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American Film Industry
American Film Industry: Class 9, Hollywood vs. Television
American Film Industry: Class 9, Hollywood vs. Television
1 Major Cultural Shifts
1.1 Suburbanization
1.2 Nuclear Families
1.3 G.I. Bill
1.4 Consumer Goods
2 World of Tomorrow
2.1 TV demonstrated at RCA Pavilion, 1939
2.2 Uses radio waves to carry picture and sound
2.3 Replacement for AM radio
2.4 CLIP: Magic of Television (1941)
3 Theater Television
3.1 What to do with television?
3.2 sporting events
3.3 political speeches
4 Domestic Medium
4.1 Television would enter domestic sphere
4.2 complement emerging suburbanization
4.3 would erode movie audience throughout the 1950s
5 Declining Theatrical attendance
5.1 Hollywood’s response
5.2 “An Experience not just Entertainment”
Risque Subjects
Color
Widescreen
Stereophonic sound
6 Color
6.1 Technicolor
Dye-Transfer
3 Strip System
1924–1954
6.2 Eastman Color
Integral “Tri-Pack” Process
1 Strip System (lowest cost)
adopted in 1952
7 Widescreen Cinema
7.1 Aspect Ratio
Academy Ratio
Silent Films: 1.33:1
Sound Films: 1.375:1
Widescreen
today’s common aspect ratio
1.85:1
Cinemascope
on the extreme
2.35:1
7.2 Cinerama
Mike Todd, 1952
Three-Camera
Three-Projectors
Curved Screen
This Cinerama
Aspect Ratio 2.65:1
7.3 Cinemascope
20th Century-Fox, 1953
Anamorphic Lens
The Robe
Aspect ratio 2.66:1
CLIP: Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
7.4 VistaVistion
Paramount, 1954
horizontal film
White Christmas
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
7.5 Todd-AO
Mike Todd and American Optical, 1953
65–70mm film and variable focal length
Oklahoma (1955)
Aspect Ratio 2.20: 1
8 Hollywood and Television
8.1 Hollywood at first fights television
8.2 Television needs content to fill schedule
British films on US television
“B” studios license movies for television broadcast
Monogram (1948)
Republic (1950)
Minors and Struggling Majors
RKO
struggling movie studio
licenses catalog
General Tire’s Million Dollar Movie
beginning in 1953
Disney
forms Buena Vista distribution
licenses movies for television broadcast
beginning in 1953
Remaining Major Studios
M-G-M Parade (ABC)
The 20th Century-Fox Hour (CBS)
Warner Brothers Presents (ABC)
8.3 Disney Cleverly Exploits Television
Disneyland USA (ABC) series in 1954
promotes Disneyland Park (1955)
8.4 Hollywood in the Age of Television
Hollywood initially fought television
Hollywood found new revenue from television
first, broadcasting old catalog
second, producing television programming
Hollywood would by decade’s end never recover from lost audience
film industry would suffer extreme losses of revenue
would remain a secondary entertainment medium to television