Hollywood Research

INTRODUCTION

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period. Since the 1920s, the American film industry has grossed more money every year than that of any other country. Hollywood has been consistent in making and breaking stars. Famous names such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe come to mind when we think of Classic Hollywood stars. Hollywood has also made its fair shares of iconic producers/entrepreneurs for example: Walt Disney. The major film studios of Hollywood are the primary source of the most commercially successful movies in the world. Some of them include Titanic(1997) , Star Wars(1977)  and Avatar(2009).

The Major Genres of Hollywood Films

There are some conventional genres which have emerged from popularity and recognition by Hollywood. The genres include Animated Movies such as Despicable Me , Rio and The Shrek Series, Comedy Movies such as The 40 Year old Virgin and Balls of Fury , Documentaries such as Bowling for Columbine and March of the Penguins , Drama and Action such as 127 Hours and 300 , Foreign movies such as Amelie and Bad Education , Horror movies such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Dark Water and Musicals and Teen Movies such as High School Musical series and 10 Things I Hate About You.  

Budget of an average Hollywood film 

Although highly variable , the total cost of making a film including Below-The-Line and Over-the-Line costs in Hollywood can run somewhere from 1$million to 20-30$million or even more.  At the most basic level, one could define a “Hollywood film” as one that is released and/or distributed by a major studio. We have to keep in mind though, that studios often acquire and distribute films that they did not actually make, but were originally produced independently. One of the best known examples of this is “The Brothers McMullen” (1995) by Edward Burns. He produced the film himself for $25,000, but after winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, 20th Century Fox purchased and distributed it. Of course, much more money was spent to distribute and market the film, but since we aren’t counting that into our calculations of average movie budget, the total cost of production stays at $25,000. Is “The Brothers McMullen” a Hollywood film then, since it was produced independently? Since it was acquired by a major studio and had a widespread theatrical release, it should indeed be counted as such. In recent years, the gap between the highest and lowest budgets has widened as studios spend more and more to attempt to lure people from their Home Theatre Systems and into theatres with 3-D effects and amazing computer animation. On the other side of the spectrum, as the cost of quality tools for shooting and editing movies has come down, and online movie consumption grows, budgets may become even smaller. But for now, it still costs about $139 million to make a major Hollywood film.

MAJOR HOLLYWOOD INSTITUTIONS

COLUMBIA PICTURES

Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. (CPII) is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies in the world, a member of the so-called Big Six. It was one of the so-called Little Three among the eight major film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The studio was founded in 1919 as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales by brothers Jack and Harry Cohn and Joe Brandt. It released its first feature length film in August 1922. In its early years, Columbia Pictures was a minor player in Hollywood, but then began to grow in the late 1920s, spurred by a successful association with director Frank Capra.

In 1982 , the studio was brought by Coca-Cola. Five years later, Coca-Cola spun off Columbia, which merged with Tri-Star to create Columbia Pictures Entertainment. The Columbia Pictures empire was sold on September 28, 1989 to electronics giant Sony for the amount of $3.4 billion, one of several Japanese firms then buying American properties. The sale netted Coca-Cola a handsome profit from its investment in the studio.

Columbia's logo, a lady carrying a torch and draped in the American flag (representing Columbia, a personification of the United States), has gone through five major revisions. It has been changed time and again to what it currently is.

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production/distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Paramount is consistently ranked as one of the largest (top-grossing) movie studios. Paramount Pictures Corporation is a global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment, with robust and multi-faceted divisions across all areas including digital, home entertainment, network and cable television distribution, studio operations, and consumer products and recreation.  A unit of the leading global entertainment content company, Viacom, Paramount is part of a family of prominent and respected brands including MTV Networks and BET Networks.  aramount consists of several film labels including, the legendary Paramount Pictures; leading youth brand, MTV Films; the preeminent family entertainment label, Nickelodeon Movies; and specialty film labels, Paramount Vantage and Paramount Classics. In addition, the Studio will continue to release a number of films under the DW label. Paramount also has established distribution deals with iconic comic book creator, Marvel Entertainment and renowned animated film producer, DreamWorks Animation. The Company’s global business operations include Paramount Digital Entertainment, Paramount Famous Productions, Paramount Home Entertainment, Paramount Pictures International, Paramount Licensing Inc., Paramount Studio Group and Worldwide Television Distribution. Paramount Digital Entertainment brings tailored entertainment to consumers through today’s evolving digital distribution platforms. Paramount Home Entertainment is responsible for the worldwide sales, marketing and distribution of DVDs and Blu-ray discs for films and television shows distributed by Paramount Pictures Corporation. Paramount Pictures International is responsible for marketing and distributing Paramount movies to audiences around the world. Paramount Licensing handles worldwide licensing and consumer products for all Paramount properties. The Studios at Paramount offer world-class production facilities for feature films, television shows and commercials.  Paramount Famous Productions is the made-for-home entertainment division of Paramount Pictures Corporation.  The division develops and produces prequels, sequels and remakes based on the libraries of Paramount Pictures.

WARNER BROS ENTERTAINMENT

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. (though the name was occasionally given in full form as Warner Brothers during the company's early years), is an American producer of film and television entertainment.

One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank, California and New York, New York. Warner Bros. has several subsidiary companies, including Warner Bros. Studios, Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television, Warner Bros. Animation, Warner Home Video, New Line Cinema, TheWB.com, and DC Comics. Warner owns half of The CW Television Network. Warner Bros. has produced some remarkable movies over its course as a media giant and one of the largest six film entertainment studios in Hollywood. Some of these include.

 The Jazz Singer, 1927

Considered a cinematic landmark, The Jazz Singer was the first feature-length Hollywood “talkie” film. Warner Bros.’ production head Darryl F. Zanuck was presented with a special Oscar at the very first Academy Awards ceremony in May of 1929.

The Public Enemy, 1931

Because of the famous grapefruit scene, for years afterward when dining in restaurants, fellow patrons would send grapefruits to actor James Cagney, which – almost invariably – James Cagney would happily eat.

Robin Hood, 1938

James Cagney was the original actor slated for the title role, but he quit Warner Brothers, and the production was postponed for three years.

Casablanca, 1942

Casablanca won 3 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Studio publicity in 1941 claimed that Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan were scheduled to appear in this film, and Dennis Morgan is mentioned as the third lead.

Today, Warner Bros. Entertainment is a fully integrated, broad-based entertainment company – a global leader in the creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing of all forms of creative content and their related businesses, across all current and emerging media and platforms.

20th CENTURY FOX

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, with hyphen, from 1935 to 1985) — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios as of 2011. Located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, just west of Beverly Hills, the studio is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

The company was founded on May 31, 1935, as the result of the merger of Fox Film Corporation, founded by William Fox in 1915, and Twentieth Century Pictures, founded in 1933 by Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck, Raymond Griffith and William Goetz. 20th Century Fox's most popular film franchises include Avatar, Star Wars, Ice Age, Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks, X-Men, Die Hard, Alien, Speed, Revenge of the Nerds, Planet of the Apes, Home Alone, Dr. Dolittle, Night at the Museum, Predator, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and The Chronicles of Narnia (which was previously distributed by Walt Disney Pictures), The Beach, plus famous TV shows such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad.

CODES AND CONVENTIONS FOLLOWED BY HOLLYWOOD

Codes are systems of signs, which create meaning. Codes can be divided into two categories – technical and symbolic:

•Technical codes are all the ways in which equipment is used to tell the story in a media text, for example the camera work in a film.

•Symbolic codes show what is beneath the surface of what we see. For example, a character's actions show you how the character is feeling.

Some codes fit both categories – music for example, is both technical and symbolic.

Conventions are the generally accepted ways of doing something. There are general conventions in any medium, such as the use of interviewee quotes in a print article, but conventions are also genre specific.Codes and conventions are used together in any study of genre – it is not enough to discuss a technical code used such as camera work, without saying how it is conventionally used in a genre. An huge institution such as Hollywood also follows and abides by certain codes and conventions laid down by the classical film makers in its birth. For example: Nowadays if we carefully analyze films we can see how the same codes and conventions are being followed repeatedly. For example: The extremely popular James Bond series. Throughout the James Bond movie series , firstly , the technology shown in the movies (considering the time at which they were made) was and still is very advanced. Laser buster combined with fully automatic tank cannons. This has been a convention of the James Bond series from the very beginning. Secondly, in all the Bond movies, there has always been one girl (female character) who has supported James Bond in achieving his goals. Both of these conventions can be seen throughout the series, Quantum of Solace , Die Another Day etc. for example: The Saw Series. Throughout the Saw series , one popular convention followed is that when the Antagonist “Jigsaw” kills a victim , he does not carry it away from detection but instead wants the body to be detected so that the story would continue onwards , so he simply lets it stay there until it is discovered by either the police or by special agent. For example: In one part in Saw 2 , the body of a victim is left to rot for more than 20 days until it is finally discovered the police and then taken away. There are various scenes in all the other Saw Films that follow the exact convention.
Source: en.wikipedia.org