Big five studios of the classical hollywood period

Study Guide #3 FLME 2700

1. What is at stake with the ongoing move toward the digital forms of exhibition? Identify

the benefits of digital projection for both theaters and studios, and explain why the rollout

of digital cinema in the United States has taken so long, despite early optimism for a

quick conversion. Furthermore, what role has the increased production of high-profile

movies in 3D played in the speed of this conversion?

2. What does "convergence" mean in relation to digital media? What does it mean to

experience a film via several different "platforms"? Evaluate the effectiveness of the

studios' efforts in the new century to incorporate innovations in DVD, Internet, and

videogame technology into their business.

3. In what ways have a) home video and b) the Internet changed movie fandom? Trace the

evolution of fan communities and their relation to the cinema since the 1980s. How have

fans in the last thirty years participated in shaping the discourse about—and even

influenced the production of—Hollywood cinema?

4. What tactics were employed by the Hollywood Majors during the 1990s and 2000s to

capture a major share of international film box office? Use Universal/Steven

Spielberg's Jurassic Park and the Disney company as case studies. In what ways did the

American film industry directly buy into foreign film markets, and how successful have

these attempts been?

5. What factors enabled independent films to proliferate from the 1980s to the 2000s?

Identify the various support systems that emerged to support independent production, and

describe the four major trends of independent filmmaking. What was the nature of the

relationship between each trend's representative directors and companies and the major

Hollywood studios?

6. How did the ideas of "synergy" and "franchises" transform American film industry

structure in the 1980s and 1990s? What kinds of films resulted from these ideas, and in

what ways did distributors and exhibitors try to profit from such films?

7. What factors enabled independent films to proliferate from the 1980s to the 2000s?

Identify the various support systems that emerged to support independent production, and

describe the four major trends of independent filmmaking. What was the nature of the

relationship between each trend's representative directors and companies and the major

Hollywood studios?

8. Compare and contrast the approaches of Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese to studio

filmmaking. In what ways did each director revise genres from the classical Hollywood

era? How did the personal style of each director reflect or deviate from the norms of

classical Hollywood filmmaking?

9. Trace the evolution of the Hollywood studio system's economic recovery in the mid- and

late 1970s. What were the important blockbusters of the period? How were these

blockbusters created and marketed? What happened to the status of the director as this

recovery period continued in the 1980s?

10. How did European art cinema conventions influence the filmmakers of the New

Hollywood? In what ways did the narrational and stylistic techniques of art cinema infuse

new life into standard Hollywood genres? Support your answer with an examination of

the art films of two of the following three American directors: Robert Altman, Woody

Allen, Francis Ford Coppola.

11. What types of film content caused problems for the major Hollywood production

companies during the late 1920s and the early 1930s? How did the Hays Office operate to

protect, rather than hinder, the interests of the American film industry? Explain how the

Production Code regulations helped modify the content of Hollywood movies.

12. Identify the Big Five Hollywood studios (or the Majors) of the 1930s and summarize the

activities of each during this decade. What were their strategies for weathering the effects

of the Great Depression? What kinds of films did each specialize in?

13. Why did French Impressionism decline as a unified filmmaking movement in the late

1920s? How did pressures from both inside and outside the movement influence this

decline?

14. The formal qualities of French Impressionism derived partly from the directors' beliefs

about the cinema as an art form. What were these beliefs? Explain how the

Impressionists' theories on the cinema translated to their films with regard to

cinematography and editing.

15. Perhaps the most important artistic trend of the early twentieth century was labeled

"modernism." Summarize some of the principal tenets of modernism and specify how

these ideas influenced the development of French Impressionism (or German

Expressionism or Soviet Montage in film.