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Studio System
A studio system is a method of filmmaking wherein the production and distribution of films is dominated by a small number of large movie studios. It is most often used in reference to Hollywood motion picture studios during the Golden Age of Hollywood from the 1920s to 1960s, wherein studios produced films primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under often long-term contract, and dominated exhibition through vertical integration, i.e., the ownership or effective control of distributors and exhibition, guaranteeing additional sales of films through manipulative booking techniques such as block booking. The studio system was challenged under the antitrust laws in a 1948 Supreme Court ruling which sought to separate production from the distribution and exhibition and ended such practices, thereby hastening the end of the studio system. By 1954, with television competing for audience and the last of the operational links between a major production studio and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Filmmaking
Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, casting, pre-production, shooting, sound recording, post-production, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a film release and an exhibition. Filmmaking occurs in a variety of economic, social, and political contexts around the world. It uses a variety of technologies and cinematic techniques. Although filmmaking originally involved the use of film, most film productions are now digital. Today, filmmaking refers to the process of crafting an audio-visual story commercially for distribution or broadcast. Production stages Film production consists of five major stages: * Development: Ideas for the film are created, rights to existing intellectual properties are purchased, etc., and the screenplay is written ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RKO Radio Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) theater chain and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) studio were brought together under the control of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in October 1928. RCA chief David Sarnoff engineered the merger to create a market for the company's sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone, and in early 1929 production began under the RKO name (an abbreviation of Radio-Keith-Orpheum). Two years later, another Kennedy holding, the Pathé studio, was folded into the operation. By the mid-1940s, RKO was controlled by investor Floyd Odlum. RKO has long been renowned for its cycle of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid-to-late 1930s. Actors Katharine Hepburn and, later, Robert Mitchum had their ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energy, digital industry, additive manufacturing and venture capital and finance, but has since divested from several areas, now primarily consisting of the first four segments. In 2020, GE ranked among the Fortune 500 as the 33rd largest firm in the United States by gross revenue. In 2011, GE ranked among the Fortune 20 as the 14th most profitable company, but later very severely underperformed the market (by about 75%) as its profitability collapsed. Two employees of GE – Irving Langmuir (1932) and Ivar Giaever (1973) – have been awarded the Nobel Prize. On November 9, 2021, the company announced it would divide itself into three investment-grade public companies. On July 18, 2022, GE unveiled the brand names of the companies it will ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was an optical sound, "variable-area" film exposure system, in which the modulated area (width) corresponded to the waveform of the audio signal. The three other major technologies were the Warner Bros. Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, as well as two "variable-density" sound-on-film systems, Lee De Forest's Phonofilm, and Fox- Case's Movietone. When Joseph P. Kennedy and other investors merged Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) with the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain and Radio Corporation of America, the resulting movie studio RKO Radio Pictures used RCA Photophone as their primary sound system. In March 1929, RKO released ''Syncopation'', the first film made in RCA Photophone. History and licensing In the early years following World War I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff (February 27, 1891 – December 12, 1971) was an American businessman and pioneer of American radio and television. Throughout most of his career, he led the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his retirement in 1970. He ruled over an ever-growing telecommunications and media empire that included both RCA and NBC, and became one of the largest companies in the world. Named a Reserve Brigadier General of the Signal Corps in 1945, Sarnoff thereafter was widely known as "The General." Sarnoff is credited with ''Sarnoff's law'', which states that the value of a broadcast network is proportional to the number of viewers. Early life and career David Sarnoff was born to a Jewish family in Uzlyany, a small town in the Russian Empire, now part of Belarus, the son of Abraham Sarnoff and Leah Privin. Abraham emigrated to the United States and raised funds to bring the family. Sarnoff spent much of his early c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RKO Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) theater chain and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) studio were brought together under the control of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in October 1928. RCA chief David Sarnoff engineered the merger to create a market for the company's sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone, and in early 1929 production began under the RKO name (an abbreviation of Radio-Keith-Orpheum). Two years later, another Kennedy holding, the Pathé studio, was folded into the operation. By the mid-1940s, RKO was controlled by investor Floyd Odlum. RKO has long been renowned for its cycle of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid-to-late 1930s. Actors Katharine Hepburn and, later, Robert Mitchum had the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Backlot
A backlot is an area behind or adjoining a movie studio containing permanent exterior buildings for outdoor scenes in filmmaking or television productions, or space for temporary set construction. Uses Some movie studios build a wide variety of sets on the backlot, which can be modified for different purposes as need requires and "dressed" to resemble any time period or look. These sets include everything from mountains, forests, ships, to small-town settings from around the world, as well as streets from the Old West, to whole modern-day city blocks from New York City, Paris, Berlin, and London. There are streets that comprise an assortment of architectural styles, Victorian architecture, Victorian to suburban homes, and 19th century-style townhouses that encircle a central park with trees. An example of this is (the former) Warner Bros. Ranch in Burbank, California seen in the title sequence of ''Friends'' or, in the case of Universal Studios, the home of Norman Bates from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First National Pictures
First National Pictures was an American motion picture production and distribution company. It was founded in 1917 as First National Exhibitors' Circuit, Inc., an association of independent theatre owners in the United States, and became the country's largest theater chain. Expanding from exhibiting movies to distributing them, the company reincorporated in 1919 as Associated First National Theatres, Inc., and Associated First National Pictures, Inc. In 1924 it expanded to become a motion picture production company as First National Pictures, Inc., and became an important studio in the film industry. In September 1928, control of First National passed to Warner Bros., into which it was completely absorbed on November 4, 1929. A number of Warner Bros. films were thereafter branded First National Pictures until July 1936, when First National Pictures, Inc., was dissolved. Early history The First National Exhibitors' Circuit was founded in 1917 by the merger of 26 of the biggest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lights Of New York (1928 Film)
''Lights of New York'' is a 1928 American crime drama film starring Helene Costello, Cullen Landis, Wheeler Oakman and Eugene Pallette, and directed by Bryan Foy. Filmed in the Vitaphone sound-on-disc sound system, it is the first all-talking full-length feature film, released by Warner Bros., who had introduced the first feature-length film with synchronized sound ''Don Juan'' two years earlier. The film, which cost $23,000 to produce ( "B" picture), grossed over $1,000,000. The enthusiasm with which audiences greeted the talkies was so great that by the end of 1929, Hollywood was producing sound films exclusively. Plot When bootleggers Jake Jackson (Walter Percival) and Dan Dickson (Jere Delaney), who have been hiding out in a small upstate New York town, learn that they finally can return to New York City, they try to convince a young kid named Eddie Morgan (Cullen Landis) and his friend, a local barber named Gene (Eugene Palette) to come with them. With a promise from J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Singing Fool
''The Singing Fool'' is a 1928 American musical drama part-talkie motion picture directed by Lloyd Bacon which was released by Warner Bros. The film stars Al Jolson and is a follow-up to his previous film, ''The Jazz Singer''. It is credited with helping to cement the popularity of American films of both sound and the musical genre. Plot After years of hopeful struggle, Al Stone (Jolson) is on his way to stardom. He plays a blackface minstrel. "I'm Sittin' on Top of the World", he sings to an appreciative speakeasy crowd. But, as Al discovers, getting there is one thing. Staying there is another. Singing waiter Stone gets his huge break on a magical night when his song wows a big-time producer ''and'' a gold-digging showgirl he fancies. Broadway success and marriage follow, but sure enough, hard times are on the way. Al's fickle wife abandons him, taking the beloved son he calls Sonny Boy with her. Heartbroken, Al becomes a devastated loner until friends from the speakeasy t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound Film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures became commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid-to-late 1920s. At first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as "talking pictures", or "talkies", were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects. The first feature film originally presented as a talkie (although it had only limited so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Jazz Singer
''The Jazz Singer'' is a 1927 American musical drama film directed by Alan Crosland. It is the first feature-length motion picture with both synchronized recorded music score as well as lip-synchronous singing and speech (in several isolated sequences). Its release heralded the commercial ascendance of sound films and effectively marked the end of the silent film era. It was produced by Warner Bros. with the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system and features six songs performed by Al Jolson. Based on the 1925 play of the same title by Samson Raphaelson, the plot was adapted from his short story "The Day of Atonement". The film depicts the fictional story of Jakie Rabinowitz, a young man who defies the traditions of his devout Jewish family. After singing popular tunes in a beer garden, he is punished by his father, a hazzan (cantor), prompting Jakie to run away from home. Some years later, now calling himself Jack Robin, he has become a talented jazz singer, performing in blackfa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
