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