Vertical integration of the Classical Hollywood Genre

As mentioned earlier in previous posts, Vertical integration was another key component to the success of Hollywood Golden age, and was defined by the major studios releasing that they could enhance their profit by having a say in each and every phase of film making:
• The production
• Distribution
• Exhibition

At this point the ‘The Big Five’ Hollywood studios had started to cooperate together to create the vertical integration in 1940’s ,owning big estates to construct sets that later on was known to be the Hollywood sets ,the location of the most of films that were produced during the period. These studios would also control the date of releases and patterns of production. These studios included: Warner Bros., Paramount, 20th Centrury Fox, Loew’s ( MGM), and RKO ( Radio-Keith –Orpheum) .other studios such as Columbia pictures and United Artists- also made pictures however they lacked the vertical integration that we just discussed. To put it in nutshell these eight companies together ruled created the oligopoly of Hollywood, essentially controlling the entire market. All of the cinema theaters also were under the control of these eight studios.

The end of Hollywood golden Age

Just like everything else in this universe, all phases will eventually reach an end, and the same process applied to Hollywood, even in its Golden age! In 1948 with the advent of Independent industry, Hollywood had to give up its profit and its dominating power and what happened was that the struggling independent movie producers and exhibitors finally won the battle against the sole power of Hollywood studios, and the studios were ordered to give up their theaters and allow other film makers to distribute their work on their theatres. In other words, allowing them to open their market to other smaller producers. Therefore, the 1930 to 1948 was considered to be the ending chapters of Hollywood golden age‘s book., With their 95 percent of all film rentals and 70 percent of all box-office receipts. Of course the advent of television cannot be neglected and fastened the compromise of Hollywood monopolistic behavior.

lastly to conclude we thought i should embed a video of some of the shots of beautiful moments of Hollywood classics! we hope you like it .
enjoy!

xxxx
Jazgol

The coming of sound in Genre : Classical Hollywood

Ok , now that we have a bit more knowledge of the Hollywood golden era, we can dig dipper in to the making of the films at that time and hopefully get a better understanding of how that genre operated at the time being.

Advent of Sound films practically started in the late 1920’s. of course films were never ‘silent’’ before that time, since they always had a sound or piece of music accompanying the narration of the story but what it means was a technical intervention and progress in film industry where you can actually hear the actors interacting with another and listen to their conversations.

‘’Warner Bros’’ , one of the five big Hollywood studios had started to gamble that 'talkies' would be popular amongst viewers with a synchronized piece of speech in 'The jazz Singer' ,. With the commercial success of that movie , studios now had a proof that talkies do make money and can benefit the studios , therefore , they were willing to invest more In the camera equipment to new projection facilities , even though initially they were still hesitant of investing financially. In the end the power of moving the audience with the sound and how sound can enhance a story , all in all, persuaded them to invest more in p.During this time another big Hollywood studio found itself competing with Warner Bros, and that was ‘’Fox studios’’, where the Vitaphone sound on disc system , a technology introduced by Warner Bros was challenging Fox’s Moviestone sound-on-film system.

Overall the use of sound in film was well received by all audiences. However, there were still technical problems that would occur during the time being, such as problems with amplification of sound in theaters were did not have the facilities to fully answer the requirements of sound movies. By 1929 Hollywood had put our more than 300 sound films most of the theaters were converted to meet the sound requirements by 1930. However it would take longer for films to regain their stylistic elegance and glamor which it provided in later years. Some of the other struggles and difficulties of this renovation was that suddenly all complex editing structures in the moving camera was lost and now needed to be established all over again. Even actors struggled with their performances were they had to act out a conversation. The film ‘’Singing In The Rain” (1952) displays some of the early-sound film difficulties at that time.

Xxx

Jazgol

Classical Hollywood

Interested in classics? Ever fancy watching a old black and white, film grain Hollywood classical? Do you ever wonder what characterizes the classical Hollywood film, both in plot and the visual style? Do you reckon there has been a lot of change since the time of ‘Gone with the wind’ and the blockbuster, computer stylized and visually ground braking ávatar’? Is it just the ‘era of technology’ and the contributions it has offered to the film industry or maybe it also a matter of difference in plot development since then?

Well, if you look closely enough From the lighting of the scenes and the set design, everything from A-Z was somehow slightly different in that period of time which was called the Hollywood Golden Age.

The studio system in American film industry was dominated during the classical Hollywood era, during that time 5 major and most powerful studios reached a status in Hollywood to create a set of codes in visual design and to control it. Everything from a time a film is produced to a time when it gets released was controlled by these massive Hollywood studios that ruled the American film production. This golden era took place in years between 1930- 1948.

One particular trait about the American film production would be its ’over determined’ planning about its every single detail elements, which to put in simple forms is the idea that American films are pre-determined by a number of economic , social and cultural factors and that is seen in different times throughout the history of American film production.

The two key elements that controlled that set of codes and over determined outlook in the American film production were the: advent of sound and the business ideal of vertical integration.

In this section and the upcoming post we’ll be discussing and analyzing those elements in Hollywood golden age and how a film could be made during that time.

here is a video which i personally liked and thought would be a good representation of classical Hollywood movie.. of course! Gone with the wind!

Xxx

Jazgol

Fantasy Genre

Fantasy films are those films which capture the essence of fantasy, in which the audience are subjected all sorts of imaginative content. To either exotic new worlds, fairy tale style lands, magic, supernatural events and imaginary creatures – or possibly the all of these fantasy elements crammed together in order to create a film which dazzles and amazes its audience. The ability of the fantasy film to provide its audience with a sense of escapism, magic, wonder and the extraordinary allows fantasy films to be extremely appealing to both children and adults for instance the films, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ (1939) and ‘Avatar’ (2009).

The themes of the fantasy film genre help define the genre itself, as fantasy films differs from the science fiction and horror film genres although, all three genres contain similar elements and do overlap each other such as the double categorizing of horror/fantasy. The predominant theme of the fantasy film is good verse evil and the struggles in which the main character or characters (the hero) are forced to overcome. The importance of the ‘hero’ in fantasy films is just as significant as the fantasy and imaginative content, as ordinarily the hero is set out to rescue or protect the fantasy world itself. This basic structure of story line is present within many typical Hollywood fantasy films. The theme of the quest in which the hero sets out upon, encourages the growth and mental strength of characters as well as the theme of coming of age, where the hero after his physical and mental journey is seen as independent and heroic.

With the advances in technology in the 2000s, the respectability of the fantasy film has increased massively as with new high-tech film making technology audiences were beginning to become more interested in the fantasy genre. This success is evident in the Harry Potter film series as well as the adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy and in 2003 the ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,’ was the first and only ever fantasy film to win the Academy Award for best picture.

Jazgol xx

Teen Genre

The teen genre of film is a sub genre of the comedy genre, and is undoubtedly controversial and usually narrative based centring on characters who are high school students. Most teen films characters are very stereotypical and focus on a character who attempts to befriend the ‘popular’ crowd and of course focus on a romantic storyline between the male and female leads. The themes contain issues which affect teenagers such as popularity, sex, teenage pregnancy and drug use.

The typical Hollywood teen film usually portrays life as a high school student as extremely difficult for any teen who is not the stereotypical popular cheerleader or football player. Teen films humour may be very crude and often sickening such as the 'Not Another Teen Movie' (2001) and 'The American Pie' (1999), films. The teen film genre is usually considered very controversial as the portrayal of women can be very sexist and portray women sexual objects. Due to the teen film genre obviously targeted at the teenagers these films can be very influential.

However not all teen films utilize such low brow comedy. The teenage comedy 'Mean Girls' (2004) is defiantly one of my favourite teen films, the film does not unlike many films portray crude, sexist humor and depicts many of the issues which teenage girls face highlighting the issue of bullying as well as being a very entertaining film.

Jazgol x

Chick Flicks

'Pretty woman' (1990), 'P.S. I Love you' (2007), 'Before Sunset' (1995) all the type of movies women wished their boyfriends or husbands would at least sit through without making some kind of complaint. "Chick flicks" are romantic comedies which are targeted at us ladies who love a good tear jerking love story in which commonly follows a narrative story line. Cheesy? Well sometimes, but Chick flicks undoubtably consist of a male and female lead who usually fall in love and are forced to overcome one or more obstacles which result in either the blooming of a romance or tragically the demise. Chick flicks include the stereotypical interests and desires of women, men are handsome and in most cases charming and often profess there undying love in many romantic gestures.

However unfortunately these films do fill our minds with crazy ideas and expectations of love which no real man (probably ever) live up to. I mean really, take 'The Notebook' (2004), the male lead Noah is the perfect man romantic and completely devoted to his love Allie and when separated from her his life has no meaning and is completely lost. He even builds for the house she's dreamt of. But for those of us who can only dream of such romance and perfect relationships, chick flicks will always be a great way to imagine such bliss.

Jazgol xx

Dogme 95

Okay, this may seem the most foreign of all genres you have ever heard in your life! It's true that it is quiet unconventional but believe or not it was initially created to be this way. This genre was first established by a couple of Danish film makers including : Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg , (later on some other film makers joined the force ), to bring back the essence of film making. Dogma 95 was breaking the boundaries in terms of making a statement that film making can be done and accomplished without millions of dollars of big Hollywood budgets and the support of numerous corporations. This genre was criticized and accused of wanting to 'only ' gain the attention of media.

This type of genre was made to be more accessible for film makers without recognition and high budget funds, however Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinnterberg set up some other rules and regulations for this type of genre which made it more difficult to stick to .
A long list that can actually cause the result of the production more similar to an amateur job, Such as:
1. No back ground music
2. The whole production must be placed in one location.
3. Sound can be incorporated if it is happening while filming but no music edited on scenes.
4. Artificial lights and framings are prohibited.
5. The film also must not contain artificial scenes, such as action scenes and weapons and etc.

This way the list goes on to so many other regulations. as you can see this genre could not have lasted so long and even the creators of this genre themselves broke some of the rules themselves , (Von Trier used some symphonies as pieces of music in his films ) ,and caused this genre to end in 2005. Here is some footage from the movie 'Dogville' (2003) directed by Lars Von Trier himself , Now maybe u can get an idea what type of rules was used in this type of genre and how it visually appeared. Unfortunately i could not embed the video of 'Dogville' due to the privacy policy rules on youtube, but here is the address if you are interested

:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLu-m0tohKs


Jazgol xx