Film Analysis

Chapter seven opens with a very interesting and surprising fact. Although it characterizes the movie industry as "an industry based on dreams" and assumed to be "one of the biggest media businesses," it actually brings in less revenue each year than the newspaper, television, or book businesses.

After presenting on the television media chapter, I found it interesting that, according to page 137, "movies mirror the society that creates them." You would think television would more so than movies, since movies tend to be somewhat unrealistic. It also states that movies were invented before television, so they used to be the primary source of entertainment for the nation.

The equipment used to create movies came during the Industrial Revolution. First, a machine to capture moving objects was invented, and then a device to project the images. This innovation process took a total of six people. Etienne Jules Mary, a French scientist, and Eadweard Muybridge, a photographer, worked separately to create motion pictures. However, they eventually met and perfected a "photographic gun camera."

Thomas Edison then met with Marey in Europe shortly after Marey had invented a projector. However, the pictures on the film strip tended to jump, so William K. L. Dickson, Edison's assistant, learned to perforate the edges of the film, which led to the invention of the kinetoscope. From there, two French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumiere took the inventions and improved them by developing a way to project the film on large screens.

In 1896, America's first motion picture was shown in New York City. At first, the movies were just a side show and only cost a nickel. But soon after, they became more popular, and by 1900, there were more than 600 nickelodeons in NYC.

By the 1930's, the motion pictures had gained audio and color footage. These developments led to five major transformations in the industry: the move to California, the adoption of block booking, the formation of United Artists, and the efforts at self-regualtion. The move to Hollywood occurred when Harry Chandler, owner of the Los Angeles Times, sold a lot of his own real estate for an inexpensive price and promise of moderate weather and cheap labor.