Research Paper

Submitted By 490346308
Words: 1650
Pages: 7
Open Document
Jiang 1

Wesley Jiang
Mr. Disimile
Global Markets
12 May 2015
Transformation of Hollywood The film industry is like any other business industry, subjected to change, whether it is due to change of technology or change of consumer taste. Throughout the history of film industry, changes always brought opportunities and the entrepreneurs that took these opportunities created by the changes thrived. During the 1920s and
1950s,
there was no change in the film industry other than the fact that movie studios were making more and more money. The film industry operated under the studio system, a system so powerful that gave studios complete control over directors, actors, and even the supply chain. However, starting in the late 1940s, the powerful hollywood began to fall. The old film industry was being forced to change due to government involvement, foreign competition, and rise of television.
Between the 1920s and
1940s,
known as the golden age of hollywood, the film industry was dominated by the major five studios, 20th century fox,
Metro­Golgwyn­Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros, RKO Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and
20th Century fox. During that era, studios had two strategies that made them more powerful than today’s studios. They had directors and actors under control and the supply chain as well. It did not matter how famous and talented the directors and actors were, they were all under long­term contracts with the studios. They all worked for a salary, being assigned to films and swapped between studios.
The studios practically

Jiang 2

owned the creative personels, after the studios made all the decisions about film productions, and assigning directors and actors to different film projects. Similar to the present­day Asian, and ironically parts of American entertainment industry, studios took promising young actors under contract and gave them new public image with methods from changing names to plastic surgery. In order to make the stars more marketable, studios forced them to all behave like perfect ladies and gentlemen. These stars were assigned to projects, willing or unwilling, leaving them no creative freedom. With all the restrictions from the studios, directors were also stifled in their creative pursuit. In no way shape or form, directors had the power their have today in film production; they had minimum control over their movies since most decisions had already been made by studios.
The quality of the films also did not matter as much because they dominated exhibition of the films with vertical integration, meaning that they directly owned their supply chains.
Other than having complete control over production and distribution of films, the big five studios also owned their own movie theaters under the model of vertical integration. With the ownership and effective control of distributors and exhibition, additional sales of films were guaranteed. There were many situations where one studio controlled all of the theaters in a town or city, for example, Paramount owned every theater in Detroit, establishing a monopoly on film distribution in one of America's largest cities at the time. The less prominent studios, Universal, Columbia Pictures and
United Artists never owned more than small theater circuits, and relied on independent theaters to carry their movies. With the exhibitions under control, the studios were able

Jiang 3

to block other competitions, making independent films impossible to publish. One of the biggest technique used by theaters to guarantee sales in their films was block booking, selling multiple films as a unit to theaters . Attractive movies are often bundled with B movies, low­budget films. One bundle could be from 10 to 100. Paramount obtained chains of theaters with 1200 screens, and insisted that the exhibitors and independent theaters sign a contract for exclusive top­of­the­line Paramount
Show More

Related Documents: Research Paper

research paper

Research Paper 1 How safe are the government facilities? Rebecca Leon Empire State University Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery Diane Delucia April 01, 2015 Research Paper 2 On March 9th 2015 an email was sent out to every Army…

Words 1122 - Pages 5

IT Research Paper

Research Paper MELKIA WATERS Mwaters17@capellauniversity.edu IT3006 PROF. JULIA KRUMMEN Nov. 10, 2013 Identifying Improved Methodology to Procure HIT Software Benefits Users Introduction Researchers conducted a study conducted at The University of Utah Healthcare system (comprising of 3 major hospitals) on the usability of their health information technology (HIT) software. Evaluators found 60 usability problems and 233 heuristic violations (Guo et al., 2011). Heuristic is defined by Oxford Dictionaries…

Words 1892 - Pages 8

Research Paper

25099373 CNF15_3 Research Methods Research Proposal Word Count: 1210 A look into the Memory Retention: Can stimulants increase a person’s memory? A quantitative research proposal. For this research proposal, memory will be looked into to see whether a person’s memory can be increased via the intake of stimulants. This quantitative research will then look into whether there are any future benefits in consuming stimulants if memory is found to be increased. There is already research similar in nature…

Words 1359 - Pages 6

Research Paper

Research papers are a common type of paper for students to write, especially when they are attending college. These papers require students to perform research, such as utilizing primary and secondary sources to draw new conclusions. For students who have not written this type of paper before, it may seem daunting. There are many free sample research papers online for those who want to see how to structure their paper and other details.Diane Hacker, an author who writes manuals for students writing…

Words 307 - Pages 2

Research Paper

Research Paper EDUC 600 Pamela Noble Dr. Albright Liberty University Abstract Billions of dollars are spent every year on psychologist, psychiatrist, and counselors only to discover that one of the key elements missing in their child is resiliency. Resiliency for the purpose of this study is defined as the appropriate personality such as strength and positive adaptation that help a person or family cope with stress or life difficulties, increasing the likelihood of…

Words 514 - Pages 3

Research Paper

Research Paper How does an imposed requirement of regularly identifying exposure to operational risk benefit an insurance company? Executive Summary The topic of this research paper is how an imposed requirement of regularly identifying exposure to operational risk benefits an insurance company. Risks occur naturally in all business, but if risk is not controlled, there are plenty of consequences that can arise. Insurance companies deal with risk everyday, ranging from fraud, car theft, health…

Words 2609 - Pages 11

Research Paper

Comparison of the Sciences SSC101 Research Assignment Module 7 Saint Leo University December 08, 2012 The three social sciences below are defined as according to the Merriam-Webster on line dictionary. www.merriam-webster.com Anthropology 1: the science of human beings; especially : the study of human beings and their ancestors through time and space and in relation to physical character, environmental and social relations, and culture 2: theology dealing with the origin,…

Words 2578 - Pages 11

Research Paper

amount Americans drink today by three and you'll have an idea what much of the nineteenth century was like.” So how does someone become an alcoholic? This has to do with a combination of genetic, physiological, psychological and social factors. Research have discovered that children of alcoholics are four times more likely to become alcoholics themselves. Children of alcoholic parents are raised in the environment where drinking is okay and they tend to pick up the drinking habit from their parents…

Words 1766 - Pages 8

Research paper

groups, sexual preferences, sex, size, etc. So to fathom being in a society where it is essentially a "free for all" towards being prejudice, or genuinely prejudice towards these types of groups is very hard to imagine. Prior to doing any definite research, I thought I had a pretty clear idea on how exactly equal opportunity could both benefit, and hurt today’s workplace. As I was reading “Advantages & Disadvantages of Equal Opportunity Employment” (Casey Reader) a short online article by Casey Reader…

Words 1332 - Pages 6

Research Paper

you commit yourself to. This way of thinking really reflects on the type of writing process I endure. While writing I really focus on how I want to identify myself, what questions I wish to discover, and how this idea might change me. To begin my paper I use an outline. On this outline at the top of the page I write my main topic that I wish to write about. After I have created the topic, I then write a list of ideas that relate to what I want to talk about. Out of the ten ideas I create I choose…

Words 2972 - Pages 12