Hollywood is a crazy world with an even crazier history
it's conniving competitive and above all risky I think to analyze movies it's
important to understand the context surrounding the production of the movie
not to mention it's also extremely interesting
so let's separate Hollywood's life into five distinct eras and see the thievery
desperation and failure in the industry starting with the first movies actually
began far away from Hollywood California all movies before 19/11 like the Great
Train Robbery and the first Frankenstein movie were filmed entirely on the East
Coast in fact the all-too-familiar term cliffhanger most likely originates from
a series called the peril of poly in 1914 which was filmed in the former
motion picture capital of the country Fort Lee New Jersey the move to
Hollywood happened for several reasons it was cheaper there was nice weather
year-round and California provided a lot of distinct film locations nothing
illustrates this better than Paramount's description of the region one reason
hardly talked about however is the fact that these million dollar motion picture
industries were fleeing to California so they could more easily break the law in
1891 Thomas Edison patented the kinetic graph the technology used to film movies
with his patent he had a legal monopoly on the entire industry even had control
over movie projectors and film distributors Edison aggressively sued
many people using his invention going so far as to hiring thugs to smash cameras
and raid independent studios filmmakers like Fox and paramount had to flee to
the west coast so they could make their movies outside of Edison's influence so
technically any movie made before 1917 not from Thomas Edison's production
company was completely illegal in 1917 the United States Supreme Court ruled
his monopolies unlawful and against public interest it's interesting how an
industry founded on breaking the rules is now aggressively taking video essays
down on YouTube despite their obvious fair use but I digress shall we try it
right food which cigar mr. Gordon
by the late 1910s America cinema transitioned into what we're familiar
with the booming Hollywood industry the industry skyrocketed a key innovation
was the addition of dialogue in the late 1920s which kept the industry afloat
popular and innovative throughout the Great Depression the era between 1917 in
the late 1940s is commonly referred to as studio system Hollywood this is when
production companies had decade-long contracts with actors directors and
writers if you think the movie industry is monopolized now know that five
studios had control of absolutely everything in the 1940s each major
company had ownership of actors directors distribution and even the
movie theaters creators could only make it an industry if they stuck with one
company for almost their entire careers by signing long term and sometimes very
unfair contracts out of this era came classics such as Gone with the Wind Snow
White and the Seven Dwarves and the original King Kong one interesting
aspect of this time period is that with so many movies being made and so many
people flocking to the theater movie companies could afford producing movies
with medium sized budgets and scripts that weren't necessarily blockbuster
material like Citizen Kane and Casablanca nowadays big companies pull
most of their time and resources into several big-budget movies a year which
is quite a shame
the end of this era came from another battle with the courts the Supreme Court
ruled against Paramount Pictures saying ownership of the theaters and
distribution of their films was a restriction of fair trade this loss of
control of distribution protected independent filmmakers but meant to
decline in the big industry the next head to movie popularity was television
television hurt the industry since many people could stay at home to get their
entertainment movie viewership plummeted in the 30s 60% of people went to the
movie theaters at least once a week but since the 1960's the number has
consistently stuck around only 10 percent to combat TV movies had to do
what TV couldn't do big screens and big budgets the Hollywood epic came into
fruition this is when movies got absolutely insane cinema scope lenses
stretched the screen to almost twice the size of conventional film there were
movies like Cleopatra in 1963 which was the highest grossing film of the year
and still didn't make back its budget one of his huge hundred-foot set pieces
had to be built twice in two separate countries because the lead Elizabeth
Taylor got sick soon the new Hollywood era broke through starting with Bonnie
and Clyde film school train directors gained major influence in the industry
as opposed to the producers of old Hollywood with low-budget hits like jaws
by Steven Spielberg Star Wars by George Lucas and the Godfather by Francis
Coppola producers gave more control to the filmmakers who in turn produced more
provocative diverse and innovative movies personally I find this atmosphere
the most conducive to amazing filmmaking but it came at a price
with such freedom several films got way out of hand many directors took their
power too far in movie budgets skyrocketed out of control Apocalypse
Now is an extreme example there's a documentary on the production process of
the movie called heart of darkness that I absolutely recommend I cannot come
close to describing the mayhem of making that movie in such a short video
hurricanes heart attacks a coup in the country they filmed its crazy with
Apocalypse Now in 1979 in the box office bomb Heaven's Gate in 1980 bankrupting a
huge production company producers tightened their grip on filmmakers which
makes absolute sense what happened was in the 70s all those filmmakers that did
get final cut the budgets grew and grew and each one one after the other had a
financial disaster that almost tore down the studio's if you treat the movie
industry like an actual business it's definitely
one of the riskiest one movie the public hates and it cripples the company
millions are on the line and with continuously decreasing ticket sales
companies had to adapt now we're at the movie industry as we know it today with
home video in the 90s and streaming services like Netflix it's hardly worth
it to drive all the way to a movie theater anymore so companies make a
handful of movies and promote them like crazy superhero and fantasy movies
dominate box office sales because those are the movies that are worth seeing on
the big screen movies like pop star and the nice guys bomb this year because
they're light comedies and frankly I'm willing to wait for them to come to
Netflix in a couple months what's amazing about this era is that it gets
easier and easier to make feature-length movies I bought a used DSLR camera
tripod memory card case and editing software for less than $600 you don't
need a huge movie conglomerate to get your voice heard and your art noticed
Hollywood becomes more and more obsolete every day so pick up your iPhone hit
record and say action thanks for watching here it is the cool slightly
trans for just a bit of a break from the norm just a little something to break
the monotony of all that