EARLY YEARS OF AMERICAN CINEMA

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EARLY YEARS OF AMERICAN CINEMA
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• The Hollywood film has 3 characteristics
• MASS MEDIUM
• COMMERCIAL
• NARRATIVE art form
• Could have developed as
• Scientific instrument
• Medium of home entertainment

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• 3 ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS
• Growth of large urban areas
• Increase in leisure time
• Development of the necessary technology
• THE URBAN POPULATION BASE
• Urban areas, esp. in northeast midwest, grew
  dramatically at the turn of the century
• Provided concentrated masses of people necessary
  for film to be a commercial medium

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• CAUSES OF THE GROWTH OF URBAN AREAS
• Immigration from abroad
• Mostly from southern eastern Europe
• Fewer farmers, sought industrial jobs in the
  cities
• Tended to live in cohesive, discrete communities
• Mostly very poor, few spoke English
• 1st movie audiences, key figures in the industry
• Migration to the cities from rural areas
• Americans left farms, sought work in the cities

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• 1870 - 25 of Americans lived in urban areas
• 1910 - 45 lived in urban areas
• 1920 - over 50 lived in urban areas
• Trend continued until WW II, then reversed (rise
  of TV)

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• INCREASE IN LEISURE TIME
• Shorter workweeks came about because of
• Automation
• State local regulations
• Growth of unions
• Shrinking workweek
• 1900 - average workweek was 66 hours
• 1910 - 56 hours
• 1920 - 41 hours

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• Movies had advantages over other entertainment
• Cheap (5-10)
• Suitable for the entire family
• No English was required (silent films)

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• THOMAS EDISON THE EDISON COMPANY
• Wanted moving pictures to accompany his
  phonograph
• Invented almost nothing involved with motion
  pictures
• W.K.L. DICKSON KINETOGRAPH
• 1890 1st important motion picture camera
• Electrically powered, resulting in a huge, heavy
  machine

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• BLACK MARIA
• Studio built to house the kinetograph
• Because it used natural sunlight, built on
  railroad tracks, rotated to follow the sun had a
  roof which could be rolled back to allow sunlight
• In 1892, Fred Ott's Sneeze 1st kinetograph film
  made in the Black Maria

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Black Maria
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Fred Otts Sneeze
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• KINETOSCOPE
• Invented by Dickson for viewing films made
• Electrically-powered, showed short (45-60 sec.)
  films to only 1 viewer at a time
• KINETOSCOPE PARLORS
• 1894, Edison contracted with Raff Gammon to
  open parlors filled with kinetoscopes in NYC
• Charged 25c for admission
• Made 1st year, then lost due to cost of
  maintenance

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The Kinetoscope
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Dance
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• THOMAS ARMAT THE VITASCOPE
• 1895, Armat developed primitive film projector
  called the Vitascope many people could view a
  film at 1 time
• Edison bought the invention manufactured it
• Premiered in NY at Koster Bial's Music Hall,
  1896
• Then distributed throughout the US

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The Vitascope
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Vitascope advertisement
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• EDISON'S COMPETITORS
• Relatively cheap easy to make equipment films
• Most important was the BIOGRAPH company
• Established in 1896 by Dickson, who had left the
  Edison Co.
• Well-financed (Rockefeller )
• Dropped electrically-powered camera for a
  hand-cranked camera
• Early film industry truly competitive, many small
  companies sharing market fairly equally

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• THE NICKELODEON ERA
• Exhibition of films has gone through 3 broad
  stages
• NICKELODEON ERA relatively short, but established
  the base audience for motion pictures
• PICTURE PALACE ERA symbolizes exhibition during
  Hollywood's Golden Age
• SHOPPING MALL MULTIPLEX typifies film exhibition
  today

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• THE NICKELODEON ERA (1905-1915)
• 1905, movie boom began, popular activity esp. in
  urban ghettos
• Nickelodeon Theater opened in Pittsburgh
• Soon, all small movie theaters known as
  nickelodeons
• By 1910, 10,000 in major cities throughout the US
• Audience almost exclusively working class

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• DESCRIPTION
• Admission price 10c, rarely actually 5c
• Small, simple, often converted storefronts, in
  working class neighborhoods
• Accommodated about 50-100 people
• Films accompanied by piano player, interpreter in
  ethnic neighborhoods

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• PROGRAM
• About 1 hr. long, included usually 3 short films
  (10 min. each)
• Films, also included vaudeville acts
• Films mostly French slapstick comedies
• Program changed 2-3 times per week, stimulating
  demand for films growth of production companies

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• PATRONS
• Called Democracy's Theater
• Ticket prices of available entertainment
• Opera Theater 2.00 Upper class
• Good Vaudeville .50 Middle class
• Bad Vaudeville .15 Middle class
• Nickelodeon .10 Working class
• Average income of a working-class family was
  12-15 per week, with about 1.25 available for
  entertainment

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The Nickelodeon
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• CHANGE FROM WORKING CLASS TO MIDDLE CLASS
• 1912, change in audiences (process had begun as
  early as 1905)
• Theater owners sought prestige, more
  higher-class audience
• Offered special rates to women children
• In military towns, favored officers banned
  enlisted men

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• Tried to lose reputations as ethnic theaters
• Avoided films heavily slanted toward particular
  ethnic groups
• Avoided ethnic vaudeville acts
• Eliminated songs in foreign languages
• Built theaters in middle-class neighborhoods
• Vaudeville houses legitimate theaters began
  showing movies

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• MPPC's efforts to Americanize industry helped
  transition
• Most American directors white middle-class
• 1915, D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation
• 3 hours long, more like play or novel, less like
  vaudeville
• 2 ticket price
• Attracted a large white, middle-class audience
• Exhibitors began to seek more expensive, longer
  films, producers met this demand
• End of MPPC, which made 1-reelers exclusively,
  helped end the nickelodeon independents made
  feature-length films

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The Birth of a Nation
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• Nickelodeon era short, but had important impact
  on American film industry
• Created an audience demand for movies working
  class never abandoned the movies
• Stimulated growth of movies as both industry
  cultural phenomenon