2. Cinema Expands
• As the medium of film evolved during the late 1890s and into the
turn of the century, the art and business of filmmaking also
expanded:
– New companies were created that devoted themselves to making
movies.
– Exhibition venues became more plentiful and more
common, especially as projection methods improved.
– Filmmakers began to build on the realist traditions established by
the Lumiere Brothers and the fantastical ones forged by Georges
Melies, establishing new cinema styles and conventions.
3. Edwin S. Porter
• A film projectionist and camera operator for Edison, Porter was
one of the most notable film innovators prior to 1908.
• He created the first story film, Life of an American Fireman
(1903)
• Although he drew on techniques that had been established by
his predecessors, especially Melies, Porter was among the first
filmmakers to use film editing as a means to tell a story.
• For this reason, he is considered to be an inventor of film editing
and is credited as the first person to begin development of the
cinematic style and language we still use today.
4. Life of an American Fireman
• Most famous for its storytelling techniques, Porter was also the first to
use camera distance (a close up shot place amid long shots) to show
action and meaning.
• The film begins with a dozing fireman dreaming of a woman and child
threatened by fire; the dream is rendered as a sort of thought balloon,
a circular vignette superimposed in the upper part of the screen. A cut
to a close-up shows a hand pulling a fire alarm. Several shots, mixing
studio and location filming, show the firemen racing to the scene. The
film ends with two lengthy shots that show the same action from two
vantage points: in the first, a fireman comes in a bedroom window to
rescue a mother and then returns for her baby; in the second, we see
both rescues again from a camera position outside the house. To a
modern audience, this repetition of events seems strange, however
such displays of the same event from a different viewpoint were
common in early cinema.
5. The Great Train Robbery
• Porter’s most important film, The Great Train Robbery, was also made
in 1903.
• This film used eleven separate shots to tell the story of a gang of
bandits who hold up a train.
• Porter experimented even further with camera distance and editing in
this film to communicate its story and convey meaning.
6. The Great Train Robbery - innovations
• Porter employed:
– parallel action – he showed action in one locale and then immediately cut
to a second venue, implying that the actions in both places were
happening simultaneously*
– Gripping (fictional) storytelling and violence
– Panning shot – slight camera movement following action
– Location and studio shots
– Camera distance - long and medium shots to tell his story and convey
meaning
*Precursor to modern film editing technique of intercutting.
7. Industry Changes
• By about 1905-1910, major changes were taking place in the
new medium and art form of the cinema.
• Fiction films were becoming the industry’s main product.
• Movies were rented to exhibitors, a practice that established a
division among film production, distribution and exhibition.
• Exhibition was spreading internationally.
• Exhibition venues were no longer just vaudeville
houses/theatres, but venues built for film viewing called
nickelodeons.
• Leading film industries were in France, England – the industry
was still developing in the USA, most films shown in the USA
were coming from abroad.
8. Development of American Film Industry
• The nickelodeon boom launched the careers of several
important businessmen in the film industry:
– The Warner Brothers
– Carl Laemmle, later founder of Universal These men
started as
– Louis B. Mayer, later founder of MGM nickelodeon
exhibitors
– Adolph Zukor, later head of Paramount and went on
– William Fox, formed the company that became 20th Century the develop
Fox their own
film
– Marcus Loew, later founder of Loew’s and eventual parent companies
company of MGM.
• All of these men would help create the basic structure
of the Hollywood studio system during the 1910s.
9. Development of American Film Industry –
the MPPC
• As new film companies emerged, there was intense competition
between them but also for control of the American film industry.
• In 1908, Edison founded the MPPC (Motion Picture Patents
Company). Several other production companies belonged to the
MPPC. However, to keep operating, these companies had to pay
fees to MPPC and its two parent companies (also Edison-owned).
• The MPPC strictly limited the number of foreign firms that could
join its organization, hoping to develop the American market.
• The MPPC hoped to control all three phases of the industry:
production, distribution and exhibition.
10. MPPC - Impact
• The impact of the formation of the MPPC was that an oligopoly
was created in the American film industry – several firms
cooperate and work together to control the market and block
entry of new companies.
• Due to this oligopoly, several developing, independent film
companies in the USA fought against the MPPC’s control of the
industry in court.
• In 1912-1915, the courts ruled against the MPPC, allowing other
film companies to further develop and and help build the film
industry in the USA.
11. The Star System - Origins
• In the earliest years of the
cinema, films were advertised as
novelties.
• Once the nickelodeon boom and
the formation of the MPPC and
subsequent court battles helped to
regularize the American
industry, companies sold films by
brand name, i.e. Vitagraph, Pathe.
• At this time, filmmakers and actors
received no screen credit.
12. The Star System
• Film companies began the practice of signing film actors to long-
term contracts, and actors appeared in multiple films, becoming
familiar faces to their audiences.
• Viewers began to show interest in their favorite
performers, referring to the unknown actors as “the Biograph
Girl” or “the Vitagraph Girl”.
• By 1910, some companies began responding to audience
demand and began exploiting their popular actors for publicity
purposes – this was the beginning of the Star System - the
practice of casting and promoting star performers for their
ability to draw at the box office.
13. Movies Need a New Home
• The first American film
companies were located in New
York and New Jersey.
• Because filmmakers worked
outdoors or in sunlit glass
studios, poor weather could
hamper production, as a result,
companies started to relocate
to Florida and California. Edison’s first movie studio, called
Black Maria, in West Orange, NJ
14. Hello Hollywood!
• During the 1910s, Los Angeles emerged as the country’s major film
production centre.
• It had several advantages:
– Clear, dry weather
– Variety of landscapes, including ocean, desert,
mountain, forest and hillside
– Appropriate look for shooting Westerns,
the most popular film genre of the time.
• The small LA suburb of Hollywood was one of several where studios were
established. Its name eventually came to stand for the entire American
filmmaking industry.
• Studios in the Hollywood area would soon grow from small, sunlit, open-air
stages to sizable complexes with large enclosed dark studios, numerous
production support departments and backlots (area behind or adjoining a
studio that contains permanent exterior buildings for outdoor scenes or space
for temporary set construction)
15. Classical Hollywood Cinema
• As studios regrouped (after the MPPC court decision) expanded
and moved to Hollywood in the 1910s, the basis began to
formulate for American filmmaking for decades to come.
• Classical Hollywood cinema refers to a motion picture visual
style and a mode of production used in the American film
industry between 1917 and 1960. This period is often referred to
as the "Golden Age of Hollywood."
• The identifiable cinematic form that emerged during this period
called classical Hollywood style.
16. Classical Hollywood Style
• Classical Hollywood
style is fundamentally
built on the principle of
continuity editing or
"invisible” editing. This
means that the camera
and the sound
recordings of a film
should never call
attention to themselves.
17. The Studio System
• During this period of classical Hollywood cinema and style, the
big Hollywood firms grew enormously.
• With this growth, the Studio System began to develop.
• The Studio System was a means of film production and
distribution dominant in Hollywood from the late 1910s-early
1920s to the 1960s. Under this system, large motion picture
studios:
– produced movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with their own
creative personnel who were signed to long-term, exclusive contracts
– pursued vertical integration through ownership and/or control over all
three aspects of filmmaking – production, distribution and exhibition.
18. Vertical Integration
• During the 1910s, the film industry started to become vertically
integrated.
• This meant that studios not only created films, but also
distributed and exhibited them.
• (Definition) Vertical Integration within the film industry refers to
one large company having various departments (or owning a
series of sub-companies) that produce, distribute and exhibit
movies, i.e. Owning a theatre chain and having a national
distribution operation.
• Three-tiered vertical integration guaranteed that a company’s
films would definitely find distribution and exhibition.
19. Films and Filmmaking – 1910s
• With this guarantee of success through a vertically-integrated
business structure, the film industry boomed in the late 1910s.
• Generally speaking:
– Feature-length films (running on average about 75 min) dominated
exhibition by 1915 causing the eventual decline of the serial (a series of
episodic short films ranging from 15 – 40 minutes)
– The Star System became even more prominent as studios competed to
sign up the most popular actors to long-term contracts.
– Many major Hollywood directors began their careers in the 1910s – D.W.
Griffith, Maurice Tourneur, Cecil B. De Mille, John Ford, Mack Sennett.
20. Film Genres
• As the industry
developed and was
generating new
directors, several
film styles became
popular and (top left) Cecil B. De
associated with Mille – historical epics,
particular directors. (top right) Mack
Sennett – slapstick
comedies, (bottom)
John Ford – westerns.
21. Serial
• Although this type of film predated the
development of classical Hollywood style
filmmaking, it continued to be among the
main attractions for viewers during the 1910s.
• Characteristics – a serial was an “episode” of a
greater film series. The true serial carried a
storyline over all of its episodes, typically
ending each episode at a story high point or
cliffhanger. Usually shown in package with
other short films such as newsreels, cartoons,
comic or dramatic narratives, action-oriented
offering thrilling elements such as master
criminals, lost treasures, exotic locales and
daring rescues.
• Most Famous – director Louis Feuillade’s
crime serial Fantomas.
22. Slapstick Comedy
• Once feature films were standardized,
slapstick comedies were normally shown in
a comedy program that included slapstick
comedy shorts + newsreels + cartoons.
• Characteristics – physical comedy,
exaggerated, boisterous and even
nonsensical action, chases.
• Most Famous – Charlie Chaplin, Ben Turpin,
Mabel Normand, Harold Lloyd, Roscoe
“Fatty” Arbuckle, Buster Keaton.
23. Western
• The Western was among the most
popular film genres in the 1910s
through to the late 1920s.
• Characteristics – set in the American
Old West, often portray the
spirit, struggle and demise of frontier
life, main character is often a
cowboy, gunslinger or bounty hunter
who lives a fairly isolated and
introverted life.
• Most Famous – William S. Hart, Tom
Mix, John Ford (began as an
actor, became a director)
24. (Historical) Epic
• As the feature film became the
standard, Hollywood filmmakers told
lengthier, more complex stories.
• Characteristics – epics are depictions of
human struggles, such as stories of war
or of the Bible, set in the past. Films of
enormous scope, epics are centred
about heroic characters and their action
takes place on a grand scale, ie. battle
scenes.
• Most Famous – Cecil B. De Mille, D. W.
Griffth (directors)
25. Melodrama
• Throughout the 1910s, melodramas were
among the most popular genres and were
sometimes even exhibited in serial format.
• Characteristics – plot that seeks to capitalize on
an audiences’ emotional reaction by presenting
stories that deal with human crises such as
failed romance or friendship, strained family
situations, human tragedies, illnesses or
emotional or physical hardship. Melodramas
contain highly stereotyped characters.
• Most Famous – Theda Barra, Lillian Gish
(actors), D. W. Griffith, King Vidor (directors)
26. Summary
• The 1910s were a crucial transitional period for the cinema.
• The development of the Hollywood studio system and the
accompanying American takeover of world film markets were among
the most influential changes in cinema history.
• The events of the 1910s defined standard commercial filmmaking –
some of the companies founded during this time are still making
movies today, the studio system prevailed for 50 + years.
• The Star System still remains one of the primary means of generating
audience appeal.
• The basic principles of the classical Hollywood style of filmmaking
established in the 1910s continued throughout the decades to come
and has changed remarkably little.
• During this era, Hollywood and the movies became almost synonymous
for many audiences around the world.
