Analysis: The Kaufman Astoria Studios

The film industry operates in a continuous cycle, searching for the newest and best pieces to make their movies creative, interesting, and marketable. Historically, the film industry attempts to follow a set structure in an attempt towards success in such a volatile market, however, this approach creates a system much like that of Ford’s Model-T production line, invented in the 1910s, which involved each worker on the line doing a single job. Only a few years later, during the 1920s and 1940s, the film industry showed that they adopted a similar approach to their industry, with each person—actor, director, producer, writer, etc.—performing a distinct role. In the late 1920s, as Hollywood transitioned from silent films to “talkies”, actors and actresses were met with the challenge of adapting to a new role and many of them no longer fit the role required by the growing Hollywood machine. The film Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950) explores and critiques the landscape of the hierarchy and harsh realities of Hollywood. In the same vein as many films of the film noir style, the mood of pessimism and fatalism reflected in the form parallels the reality of many people in Hollywood during the 1900s.

As the need for entertainment grows, so does the vice of stardom. We have seen the wreck some stars have made of their lives, addicted to the attention Hollywood brings. And from it came also such classics as Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, and Juno. One thing is for certain; Hollywood studios is the name that carried the movie industry from the drawing board to a the big

Basically, the studio system controls everything from production to showing included the actors. Actors who worked with a studio were under contract with that studio and could only act in that studio's production. These contracts were seven years long and forbids the actors from doing any other projects, like radio or television along with regulating the actor’s lives. The studio actors that were under contract were mostly white; minorities did not get much contracted work. The actors were required to act in whatever film they were cast, do publicity for their films, promote product tie-ins and occasionally even be loaned out to other studios for a film or two. The actors were working six days a week and often for about 14 hours a day. It may have been a hectic schedule but they were putting out 10 to 20 films a year. Studios had everyone under contract from the actors to the directors, from the writers to the technical staff. I think there was an up and down side to the studio system. On the good side, all the employees were under contract and everyone was available when they were needed. Films were getting produced at much faster rate than they are today. I would think there would be less conflict between actors and directors because everyone would have to

1.) What is the American Studio System? Please give four examples of how the system worked in films we have watched in class.  Be specific.

In cinema’s early days, the film industry was based in New York, the nation’s theatrical center. Most movies were being filmed in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, and Florida. However, by the 1920’s, southern California had become the leading film capital due to its cheap land and labor. Films gained their popularity after Vaudeville actors striked in 1901. This left theaters scrambling for acts and films became the main event. Silent films were widely popular in the early 1920’s and were usually accompanied by live piano or organ music. Talking-pictures were first introduced in 1923, but did not become popular until 1927.

“We’ll start by talking honestly, and from that a piece of theater will evolve. I’ll begin, I’ve been thinking a lot about dying lately. … Regardless of how this particular thing works out, I will be dying, and so will you, and so will everyone here; and that’s what I want to explore”(Synecdoche, New York). Synecdoche, New York is not just any ordinary film, Charlie Kaufman has created a movie in which the level of detail is so high that this movie will always be more after each watch. When discussing major pieces of a film, what happens a lot is that people get caught up on acting and cinematography and overlook smaller, yet just as important elements such as mise-en-scene, editing, and sound, which are the leading factors on what makes this

When Hitchcock began production on PSYCHO, he was told that he would have to use the facilities at Revue Studios, the television division of Universal Studios, which

Pittsburgh Reinvents Itself as The New Hollywood (2012)- This article is incredibly useful since it talks about the groundworks Pittsburgh has set in place to become the, “Tinseltown of the East”. The article shows how, due to the 25% tax credit on films who use more than 60% of their production budget in Pittsburgh and the skilled inexpensive worker unions present here, the film industry has a great reason to do production here in Pittsburgh. This article is great at showing what Pittsburgh’s plans were for increasing film production and their hope that, due to these efforts, they could Pittsburgh from an industrial ghost town to a startup boomtown (Hipwell).

In 1811, the New York city planners began a massive building execution. In 1835, Mayor Cornelius Van Wyck invited people to Manhattan to “move up there and enjoy the clean air!” In the early nineteenth century, the Theatre District between 41st street and 53rd street, was mainly just farmland and land owned by families all over. Broadway holds over 40 theatres at the moment, but it really wasn’t until the 1920’s-1930’s that theatres’ started to be built down these streets. In the 1930s, Broadway experienced a major crisis mainly caused upon the invention of the films having sound.

In the early 1900’s, as films stated centering their focus on profit, large scale studios came onto the film scene. The studios that were discussed in the chapter were: Universal, United Artists, Paramount, Warner Bros, MGM, Fox, Columbia, and RKO. These studios employed some of the biggest names in the film world at the time. Many of these studios are still in business today, and have given prominent actors and directors their shot at fame. Universal was the first studio to move to the west coast. They produced popular films such as The

In fact, Webb notes that today, only one major studio still exists in the city, as most back lots have turned into offices that coordinate filming activities elsewhere. This small fact proves that “Hollywood has always been a concept as much as a place” (xi), a symbol people reference for the movie industry, no matter where the movies were actually produced.

Although these crews meant for temporary work only, their skills are most needed during the production stage of film shooting. The crews’ employment rise as the production begins. On the pre-production and post production stage, only several crews’ needed depending on their skills. At the end of making the film the organisation formed for this purposes ceases to exist, leaving no fixed assets and no structure for continued learning.

There were many physical changes that took place with the theatres and the productions. Depression hit New York pretty hard, 1.6 million out of 7 million people were in some sort of welfare programs, as well as one third of the city’s factories were forced to be shutdown. Theatres were either closed down or were tuned into movie houses. Production output slowed down, before the depression there were 264 productions between 1927-28 and then during the depression, (1930-31) there was only 187 productions, because it was difficult to fundraise money. It was also very difficult to get a job in a theatrical field during the recession, there were about five thousand people that were jobless.

The modern film industry was born around the beginning of the twentieth century. On April 23rd 1896 Thomas Edition showed the first publicly-projected motion picture at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City. From there the film industry had an explosive growth rate. In fact,

Drawn by the borough’s increasing popularity as well as a desire to avoid the watchful eyes of Edison’s hired detectives, the upstart independent Champion Film Company built the first permanent movie studio in Fort Lee in 1910. Others quickly followed in constructing studios with huge back lots, laboratories for developing negatives and massive greenhouse-like buildings that allowed natural light to bathe film sets. Some of the biggest studios in Hollywood today—including Universal, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and 20th Century Fox—had their roots in Fort