Down the Memory Lane

Modern film industry

The film industry as it stands today spans the globe. The major business centers of film making are concentrated in the United States, EU, India and China.

Distinct from the business centers are the locations where movies are filmed. Because of labor and infrastructure costs, many films are produced in countries other than the one in which the company which pays for the film is located. For example, many U.S. movies are filmed in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand or in Eastern European countries.

United States

Hollywood, California is the primary nexus of the U.S. film industry. However, five of the major film studios are owned by East Coast companies. Only The Walt Disney Company (owner of Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax Films, and the Pixar Animation Studios) is actually headquartered in Southern California.
Networking and establishing strong relationships are a vital part of Hollywood. The town is scattered with talented artists who do not possess the means to pitch their ideas or acquire representation. Reading the trades, Hollywood jargon for reading Daily Variety or The Hollywood Reporter, and joining a networking group or tracking board are ways to stay on top of the job market as well as the project market.

India

The Indian film industry is multi-lingual and the largest in the world (1200 movies released in the year 2002). The industry is supported mainly by a vast film-going Indian public (the largest in the world in terms of annual ticket sales), and Indian films have been gaining increasing popularity in the rest of the world — notably in countries with large numbers of expatriate Indians. One third of the India's film industry is mostly concentrated in Bombay, and is commonly referred to as "Bollywood" as an amalgamation of Bombay and Hollywood. The remaining majority portion is spread across south India (in Telugu and Tamil speaking areas).However, there are several smaller centers of Indian film industries in regional languages (Apart from Hindi,Telugu and Tamil) centered in the states those languages are spoken.

China

Hong Kong, China is a filmmaking hub for the Chinese-speaking world (including the worldwide diaspora) and East Asia in general. For decades it was the third largest motion picture industry in the world (after Indian and Hollywood) and the second largest exporter.[citation needed] Despite an industry crisis starting in the mid-'90s and Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997, Hong Kong film has retained much of its distinctive identity and continues to play a prominent part on the world cinema stage.

Unlike many film industries, Hong Kong has enjoyed little to no direct government support, through either subsidies or import quotas. It has always been a thoroughly commercial cinema, concentrating on crowd-pleasing genres, like comedy and action, and heavily reliant on formulas, sequels and remakes. Typically of commercial cinemas, its heart is a highly developed star system, which in this case also features substantial overlap with the pop music industry.

The first feature film ever made was that of 'The Story of the Kelly Gang.' An Australian film based on the infamous Kelly Gang. In 1906 Dan Barry and Charles Tait of Melbourne produced and directed 'The Story of the Kelly Gang', a silent film that ran continuously for a breathtaking 80 minutes. It wasn’t until 1911 that countries other than Australia began to make feature films. By this time Australia had made 16 full length feature films.[citation needed]

In the early 1900s, in the earliest years of the industry, motion picture production companies from New York and New Jersey started moving to California because of the good weather and longer days. Although electric lights existed at that time, none were powerful enough to adequately expose film; the best source of illumination for movie production was natural sunlight. Besides the moderate, dry climate, they were also drawn to the state because of its open spaces and wide variety of natural scenery.

Another reason was the distance of Southern California from New Jersey, which made it more difficult for Thomas Edison to enforce his motion picture patents. At the time, Edison owned almost all the patents relevant to motion picture production and, in the East, movie producers acting independently of Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company were often sued or enjoined by Edison and his agents. Thus, movie makers working on the West Coast could work independent of Edison's control. If he sent agents to California, word would usually reach Los Angeles before the agents did and the movie makers could escape to nearby Mexico.

Hollywood

The first movie studio in the Hollywood area, Nestor Studios, was founded in 1911 by Al Christie for David Horsley in an old building on the southeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street. In the same year, another fifteen Independents settled in Hollywood. Hollywood came to be so strongly associated with the film industry that the word "Hollywood" came to be used colloquially to refer to the entire industry.

In 1913, Cecil B. DeMille, in association with Jesse Lasky, leased a barn with studio facilities on the southeast corner of Selma and Vine Streets from the Burns and Revier Studio and Laboratory, which had been established there. DeMille then began production of The Squaw Man (1914). It became known as the Lasky-DeMille Barn and is currently the location of the Hollywood Heritage Museum.

The Charlie Chaplin Studios, on the northeast corner of La Brea and De Longpre Avenues just south of Sunset Boulevard, was built in 1917. It has had many owners after 1953, including Kling Studios, who produced the Superman TV series with George Reeves; Red Skelton, who used the sound stages for his CBS TV variety show; and CBS, who filmed the TV series Perry Mason with Raymond Burr there. It has also been owned by Herb Alpert's A&M Records and Tijuana Brass Enterprises. It is currently The Jim Henson Company, home of the Muppets. In 1969, The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board named the studio a historical cultural monument.


Source: Wikipedia