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Lecture Notes on Motion Pictures - Mass Communications |, Study notes of Mass Communication

Material Type: Notes; Class: Mass Communications; Subject: Communication; University: Linfield College; Term: Forever 1989;

Typology: Study notes

2009/2010

Uploaded on 03/17/2010

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MSCM 150 Week 5
Summary
Vivian Chapter 7: Motion Pictures
Because of the scale of the movie viewing experience, movies can
exert a powerful cultural influence:
Movies have been credited (or blamed) for increases in
alcoholism, drug addiction, Communist subversion, and “juvenile
delinquency.”
Automakers, food manufacturers, and other businesses pay
millions to have their products “placed” in films.
On more than one occasion, Congress has threatened to regulate
sexual content in American films.
The movie rating system is a self-policing process adopted by the
industry to stave off government intervention.
Motions pictures are a genre medium, and most offer some sort of
narrative (story structure):
Feature films, relying on live actors and real-world locations, go
back the beginning of the film industry at the turn of the 20th
century. The technologies of sound on film (“talkies”), color, and
computer-generated imagery (CGI) have all played a prominent
role in the development of feature film. The pervasive use of CGI
in films, including Lord of the Rings, 300, and Avatar challenges
traditional definitions of live action film
Animated films originally relied on hand drawn backgrounds and
foreground frames drawn on celluloid (cels). With the
emergence of Toy Story (1995) and Pixar Animation Studios,
most animated films have relied on computer-generated
imagery.
Documentary films released in theaters and on television explore
nonfiction events and topics. Documentaries may be journalistic
in nature, or they may be highly opinionated, sharing the point of
view of the filmmaker.
The technologies of film and motion pictures originated in the 19th
century. Based on the film developed by George Eastman (Kodak),
inventors including Thomas Edison experimented with variety of
systems for photographing, editing, and projecting motion pictures. By
the middle of the 1890s, exhibitors showed short black and white silent
films on the kinetoscope, which accommodated one viewer at a time.
Edison’s vitascope allowed movies to be exhibited on a large screen.
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MSCM 150 Week 5

Summary

Vivian Chapter 7: Motion Pictures Because of the scale of the movie viewing experience, movies can exert a powerful cultural influence:  Movies have been credited (or blamed) for increases in alcoholism, drug addiction, Communist subversion, and “juvenile delinquency.”  Automakers, food manufacturers, and other businesses pay millions to have their products “placed” in films.  On more than one occasion, Congress has threatened to regulate sexual content in American films.  The movie rating system is a self-policing process adopted by the industry to stave off government intervention. Motions pictures are a genre medium , and most offer some sort of narrative (story structure):  Feature films, relying on live actors and real-world locations, go back the beginning of the film industry at the turn of the 20th century. The technologies of sound on film (“talkies”), color, and computer-generated imagery (CGI) have all played a prominent role in the development of feature film. The pervasive use of CGI in films, including Lord of the Rings, 300, and Avatar challenges traditional definitions of live action film  Animated films originally relied on hand drawn backgrounds and foreground frames drawn on celluloid (cels). With the emergence of Toy Story (1995) and Pixar Animation Studios, most animated films have relied on computer-generated imagery.  Documentary films released in theaters and on television explore nonfiction events and topics. Documentaries may be journalistic in nature, or they may be highly opinionated, sharing the point of view of the filmmaker. The technologies of film and motion pictures originated in the 19th century. Based on the film developed by George Eastman (Kodak), inventors including Thomas Edison experimented with variety of systems for photographing, editing, and projecting motion pictures. By the middle of the 1890s, exhibitors showed short black and white silent films on the kinetoscope , which accommodated one viewer at a time. Edison’s vitascope allowed movies to be exhibited on a large screen.

At first, motion pictures were used to record short events from real life, such as boxing matches, horse races, or dancing girls. The form of narrative film emerged first in France in the 1890s. One of the first American narrative films, The Great Train Robbery (1903), caused public controversies over its depictions of gun violence and criminal behavior. Most of the early American motion pictures were produced in New York and distributed to independent movie houses called Nickelodeons. A coalition of motion picture industrialists led by Edison and Eastman attempted to dominate the movie business by controlling patents on film and photographic technologies. In response, filmmakers moved out of New York, and many settled in Hollywood, far from the reach of the Edison/Eastman Trust , including Adolph Zukor (Paramount), and William Fox (Fox Film, later 20th^ Century Fox). Fox, Zukor and others pioneered the studio system , in which movie studios maintained tight control over all aspects of film production, including screenplays and personnel. In response, a coalition of leading figures in Hollywood, including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and director D.W. Griffith formed United Artists to maintain control over their creative work. But by the 1920s, powerful Hollywood studio executives emerged as the guiding forces in American film. Edison’s Trust and the Hollywood studios also exercised majority control over distribution and exhibition of movies. First run studio films premiered in elegant theaters owned or controlled by the studios. In the 1948 Paramount Decision , the Supreme Court ruled that the vertical integration of film production, distribution, and exhibition violated anti-trust laws, and ordered the studios to sell their interests in movie theaters. By the late 1920s, the American movie business was firmly controlled by the Big Five (Paramount, MGM, Warner Brothers, RKO, 20th^ Century Fox), which owned theaters ; and the Little Three (Columbia, Universal, United Artists), which did not own theaters_._ A few Hollywood companies, all associated with larger corporations have long dominated the movie industry:  Paramount (Viacom)  Walt Disney (Disney/ABC)  Columbia-TriStar, MGM, United Artists (Sony).  20 th^ Century Fox (NewsCorp)  Universal (General Electric)

 Transformers Vivian Chapter 9: Television Television changed everything. The rapid emergence of television in the 1950s reshaped other media, society and culture. Key developments in the history of television:  1927: Philo Farnsworth transmits the first images by electronic television. Inexplicably, Farnsworth waits seven years to demonstrate his system to the public.  1928: RCA engineer Vladimir Zworkin receives the first patent for a television camera tube.  1939: RCA demonstrates television at the New York World’s Fair.  1940-1945: The FCC assigns some experimental channels for TV broadcasting. However, because similar systems are used for radar during World War II, progress on the development of consumer television comes to a standstill.  1948: The FCC issues the first 100 TV licenses, almost all in major cities. Responding to concerns about coverage and interference, the FCC freezes licensing and rewrites regulations before it issues more TV licenses.  1948-1951: Many network radio programs move to TV. Audiences for radio, live theater and music plummet. Sales of TV receivers surpass sales of radio receivers.  1952: FCC approves experimental color TV system.  1954: FCC adopts RCA’s color TV system as the national standard.

Television adopted radio's model of general-interest programming.

Early television programming included situation comedies, dramas, talk shows, variety shows, soap operas, and quiz shows. Following scandals over rigged quiz shows, sponsors were prohibited from producing quiz and contest programs directly.

The Federal Communications Commission regulates all forms of

television, to a greater or lesser extent.

Television relies on three methods of delivery.  Broadcast, or over-the-air, television transmits signals through the TV portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, and is received through an antenna attached to the television. Broadcast television is free to consumers.  Cable television transmits signals over wired cable systems from

a “head end” facility, and is received by connected the television receiver to the cable system. Cable television requires consumers to pay a monthly subscription fee to the cable provider.  Satellite television transmits signals from a head end facility up to earth-orbiting satellites through the satellite portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. The satellites retransmit these signals back to earth, to antennas connected to a satellite decoder and television receiver. Satellite television requires consumers to pay a monthly subscription fee to the satellite provider.

Local stations provide broadcast television service, but most of the

programming is from network or syndicated sources.

 The five national TV networks are owned by major media

corporations: CBS (Viacom); CW (Time Warner & Viacom);

ABC (Disney); NBC (General Electric); and Fox (News Corp).

 Local stations affiliated with the networks agree to carry most

of the networks programs. In return, the networks share

advertising revenues with local affiliates.

 Broadcast TV stations and networks generate revenue through

the sale of advertising

 Program syndicators distribute first-run and legacy programs

directly to local stations.

Broadcast television technology has undergone a fundamental

transition:

 Analog television, invented in the 1920s and perfected in the

1930s by RCA, relies on a system of electronic scanning to

trace still images across the screen at fraction-of-a-second

intervals.

 Digital television, developed in the 1980s in Japan, relies on a

system of sampling a continuous electronic signal thousands

of times each second, and translating these samples into

electronic “bits.”

 In the United States, analog broadcast main channel television

service ended in June 2009. (Some secondary and repeater

stations are still available on analog channels.) Consumers

with televisions that are only equipped to receive analog

signals need a converter unit to view digital TV content on

their analog TV receivers.

The range of broadcast television has been extended by cable

owned by major media corporations: ESPN, Disney Channel, & ABC

Family (Disney); USA, Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, & Univision (General

Electric); Fox News, Fx, National Geographic (News Corp); CNN, TNT,

TBS, & Cartoon Network (Time Warner); MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, &

Spike (Viacom).

Beyond the technical differences, there are important distinctions

between broadcast, cable and satellite television, though the

differences may not be clear to the average viewer.

1. Regulation:

 broadcast TV is subject to Federal Communications

Commission regulation, and individual stations must be

licensed

 programming on satellite and cable networks is not regulated

by the FCC, on grounds that it's not available to the general

public

2. Economics:

 broadcast TV stations and networks generate revenue through

the sale of advertising

 cable and satellite networks generate revenue through

advertising (in some cases) and through the sale of

programming to cable systems (distributors)

Public television is a tax-assisted, noncommercial system intended

to provide educational, cultural and public affairs programming

neglected by the commercial broadcasters.

Evolving consumer preferences are pushing television to on-demand

platforms, such as the Internet, TiVo and other video time shifting

and space shifting technologies.

In response to pressures from consumer groups, the television

industry worked with the FCC to develop the V-chip, which allows

parents to “lock out” selected channels on TV receivers. Like the

movies, television has adopted a ratings code as a means of self-

policing content.