film production
...Initially sound hindered the filmmaking process, since the cameras had to be encased to muffle the noise of their motors and actors could not stray far from the stationary microphones. However, technological advances soon made up for this and the sound became an integral part of filmmaking. The incorporation of sound into film and the resulting movie theater draw triggered a number of mergers in Hollywood as companies tried to consolidate their power (and their wealth). The result of these unions was the creation of the first major studios that dominated the industry for decades, Fox Studios (later 20th Century Fox), Leow's Incorporated (later Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer), Paramount, RKO, and Warner Bros. These studios monopolized the industry through vertical consolidation, meaning they controlled every part of the production process. They owned the writers, the directors and producers, the actors, the equipment and crew, even the theaters. They controlled every step and dominated Hollywood until 1948 when the U.S. Government found them to be an illegal monopoly. It was also during this time that color in movies became possible through the use of the Technicolor system. Technicolor was created using a special camera that ran three strips of film, one in red, one in blue, and one in yellow. When the three strips were consolidated, the resulting image was in full color, though the colors were frequently very exaggerated as can be seen in two such films that were filmed in this manner, Gone With The Wind (1939) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). The 1940's also marked the beginning of the Italian movement known as "neorealism." This movement focused on portraying the non-fictional aspects of Italian society for entertainment, in contrast to many of the dream worlds that were being produced by Hollywood. Future generations of filmmakers would look to this movement as inspiration for their own films depicting their home countries in a style that is sometimes known as "slice-of-life." A novelty technique used during the 1950's was the introduction of 3-D. Filmed with special lenses and then viewed by the audience with special glasses, Hollywood released about 35 of these films during its brief popularity. Unfortunately, audiences quickly became bored with it and Hollywood soon dropped it. Another technique introduced in the 1950's was the wide screen format. It was introduced largely to distinguish movies from television in an effort to lure dwindling audiences back into theaters. Cinemascope was the first such technology, using a special lens to compress the wider image onto a 35mm film reel. A second lens on the projection piece would later decompress the image to create the wide screen format. It was later replaced by the Panavision system, which did not require special lenses. The 1950's also saw the rise of the French "New Wave". The New Wave began with a group of French film critics who believed that the majority of French cinema was overly devoted to written aspects of a film. They believed that the director, the creator of the final visual image should be the true center and set out to direct their own films under this new theory. The French New Wave also sought in some ways to reconceptualize film. Though they were immersed in popular culture and striving to emulate Hollywood's success, they also incorporated new techniques and styles. One such example of this Jean-Luc Godard, who introduced the jump cuts, temporal cuts to disrupt the continuity of a scene. During the 1960's Germany began its own movement, similar to the Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave, known as "das neue Kino", translated as The New Cinema. Major aspects of the New Cinema were a focus on history and hardship Germany had endured, the effects of popular culture from America on German society, as well as the inclusion of feminist viewpoints on these subjects. It was during the 1970's that the blockbusters as we now know it was officially born. The movie that started it all, if it has to go to a single movie, was Jaws. Though somewhat similar to the formula that had described blockbusters under the old studio system, it broke the mold in several major ways. First, its cast was, for the most part, unknown actors. Under the old model it was thought impossible to have a blockbuster without a recognizable cast. Second, and much more importantly, it used shocking special effects, namely a large mechanical shark, to thrill the audience. Audiences had scene special effects before, but this was a whole new level of realism. Thus was born the era of the f/x blockbuster. A few years later the trend was reaffirmed when audiences were again captivated by special effects in one of the most popular movies of all time, Star Wars. Special effects surrounding romanticized and often simplistic characters became the core of the blockbusters, the new formula that brought back the large audiences and flowing cash to Hollywood. By the mid-1970's the new formula for success had been reached. Whereas before a large number of movies were released and shown on the screens of the theaters that bought them, movies were now released in smaller numbers on thousands of screens at once and advertised with massive promotion campaigns to maximize gross on each film. It broke the financial slump of the 60's and remains the formula today. In 1978 a device was also developed that opened new doors for filmm...