Filmmaking In America Essay

784 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: American society changes after World War 2

How did the invention of television affect filmmaking in America?
There were 3 main reasons which brought about a vertical disintegration of the film industry. Firstly the SC forced studios to get rid of owned cinema chains during 1948. Secondly there were changes to social-demographic structures in U.S. which triggered shifts to entertainment within homes & many of the young couples started living in new suburbs & wanted to remain home for their entertainment needs. In the beginning they mostly used the radio later switching to TV. Thirdly TV broadcasting by itself constituted new distribution channels for all kinds of audiovisual entertainment and this decreased scarcity in distribution capacities. The result was TV took over focus from …show more content…

And secondly, relations were established with televisions getting huge profits from the sale and rental rights issuance of old films.
What specific elements were employed by the film industry to bring the audience back to the movie theater?
1928 to 1948 was the Golden Age for American cinema. Attendance went up steadily and some of the greatest movies were produced. Movies steered away from controversy and avoided depressing themes and realism by becoming the dream factory. TV was functional at-home, equivalents for movies. Americans found going to movies were a lot of effort TV programs improved with inclusion of professional sports, theater & even opera.
The film industry tried wooing viewers with sophisticated techniques including wide screen (Cinerama) in 1952 on (using 3 projectors & curved screens, enhancing illusions of depth). The 3-D films like Bwana Devil, 1952 were surprising hits & Aromarama (the smells were released from chairs corresponding to the scenes shown in the screens like smells of the jungle, incense, etc. Another innovations was drive in movies which reflected American love for movies and their cars (Christopherson,

Show More
Related

  • Cinema in Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies

    632 Words  | 2 Pages

    The overall appeal of the cinema to the masses was particularly evident during the interwar era. Audiences worldwide wanted to watch the variety of films, particularly American produced films, and they always went back. The visibly attractive and glamorous Hollywood movies often depicted the success of the underdog over unjust authority. Values of cash over culture were often a theme in the early American films and societies with restricted social mobility, such as those in Europe, could dream of such a triumph. The working class and unemployed could fantasise about wealth, fame and freedom which America as a country was portrayed as offering.

    Read More

  • FIL110 WA7

    641 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lewis, J. (2008). American Film: A History. New York, NY. W.W. Norton and Co. Inc. (p. 405,406,502).

    Read More

  • Standardization in the 1920s

    588 Words  | 2 Pages

    Similar to businesses standardizing in making and advertising consumers goods, the practice of mass-producing culture standardized and sped up in the 1920s. Radio became a national obsession. What started out as only a few independent stations soon evolved into huge networks and sponsored programming became popular. Movies during this time became accepted by all social classes with the expansion from rowdy nickelodeons to uptown theaters. With audiences nearing 80 million people a week, the corporate giants Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Brothers, and Columbia made the ...

    Read More

  • How Did The 1950s Influence The 1940s

    881 Words  | 2 Pages

    American film and radio changed dramatically because of the 1940s and everything that came with the time. Theatre got darker after the war, also bringing propaganda into radio and film. The radio was the way Americans connected to the world because it offered on the spot information. Everyone was tuned into the radio for news, entertainment and music.... ... middle of paper ...

    Read More

  • The Film Industry In The 1920s

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    During this decade, the film industry went through massive changes that would completely change what movies were or stood for. After the Great War, more people began considering movies as a form of entertainment. This increased attention caused change in the industry, allowing the experience of the movie goer to massively change for the better. Many new genres, ideas and technologies emerged in the 1920s that would later dominate the industry. The 1920s saw massive changes happening in the movie industry that would help it to get one step closer to what it is today.

    Read More

  • Films During The Great Depression Essay

    1354 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Great Depression was a time full of fear and uncertainty in the U.S. The unemployment rate was above 20% and hundreds of banks had failed resulting in a delicate and arduous economic situation. While many industries suffered greatly through this time, one industry seemed to do just fine: film. Film was a relatively new industry without many regulations which had become the most exciting and influential form of media that existed. During the Depression, this importance was identified by both private and government organizations, film technology advanced, and stories were tailored to the needs of a suffering population. As a result, film during The Great Depression was characterized by innovation, censorship, and escapism.

    Read More

  • How the Movies of the 1970’s and 1980’s Reflected America’s Mood and Culture

    1565 Words  | 4 Pages

    During the mid and late 1970’s, the mood of American films shifted sharply. People needed to get away from such negative memories as the Vietnam War, long gas lines, the resignation of President Nixon, and ...

    Read More

  • The Role Of Television In The 1950's And 1960s

    708 Words  | 2 Pages

    First, the impact of the television in the 1950’s strongly affected the social aspects of American lives. To begin

    Read More

  • The 1960's

    647 Words  | 2 Pages

    The fifties was a learning year and the 60's became the time to express everything that they learned. The 60's was a time for new and innovative ways to entertain the people. Since the blacklisting continued in Hollywood, the making or films became very difficult to express. The restrictions, such as the production codes, kept the big corporations to produce films that had no interesting subjects. These films also had to be films that show no signs of communistic values. The film industry was failing to bring in the audience to the theaters. With the TV making a big wave all over, the U.S. the film industry was losing it is money. Then in 1961 something big happened, 20th Century Fox took apart its lot. This act was one that led to a chain reaction. Studios were assuming the role of distributors. This would allow the independent companies to come in and add a new flavor to the silver screen. During this time films changed it's traditional film making ideas. Things started to get graphic, more violent, sexual and more expressive. Movies had found a new look and with the production codes now gone and the blacklisting ending, there was an explosion of ideas that would be presented to the United States.

    Read More

  • Causes Of Growing Up In The 60's

    919 Words  | 2 Pages

    Eventually television began to grow and advertising started taking over and that is where people started to turn to get their news. A new variety of shows began demonstrating real life family situations and comedies. People began to relate and also see life from a different perspective and that impacted peoples values and morals.

    Read More

  • The Jazz Age

    1605 Words  | 4 Pages

    Watching a movie in the 1920s was a cheap and easy way to be transported into a world of glitz and glamour, a world of crime, or a world of magic and mystery. Some of these worlds included aspects of current events, like war, crime, and advances in technology; while others were completely fictional mysteries, romances, and comedies. Heartbreakers, heartthrobs, comedians and beautiful women dominated movie screens across the country in theaters, called Nickelodeons. Nickelodeons were very basic and small theaters which later transformed into opulent and monumental palaces. When sound was introduced into film by Warner Bros. Pictures, “talkies” took top rank over silent films. “Movies were an art form that had universal appeal. Their essence was entertainment; their success, financial and otherwise, was huge” (1920-30, 3/19/11). Films offered an escape from the troubles of everyday life in the 20s, and moviegoers across the country all shared a universal language: watching movies.

    Read More

  • Taxi Driver and the Hollywood Renaissance

    2352 Words  | 5 Pages

    Largely influenced by the French New Wave and other international film movements, many American filmmakers in the late 1960s to 1970s sought to revolutionize Hollywood cinema in a similar way. The New Hollywood movement, also referred to as the “American New Wave” and the “Hollywood Renaissance,” defied traditional Hollywood standards and practices in countless ways, creating a more innovative and artistic style of filmmaking. Due to the advent and popularity of television, significant decrease in movie theater attendance, rising production costs, and changing tastes of American audiences, particularly in the younger generation, Hollywood studios were in a state of financial disaster. Many studios thus hired a host of young filmmakers to revitalize the business, and let them experiment and have almost complete creative control over their films. In addition, the abandonment of the restrictive Motion Picture Production Code in 1967 and the subsequent adoption of the MPAA’s rating system in 1968 opened the door to an era of increased artistic freedom and expression.

    Read More

  • Postwar America: The Golden Age of Television

    1253 Words  | 3 Pages

    The ‘Golden Age of Television’ is what many refer to as the period between the 1950s and 60s when the television began to establish itself as a prevalent medium in the United States. In 1947, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), and the Du Mont Network were the four main television networks that ran stations with regular programming taking place. (Television, 2003) While regular television programming was a new innovation, the television itself had been commercially available for over twenty years prior to the 50s. It was conceived by many worldly innovators and went through several testing stages before it was finally completed in the late twenties. The three main innovators were Niplow - who first developed a rotating disk with small holes arranged in a spiral pattern in 1884, Zworykin - who developed the Iconoscope which could scan pictures and break them into electronic signals (a primitive form of the Cathode Ray Tube) in 1923, and lastly Fansworth - who demonstrated for the first time that it was possible to transmit an electrical image in 1927. (Rollo, 2011) However, one of the many reasons why this medium was successful in the 50s was due to the fact that it became more accessible to the public. Television sets were more affordable to middle class citizens which created further interest in the new technology. Through an historical account of the medium, the spread of television across America throughout this particular decade will be examined.

    Read More

  • The explaination of ‘cinema of attractions’

    1161 Words  | 3 Pages

    Thompson, K 2003, ‘The struggle for the expanding american film industry’, in Film history : an introduction, 2nd ed, McGraw-Hill, Boston, pp. 37-54

    Read More

  • The Rise of Technology and Film throughout the Twentieth Century

    1042 Words  | 3 Pages

    Film was not always as it is today due to the digital sounds and graphic picture enhancements of George Lucas's THX digital sound in the late 1970s to enhance the audience's perceptions. Sound was first discovered in 1928 and the first films before that were silent. There is a social need to heighten an audience's film going experience and it allows each person to color their own views of what they see and presents either directly or indirectly society's moral values.

    Read More

More about Filmmaking In America Essay

Open Document