Name:
Class:
Date:
Chapter 07: Essay
a script and actors to raising money and filming; distribution, getting the films into
theaters; and exhibition, playing films in theaters.
Essay
1. Why did Hollywood end up as the center of American film production?
ANSWER:
By the 1910s, movies had become a major industry. Among the first to try his hand at
dominating the movie business and reaping its profits, Thomas Edison formed the
Motion Picture Patents Company, known as the Trust, in 1908. A cartel of major
U.S. and French film producers, the company pooled patents in an effort to control
film’s major technology, acquired most major film distributorships, and signed an
exclusive deal with George Eastman, who agreed to supply movie film only to Trust-
approved companies.
However, some independent producers refused to bow to the Trust’s terms. They saw
too much demand for films, too much money to be made, and too many ways to
avoid the Trust’s scrutiny. Some producers began to relocate from the centers of film
production in New York and New Jersey to Cuba and Florida. Ultimately, though,
Hollywood became the film capital of the world. Southern California offered cheap
labor, diverse scenery for outdoor shooting, and a mild climate suitable for year-
round production. Geographically far from the Trust’s headquarters in New Jersey,
independent producers in Hollywood could easily slip over the border into Mexico to
escape legal prosecution brought by the Trust for patent violations.
2. What is vertical integration in the movie industry?
ANSWER:
Entrepreneurs like Zukor developed other tactics for controlling the industry. The
strategies, many of which are still used today, were more ambitious than just
monopolizing patents and technology. They aimed at dominating the movie business
at all three essential levels—production, everything involved in making a movie,
from securing a script and actors to raising money and filming; distribution, getting
the films into theaters; and exhibition, playing films in theaters. This control—or
vertical integration—of all levels of the movie business gave certain studios great
power and eventually spawned a film industry that turned into an oligopoly, a
situation in which a few firms control the bulk of the business.
3. What are the three basic economic divisions of the movie industry, and how do they work?
ANSWER:
Entrepreneurs like Adolph Zukor aimed at dominating the movie business at all three
essential levels—production, everything involved in making a movie, from securing
Name:
Class:
Date:
Chapter 07: Essay
regarding similar characters, scenes, structures, and themes recur in combination.
films that fall into popular genres, the movie industry provides familiar models that
preexisting category with which viewers are familiar. Among the most familiar
genres are comedy, adventure, drama, action, thriller/suspense, horror, romantic
developed with the rise of the studio system in the 1920s, solidified during the first
two decades of the sound era, and continues to dominate American filmmaking
today. The model serves up three ingredients that give Hollywood movies their
distinctive flavor: the narrative, the genre, and the author (or director). The right
blend of these ingredients—combined with timing, marketing, and luck—has led to
many movie hits, from 1930s and 1940s classics like It Happened One Night, Gone
with the Wind, The Philadelphia Story, and Casablanca to recent successes like Get
Out (2017) and The Shape of Water (2017).
American filmmakers from D. W. Griffith to Steven Spielberg have understood the
allure of narrative, which always includes two basic components: the story (what
happens to whom) and the discourse (how the story is told). Further, Hollywood
codified a familiar narrative structure across all genres. Most movies, like most TV
shows and novels, feature recognizable character types (protagonist, antagonist,
romantic interest, sidekick); a clear beginning, middle, and end (even with flashbacks
and flash-forwards, the sequence of events is usually clear to the viewer); and a plot
propelled by the main character’s experiencing and resolving a conflict by the end of
the movie.
5. How are the two economic and seemingly opposing goals of product standardization and
product differentiation accomplished within the Hollywood system?
ANSWER:
In general, Hollywood narratives fit a genre, or category, in which conventions
regarding similar characters, scenes, structures, and themes recur in combination.
Grouping films by category is another way for the industry to achieve the two related
economic goals of product standardization and product differentiation. By making
films that fall into popular genres, the movie industry provides familiar models that
can be imitated. It is much easier for a studio to promote a film that already fits into a
preexisting category with which viewers are familiar. Among the most familiar
genres are comedy, adventure, drama, action, thriller/suspense, horror, romantic
comedy, musical, documentary/performance, western, gangster, fantasy–science
fiction, and film noir.
Name:
Class:
Date:
Chapter 07: Essay
comedy, musical, documentary/performance, western, gangster, fantasy–science
fiction, and film noir.
7. The movie industry used to make most of its money from box-office revenues. Explain why
this is no longer the case.
ANSWER:
Despite the development of network and cable television, video-on-demand, DVDs,
and Internet downloads and streaming, the movie business has continued to thrive. In
fact, since 1963, Americans have purchased roughly 1 billion movie tickets each
year; in 2017, 1.24 billion tickets were sold in the United States and Canada. (Dave
McNary, “U.S. Movie Ticket Sales Plunged 6% in 2017, Thanks to Lousy Summer,
Variety, January 17, 2018) With first-run movie tickets in some areas rising to $15
(and 3-D movies costing even more), gross revenues from North American box-
office sales have climbed above the $11 billion mark, up from $9.2 billion annually
in 2006. The bigger news for Hollywood studios is that global box-office revenues
have grown at a much faster rate, especially in China (though it returns less money to
studios), Russia, and Mexico. (Chris Dodd, “CinemaCon 2014—Remarks as
Prepared for Delivery,” March 25, 2014)
The growing global market for Hollywood films has helped cushion the industry as
the home video market undergoes a significant transformation, with the demise of the
video rental business and the rise of video streaming. In order to flourish, the movie
industry has had to continually revamp its production, distribution, and exhibition
system and consolidate its ownership.
8. Describe (using as much detail as possible) six main revenue sources used by the movie
industry today.
ANSWER:
With 80 to 90 percent of newly released movies failing to make money at the
domestic box office, studios need a couple of major hits each year to offset losses on
other films. The potential losses are great: Over the past decade, a major studio film,
on average, cost about $66 million to produce and about $37 million for domestic
marketing, advertising, and print costs. (Dave McNary, “U.S. Movie Ticket Sales
Plunged 6% in 2017, Thanks to Lousy Summer,” Variety, January 17, 2018)
With climbing film costs, creating revenue from a movie is a formidable task.
Studios make money on movies from six major sources:
Name:
Class:
Date:
Chapter 07: Essay
showing digital 3-D.
Second, about three to four months after the theatrical release comes the home video
market, which includes subscription streaming, video-on-demand (VOD), and the
remaining Blu-ray and DVD sales and rental business. This second release “window”
generates more revenue than the domestic box-office income for major studios, but it
has been in transition as VOD has replaced the Blu-ray and DVD formats. Video-on-
demand includes services like iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Vudu, Hulu Plus, and
Name:
Class:
Date:
Chapter 07: Essay
products, or product labels weren’t highlighted in shots. But with soaring film
production costs, product placements are adding extra revenue while lending an
element of authenticity to the staging. Famous product placements in movies include
Reese’s Pieces in E.T. (1982), Pepsi-Cola in Back to the Future II (1989), and an
entire line of toy products in The Lego Movie (2014).
9. Describe the ways in which Hollywood has responded to waves of new technologies and home
entertainment since the 1980s.
ANSWER:
In the 1980s, to offset losses resulting from box-office failures, the movie industry
began to diversify, expanding into other product lines and other mass media. This
expansion included television programming, print media, sound recordings, and
home videos/DVDs, as well as cable and computers, electronic hardware and
software, retail stores, and theme parks such as Universal Studios. To maintain the
industry’s economic stability, management strategies today rely on both heavy
advance promotion (which can double the cost of a commercial film) and synergy—
the promotion and sale of a product throughout the various subsidiaries of the media
conglomerate. Companies promote not only the new movie itself but also its book
form, soundtrack, calendars, T-shirts, website, and toy action figures, as well as “the-
making-of” story on television and the Internet. The Disney studio, in particular, has
been successful with its multiple repackaging of youth-targeted movies, including
comic books, toys, television specials, fast-food tie–ins, and theme-park attractions.
Since the 1950s, this synergy has been a key characteristic of the film industry and an
important element in the flood of corporate mergers that have made today’s Big Six
even bigger.
Name:
Class:
Date:
Chapter 07: Essay
innovative technologies of George Lucas’s famed Industrial Light & Magic special-
effects company.
Synergies in feature films can be easy for Disney, which is a $55.1 billion
multinational corporation. Frozen (2013) is one of Disney’s biggest animated hits
ever, and Frozen merchandise was in short supply in North America for fans wanting
to celebrate the story of Anna and Elsa, two princess sisters who also became
attractions at Disney resort parks. The movie’s soundtrack hit No. 1 in sales, and
Disney Cruise Line and the Adventures by Disney tour company experienced a huge
increase in holiday business to Geirangerfjord, Norway, the fjord that inspired the
film’s fantasy kingdom of Arendelle.
11. Explain the ways that the Internet and convergence have affected the movie industry.
ANSWER:
The biggest challenge the movie industry faces today is the Internet. As broadband
Internet service connects more households, movie fans are increasingly getting
movies from the web. After witnessing the difficulties that illegal file-sharing
brought on the music labels (some of which share the same corporate parent as the
Big Six), the movie industry has more quickly embraced the Internet for movie
distribution. Apple’s iTunes store began selling digital downloads of a limited
selection of movies in 2006, and in 2008, iTunes began renting new movies from all
the major studios for just $3.99. In the same year, online DVD rental service Netflix
began streaming some movies and television shows to customers’ computer screens
and televisions.
12. Why have U.S. movies remained popular worldwide while other countries have had great
difficulty getting their films into the United States?
ANSWER:
At the international level, countries continue to struggle with questions about the
influence of American films on local customs and culture. As with other American
mass media industries, the long reach of Hollywood movies is one of the key
contradictions of contemporary life: Do such films contribute to a global village in
which people throughout the world share a universal culture that breaks down
barriers? Or does an American-based common culture stifle the development of local
cultures worldwide and diversity in moviemaking? Clearly, the steady production of
profitable action/adventure movies—whether they originate in the United States,
Africa, France, or China—continues, not only because these movies appeal to mass
audiences but also because they translate easily into other languages.
Completion
Name:
Class:
Date:
Chapter 07: Essay
Copyright Macmillan Learning. Powered by Cognero.
Page 7
1. _______ is a transparent and pliable material that can hold a coating of chemicals sensitive to
light.
ANSWER:
Celluloid
2. The _______ was an early movie camera developed by Thomas Edison’s assistant in the
1890s.
ANSWER:
kinetograph
3. The _______ was an early film projection system that served as a kind of peep show.
ANSWER:
kinetoscope
4. In 1902, Edwin S. Porter made the film The Life of an American Fireman and revolutionized
narrative film by introducing the technique of _______.
ANSWER:
film editing
5. In 1903, Edwin S. Porter introduced the _______ genre with The Great Train Robbery.
ANSWER:
western
6. _______, an early tactic of movie studios to control distribution, involved pressuring theater
operators to accept marginal films with no stars in order to get access to films with the most
popular stars.
ANSWER:
Block booking
7. By the 1920s, Paramount, MGM, Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, and RKO were
known as the _______.
ANSWER:
Big Five
8. _______ made the controversial epic The Birth of a Nation.
ANSWER:
D. W. Griffith
9. _______’s editing techniques redefined the suspense drama.
ANSWER:
Alfred Hitchcock
10. _______ made Easy Rider, which tapped into the anxieties of the postwar baby-boom
generation.
ANSWER:
Dennis Hopper
Name:
Class:
Date:
Chapter 07: Essay
Copyright Macmillan Learning. Powered by Cognero.
Page 8
11. _______ was a popular actor, appearing in films such as Taxi Driver, Stop Calling Me Baby!,
and O’Hara’s Wife, before she was a director.
ANSWER:
Jodie Foster
12. _______ were weekly ten-minute magazine-style compilations of filmed news events from
around the world.
ANSWER:
Newsreels
13. _______ were weekly compilations of filmed news events.
ANSWER:
Newsreels
14. Cinema _____ is the French term for “truth film.”
ANSWER:
verité
15. ____ portrays fragments of life filmed unobtrusively.
ANSWER:
Cinema verité
16. Known as _______, the nine screenwriters and one film director subpoenaed by the House
Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) were sent to prison in the late 1940s.
ANSWER:
the Hollywood Ten
17. Although they’d been around since the 1930s, drive-ins became more common in the
_______.
ANSWER:
1950s
18. Megaplexes—theaters featuring multiple screens—became common in the _______.
ANSWER:
1990s
19. Movie theater facilities with fourteen or more screens are called _______.
ANSWER:
megaplexes
20. The six major studios account for about _______ of the revenue generated by commercial
films.
ANSWER:
86 percent
21. Using _______ allows filmmakers to capture additional footage without concern for the high
cost of film stock and processing.
Name:
Class:
Date:
Chapter 07: Essay
Copyright Macmillan Learning. Powered by Cognero.
Page 9
ANSWER:
digital video
Multiple Choice
1. Thomas Edison’s first attempt to create talking pictures in the late 1800s was an immediate
commercial success.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
2. The first motion pictures were watched by only one person at a time.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
3. The first public showing of Edison’s kinetoscope projector system was in a Paris café in
December 1895.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
4. To become a mass medium, the early silent films had to offer what books achieved: the
suspension of disbelief and stories that engaged an audience’s imagination.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
5. Georges Méliès opened the first public movie theater in France in 1896.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
6. French director Georges Méliès pioneered a number of camera tricks and techniques,
including slow motion.
a.
True
Name:
Class:
Date:
Chapter 07: Essay
Copyright Macmillan Learning. Powered by Cognero.
Page 10
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
7. Georges Méliès made the first western, The Great Train Robbery.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
8. The first movie theaters were called nickelodeons, a name that indicated the cost of admission.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
9. The Motion Picture Patents Company was established in 1908 to share film technology with
independent filmmakers.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
10. The Motion Picture Patents Company was founded by Adolph Zukor of Paramount Pictures
and William Fox of Fox Film Corporation.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
11. Hollywood was the international center of cinema from the very beginning.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
12. The existence of the Motion Picture Patents Company led some independent producers to
make their pictures in faraway Hollywood.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
Name:
Class:
Date:
Chapter 07: Essay
Copyright Macmillan Learning. Powered by Cognero.
Page 11
13. An oligopoly exists when a few companies control an industry.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
14. Mary Pickford, an astute business owner, formed her own company.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
15. Movie studios in the United States still practice block booking and require that theaters
accept lesser films in order to get blockbuster movies.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
16. American studios were able to gain control of the world film industry during World War I.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
17. Movie palaces looked beautiful on the outside but were often very shabby on the inside.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
18. The Birth of a Nation (1915) was very controversial when it premiered because of its
glorification of the Ku Klux Klan.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
19. The first sound movie, The Jazz Singer, was basically a silent film with a few spoken words
and musical numbers.
a.
True
b.
False
Name:
Class:
Date:
Chapter 07: Essay
Copyright Macmillan Learning. Powered by Cognero.
Page 12
ANSWER:
a
20. The Singing Fool was a big commercial disappointment and demonstrated that movie fans
were not ready for talking pictures.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
21. In scriptwriting terminology, the discourse is how the story is told.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
22. Grouping films by genre allows the movie industry to achieve both product standardization
and product differentiation.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
23. Examples of genres include comedy, drama, western, action, and thriller/suspense.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
24. Horror films are successful because they appeal to both teenagers and their parents.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
25. Film noir movies are notable for their bright lighting, lush sets, and upbeat story lines.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
26. Directing opportunities for women in Hollywood have been limited.
a.
True
Name:
Class:
Date:
Chapter 07: Essay
Copyright Macmillan Learning. Powered by Cognero.
Page 13
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
27. Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win an Academy Award for best director with
her film The Hurt Locker.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
28. In America, most women movie directors have first been successful actors or scriptwriters.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
a
29. As of 2018 there are still no African American directors in mainstream Hollywood.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
30. Hollywood produces the most movies of any film industry in the world.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
31. Cinema verité is a style of documentary filmmaking that closely resembles a big-budget,
high-gloss Hollywood feature.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b
32. Documentaries generally avoid controversial or unpopular subject matter.
a.
True
b.
False
ANSWER:
b