood” unite. And this is a big mistake. American cinema – it is not only a huge Hollywood film industry, but also developed a system of independent cinema. This film, produced by enthusiasts without the intervention of major film companies, which they simply do not support. On the one hand, this means smaller budgets, on the other hand – less pressure on the directors. This film is usually not rich, because the producers of film-makers have to look for themselves (and often have to invest and own money).However, in the U.S. independent film is quite popular. In addition, it also earned worldwide recognition, not just winning on the international kinokonkursah and festivals, and has yielded a number of major contemporary authors. Prominent representatives of the modern independent American cinema are Woody Allen, John Malkovich, Michael Moore, Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, Joel and Ethan Coen.

2. Filmmaking in Hollywood from the era of “silent cinema” to the Golden Age of Hollywood
Hollywood began his fame in the era of silent films. Although the films of that era were shown without sound, talented directors and artists had made them a highly entertaining spectacle. Films made during the silent movies era in Hollywood are among the greatest masterpieces in cinema history. Although the directors of silent films often resorted to using titles that told the audience important information, yet the main stake was done on the visual images, not only on the development of the plot, but also in the transfer of thoughts and feelings of characters. Of course, the audience needed time to understand the language of the “Great Silent”, but soon it became really successful. (Koszarski, 1990)
Creation of feature films in 1920 was very difficult. While the system of studios offered little opportunity for expressions of artists, it nevertheless had generated a lot of talented filmmakers. Some of them, such as John Ford or King Vidor, had taken a prominent place in the history, others, like James Cruz, Rex Ingram, Lewis Weber and Fred Niblo, were forgotten. (Koszarski, 1990)
With the advent of sound cinema, filmmaking began to flourish. The success was so deafening that Hollywood had entered a period of greatest prosperity, when it’s perfectly executed masterpieces helped the audience in the world at least temporarily forgot emotion of that troubled era.
Indeed, the silent cinema was never completely silent. Even the first film screenings were held with the accompaniment of a pianist. By 1920’s, many “cinema” had their own organs, machines of sound and even orchestras. In Hollywood, directors were in no hurry to spend huge money on renovations of theirs studios and movie theaters, fearing that “talking films” could just be a passing fad. (Koszarski, 1990)
But by the mid 1920’s the company, Warner Brothers, was facing severe financial difficulties, and it was necessary to somehow attract the audience. In 1926 the studio released the film “Don Juan” – a “costume” film with sound and orchestral music recorded by the system “Vitafon”. But finally the era of silent films ended only in October 1927, when the film “The Jazz Singer” with Al Jolson in the leading role was released.
The transition to sound film was so expensive that Hollywood was forced to seek sources of funding to apply to banks and other business institutions. In return, some of them, expressing the views of various religious organizations demanded that the film studios to avoid sensitive topics. As a result, in 1934, Hollywood had to take a set of rules, known as the Production Code: according to this code, in Hollywood movies were not allowed criticism of any religious believes, surgery, drug use, drunkenness, and cruelty to children or animals. The use of curses, even the most innocuous, is also forbidden. It was impossible to show details of robberies and acts of violence, to discourage violations of law, and criminals were not allowed to kill police officers. Stringent restrictions are imposed on everything that was related to sex. Nude actors on the screen, showing same-sex and interracial love affairs and even passionate kissing was strictly prohibited.
When Hollywood began producing its sound pictures, it quickly regained its reputation as the director of best film production, which made it “the capital of world cinema” in the era of silent films. 1930-1945 years were the “golden age” of Hollywood. It’s studios during this time brought into the world 7500 full-length films. Most of them were black and white, but since 1935 were coming out more and more films made with the use of “Technicolor”. (Scott, 2005)
The system of studios remained virtually unchanged, although the organization was similar studios, each of them has developed his own special style. The largest of the studios “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer” asserted that “it had more stars than the sky”. It specialized on bright and cheerful family pictures. Production Company “Paramount” felt strong influence of European cinema. Many of its films delt with topics of wealth, power and human passions.
The company “United Artists” didn’t made own films, but engaged rental tapes of independent producers, such as Samuel Goldwyn and David O. Selznick. (Scott, 2005)
The company “Warner Brothers” had never been rich, but still managed to release a number of popular gangster movies, social films and musicals. “XX Century Fox” also filmed musicals, westerns and historical pictures, but with very modest budget.
The Company “Universal” had no equal in the era of silent films, but with the advent of sound had to go to the staging of cheap game tapes, mostly horror films. “Columbia” was in great distress that survived only by borrowing “stars” and directors for its most important films from other studios.
In the center of each film were of course the stars, although much attention was paid to the quality of the script, as well as costumes, sets and lighting. Nevertheless, the astronomical fees of stars were in the past, moreover, now they were all involved with very stringent contracts with one or another studio. The actor, who refused from the proposed role, was threatening suspension from work or the loan of another movie company.