2. How Hollywood Came To Be
When one hears the word Hollywood, the first
thing that comes to mind is movies. There’s a
reason why Los Angeles became the center of
motion pictures. It all started with a few
independent studios that ventured as far away
as possible from “the trust”, mainly Thomas
Edison and his lawsuits, and so they headed to
L.A. to distribute, produce, and exhibit their
movies. The fact that Los Angeles was far away
from New York helped make it the home for
independent film studios.
3. The film industry flourished in L.A because
It was sunny all year long, the property
was inexpensive, it was an open shop
town, and of course there was an amazing
variety of locations and geography. These
conditions made it perfect for any studio to
shoot movies. Soon almost every studio
be it major or independent wanted to settle
there, making Hollywood full of film
factories.
4. Once Hollywood became the center of the film
industry in the US, a system had to be
established which introduces us to the studio
system. The system was first and foremost
designed to ensure the cost and quality of the
movies being produced. Soon MGM, Paramount
Pictures, RKO Radio Pictures, and Warner Bros.
were leading the film industry in a well-defined
system. Smaller studios like Universal Studios,
United Artists, and Columbia Pictures were also
rising to take their share of the evolving industry.
The age of Edison was coming to an end, and a
new entrepreneur with high expectation, Adolf
Zukor, took control of Paramount Pictures and
tried to lead the studio system.
5. Having a broad based US culture, there was a
sudden wide appeal and people all over the
world became interested in Hollywood movies.
As for European cinema, while they were still in
competition, the effects of WWI destroyed the
European film industries. It was mainly due to
the conversion to propaganda films. Therefore,
while Europe was suffering from the war trying to
focus on propaganda instead of the film industry,
Hollywood was growing with a strong system
and eventually became the leading film industry
of the world. European cinema tried to make a
comeback but was never able to achieve the
heights of the Hollywood system, and to this day,
Europe has failed to recover from the effects of
WWI on their film industries placing Hollywood
ahead of their time.
6. Hollywood Today
The past few decades have really changed
the way we consume movies and all these
improvements can be attributed to the
ever improving technology and of course
the amazing actors that hollywood has to
offer.