A Community of Engineers

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgment My great thanks to Akira Iriye, Ernest May, Joseph Nye for their years of extraordinary mentoring, reflected, albeit imperfectly, in this piece and everything I write; to my friend Paul G. Nagle of the William Morris Agency, who has provided me with an incomparable education in the real-world workings of the entertainment industry, and with whom I am coauthoring a biography of producer Samuel Bronston; to Jonathan Rosenberg of Hunter College, Dr. John Trumpbour, and the members of the writers' group organized by Jonathan Soffer of Polytechnic University, all of whom generously offered invaluable editorial suggestions that enhanced this article in numerous ways; to the many interview subjects cited within this piece, who took time to respond to my queries; to Professor Nicholas Cull of USC's Annenberg School for Communications; to Thomas Schatz of the University of Texas and Frank Ninkovich of St. John's University for their general encouragement of my work; and to the staffs of the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, the US National Archives in College Park, Maryland, the Spanish General Archive of the Civil Administration of the State in Alcala de Henares, and the archive of the Spanish Ministry of Culture in Madrid for their aid and attention throughout my research. Notes Notes 1. See for example Fernando Termis Soto, Renunciando a todo: El Régimen franquista y los Estados Unidos desde 1945 hasta 1963 (Madrid, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Biblioteca Nueva, 2005); Boris N. Liedtke, Embracing a Dictatorship: U.S. relations with Spain, 1945–1953 (New York, St. Martin's, 1998); Arturo Jarque Íñiguez, Queremos esas Bases: El Acercamiento de Estados Unidos a la España de Franco (Alcalá de Henares, Centro de Estudios Norteamericanos, Universidad de Alcalá, 1998); Antonio Marquina Barrio, España en la Politica de Suguridad Occidental: 1939–1986 (Madrid, Servicio de Publicaciones del E.M.E., 1986); R. Richard Rubottom and J. Carter Murphy, Spain and the United States: since World War II (New York, Praeger, 1984); Arthur P. Whitaker, Spain and the Defense of the West: ally and liability (New York, Council on Foreign Relations, 1961). 2. This will be briefly described below. For an in-depth examination, see Neal Moses Rosendorf, 'Be El Caudillo's guest: the Franco regime's quest for rehabilitation and dollars after World War II via the promotion of U.S. tourism to Spain,' Diplomatic History, 30(3), June 2006. 3. See below in text. 4. For example, the future Spanish cult film auteurs Jess Franco and Paul Naschy. Jess Franco was an uncredited extra in Mike Todd's mammoth production Around the World in 80 Days (1956), served as an uncredited production assistant on King Vidor's Solomon and Sheba (1959), and was a second-unit director on Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight (1966). Paul Naschy had a bit role in Nicholas Ray's films King of Kings (1961) and 55 Days at Peking (1963). (See entries for Jesus Franco and Paul Naschy at the Encylopedia of Fantastic Film and Television Website at http://www.eofftv.com/names/f/fra/franco_jesus_main.htm, as well as the Internet Movie Database entries on Franco and Naschy at http://www.imdb.com). 5. Most notably in Anthony Mann's El Cid, 1961, produced by Samuel Bronston (see below in text). 6. For example in Jean Negulesco's The Pleasure Seekers, 1964. 7. This gigantism ran counter to the period's most forward-looking European cinema trends, the minimalist, low-budget Neo-Realist movement and its more-polished aesthetic successors in Italy and France's Nouvelle Vague. N.B. the late S. Frederick Gronich, the former vice-president of the Motion Picture Export Association of America [MPEA], was insistent that both the Neo-Realist and New Wave movements were underwritten by Hollywood funding, as part of the MPEA's program to meet Italian and French domestic film production quotas. Author interview with S. Frederick Gronich, Los Angeles, CA, 1996. 8. This point is the product of an ongoing colloquy between cultural historian John Trumpbour and the author. To be sure, plenty of grand-scale film-making took place during the early postwar period elsewhere in Europe, especially Britain and Italy. In the latter country, not only were there US epic productions like Quo Vadis, Ben Hur, and Cleopatra; there were also the more modestly budgeted but still visually sumptuous 'peplum' films, such as the two Steve Reeves Hercules film and The 300 Spartans. But the crucial difference was that, as far as we currently know, there was no official government political propaganda agenda at work in Britain or Italy concerning encouraging the production of certain cinematic subject matter. (N.B. I have had a hypothesis lingering in the background of my research for years concerning the British government in particular over some cinematic subject matter: World War II-themed and espionage films (such as those featuring super-spy James Bond) could have been seen by officials as good propaganda to place regularly before American audiences to remind them who their staunchest and most indispensable ally was, especially after the debacle of the Anglo-French-Israeli Suez Canal invasion in 1956, which placed the US and Britain at loggerheads. But I have not had the time to go on the research expedition to London to explore this possibility.) 9. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power: the means to success in world politics (New York, Public Affairs, 2004), 5. 10. For a discussion of these anxieties, especially as they pertain to Europe, see for example Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America's advance through 20th-century Europe (Cambridge, MA, Belknap Harvard, 2005), Richard H. Pells, Not Like Us: how Europeans have loved, hated, and transformed American culture since World War II (New York, Basic Books, 1997), Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Stephen Ricci (eds) Hollywood and Europe: economics, culture, national identity 1945–95 (London, British Film Institute Press, 1998); John Trumpbour, Selling Hollywood to the World: U.S. and European struggles for mastery of the global film industry, 1920–1950 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002); Ian Jarvie, Hollywood's Overseas Campaign: the North Atlantic movie trade, 1920–1950 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992). For a general discussion of 'cultural imperialism,' the standard point of entry is John Tomlinson, Cultural Imperialism: a critical introduction (Baltimore, MA, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). 11. For example, Fritz Lang, David Lean, Milos Forman, and John Woo, who brought with them to Hollywood such cinematic traditions as German Expressionism, English Romanticism, post-war Eastern European anti-authoritarianism, and Hong Kong's hyperkinetic ballets of stylized action. See Neal M. Rosendorf, 'Social and cultural globalization: concepts, history, and America's Role, in Joseph S. Nye and John D. Donahue (eds) Governance in a Globalizing World (Washington, DC, Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 118–119. 12. Most notably that of Columbia Pictures in its defense of Fred Zinnemann's controversial film Behold a Pale Horse (1964). See below in text for a discussion of this episode. 13. One can perceive recent analogous behavior by American media toward the People's Republic of China, including Rupert Murdoch's blocking of the BBC in the mid-1990s from his Star satellite television network, which was being beamed into China, and the aid software companies Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have provided to the PRC in its efforts to control domestic access to reading and posting online content. See for example Zhao, ibid.; William Shawcross, 'Rupert Murdoch,' Time, October 25, 1999, online at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/intl/article/0,9171,1107991025-33716-1,00.html; OpenNet Initiative, Internet Filtering in China in 2004–2005: a country study, online at http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/china/; Clive Thompson, 'Google's China Problem (and China's Google Problem),' New York Times Magazine, April 23, 2006. 14. The divorcement decrees were designed to strip the major studios outright of approximately half of the more than 3100 theaters they controlled as of 1945. Michael Conant, 'The impact of the Paramount decrees,' in Tino Balio (ed.) The American Film Industry (Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), 347–348, 362–363. 15. As Business Week noted sardonically about potential movie-goers' viewing options, 'Set owners, millions of them, were not going to pay to see mediocre films; they could watch similar entertainment at home for nothing.' ('A Turn for the Bigger,' Business Week, November 14, 1953, p. 149.) This is not to say that inexpensively produced films, or films about modest subjects, were abandoned by Hollywood. For example, Marty, the story of a lonely Bronx butcher, filmed on a shoestring budget in black and white and scripted by television writer Paddy Chayefsky, won the 1955 Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. Tino Balio, United Artists: the company that changed the film industry (Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 79–82. 16. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer attempted to carry on its in-house production into the mid-1950s but ultimately had to bow to Hollywood's changed economic climate. Thomas Schatz, The Genius of the System: Hollywood filmmaking in the studio era (New York, Pantheon, 1988), 462. 17. Domestic critics decried the practice as 'runaway production.' 18. Britain's Eady Plan was perhaps the best-known and most lucrative of these schemes. 19. For a full discussion of the respective merits and programs of these overseas destinations for Hollywood production, see Neal Moses Rosendorf, The life and times of Samuel Bronston, builder of 'Hollywood in Madrid'; a study in the international scope and influence of American popular culture, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 2000, chapter 5: 'Runaways, independents and blockbusters: Hollywood's shift toward foreign movie production in the 1950's and 1960's.' 20. See Rosendorf, 'Be El Caudillo's Guest,' passim. 21. 'Anteproyecto de Plan Nacional de Turismo,' July 1952, p. 2, section 49.02, box 14415, general heading 'Cultura,' General Archive of the Civil Administration of the State, Alcala de Henares, Spain [General Archive Alcala]. 22. Carlos F. Heredero, Las Huellas del Tiempo: Cine espanol, 1951–1961 (Valencia, Archivo de la Filmoteca de la Generalitat Valenciana, 1993), 29. 23. Trumpbour, passim. 24. US Embassy, Madrid to State Department, January 8, 1963, 'Efforts of Motion Picture Export Association of America to Persuade Spanish Government to Liberalize Restrictions on Distribution of United States Motion Pictures,' 852.452/1-863, Record Group 59, US Department of State Central Files [RG 59], US National Archives, College Park, Maryland [NA]. 25. 'Borrador Previo para un Estudio Sobre Fines y Medios de la Propaganda de Espana en el Exterior,' 'Borrador Previo para un Estudio Sobre Fines y Medios de la Propaganda de Espana en el Exterior,' dated August 1960, p. 12, in box 28353, section 49.06, heading 'Cultura,' General Archive Alcala. 26. Paramount vigorously denied both the rumors and that it had subsequently pulled its punches in the final version—all the studio would admit to was that it had given a script draft to the Spanish Consul in San Francisco, whose suggestions for revisions, Paramount claimed, had been ignored utterly. ('Off the Hollywood Wire,' New York Times, February 14, 1943, in 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' clipping file, MHL. However, while there is no archival substantiation to date of State Department pressure on the producers, one reviewer offered this assessment at the time of the film's release: 'How about the fascists—there was all that talk about Franco interference with the script—do the fascists ever get mentioned? Ans[wer:] Never; every place the word 'fascist' appeared in [screenwriter] Dudley Nichols' script, Paramount substituted the word 'Nationalist.' Furthermore, they call the Loyalists 'Republicans' all the way through it, too so it's all pretty confusing.' Still, even with evident tampering, 'The net effect of 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' can scarcely be called pro-Franco,' the reviewer conceded. (John T. McManus, 'The Tongue-Tied 'Bell' Tolls Dully,' PM Reviews, July 15, 1943, in 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' clipping file, MHL.) In an ironic coda, when Hilton Hotels opened the Castellana Hilton in Madrid in 1953, one of the American celebrities on hand for the dedication festivities was Gary Cooper, who had portrayed the anti-fascist Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls a decade earlier. See 'Old Cowhand,' Time, July 27, 1953, p. 17. 27. 'Spanish Censure Hollywood Films: Academy of Medicine Also Finds Variety of Faults in American Psychiatry Methods,' Los Angeles Times, January 23, 1950, p. 28, in 'Spain—Motion Picture Industry 1950s' file, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences [MHL], Beverly Hills, CA. 28. Paul Preston, Franco: a biography (New York, Basic Books, 1994), 417–418; Aurora Bosch and M. Fernanda del Rincón, Dreams in a dictatorship: Hollywood and Franco's Spain, 1939–1956, in Reinhold Wagnleitner and Elaine Tyler May (eds) 'Here, There and Everywhere': the foreign politics of American popular culture (Hanover, NH, and London, University Press of New England, 2000), 100. N.B. While the chapter cited in the latter volume contains some useful information on the Franco regime's policy concerning Hollywood films that sought Spanish distribution, it says nothing about Hollywood productions in Spain or the regime's policies toward them. 29. Heredero, 20. 30. See for example memorandum from the US Embassy, Madrid to the State Department, 'Motion Picture Association of America: Distribution of American Films in Spain,' dated November 14, 1957; memorandum from US Embassy, Madrid to State Department, 'MOTION PICTURES [sic]; Government Measures to Support Spanish Motion Picture Industry', dated March 11, 1958; memorandum from US Embassy, Madrid to State Department, 'New Agreement Between the Spanish Government and the Motion Picture Export Association of America, Inc. (MPEAA),' dated March 26, 1959, all in folder, 852.452/1-3056, box 4621, RG 59, NA; Antonio Valles Copeiro del Villar, Historia de la Politica de Fomento del Cine espanol (Valencia, Filmoteca, Generalitat Valenciana, Institut Valencia d'Arts Esceniques, Cinematografia i Musica, Conselleria de Cultura, Educacio i Ciencia, 1992), 72. 31. Report from American Embassy, Madrid, to US Department of State, 'The Motion Picture Industry in Spain,' dated February 8, 1960, p. 4, in folder 852.44/2-2660, Box 2583, RG 59, NA. 32. Report from American Embassy, Madrid, to US Department of State, 'The Motion Picture Industry in Spain,' dated February 8, 1960, p. 22. 33. Report from American Embassy, Madrid, to US Department of State, 'The Motion Picture Industry in Spain,' dated February 8, 1960, p. 34. 34. The one unalloyed masterpiece of Spanish cinema during this period was Luis Bunuel's Viridiana (1960), in which the Franco regime got far more than it had bargained for when it momentarily welcomed back the renowned director from his Mexican exile and received a brilliant exercise in anti-Catholic blasphemy in return. The film, which among other things depicts the repeated rape of a saintly nun, would win the Palm d'Or at Cannes, which theoretically might burnish Spain's reputation as the source of quality motion pictures. The regime, which fashioned itself as the defender of the Catholic Church, did not see it that way and banned the film and banished the film-maker. 35. Letter from Gwynne Ornstein (wife of George Ornstein and daughter of Mary Pickford) to Mary Pickford, January 11, 1961, in folder, 'Family: Gwynne and Bud Ornstein, #1', Mary Pickford Collection, Herrick Special Collections, MHL; 'Bud Ornstein Gets Honor From Spain,' Hollywood Reporter, May 9, 1968, 'George Ornstein' clipping file, MHL. Ornstein would later transfer to London, where, as UA's head of European operations, he would help shepherd both the early James Bond films and the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night into production. 36. For the history of United Artists, see Balio, United Artists. 37. John Cabrera, an Anglo-Spanish cinematographer who was then employed by Technicolor in the UK and assigned to Decameron Nights, recalls that the film crew was overwhelmingly British, with a few Spaniards working in minor technical positions; Spanish production facilities in the early 1950s were of a low quality, and Spanish technicians 'were behind the times.' Author interview via telephone with John Cabrera, Jan. 2006. 38. Ibid. 39. 'Spanish Film Market Expanding—Fregonese,' Hollywood Reporter, April 1, 1954, in 'Spain—Motion Picture Industry' file, MHL. 40. Untitled New York Times, August 1, 1954, in the clipping file, MHL. on in an was and had even offered the of his for But still on a New This Week Magazine, 4, both in the clipping file, MHL. from of of Industry and to the of and Ministry of and January in the file, Ministry of all Spanish government in by of being in Spain by Ornstein in the folder, Robert Collection, Arts Special Collections, Los Angeles, CA. February 1955 there was placed before the at the Madrid, the production of Robert the will later in El and in Spain February 25, in the clipping file, in Spain,' Film in Picture Industry' clipping file, MHL. for November 14, in the clipping file, MHL. New York Times, April for November 14, for November 14, in Spain for American Hollywood Reporter, November in 'Spain—Motion Picture Industry MHL. of article by 'For of in folder, box 14, Collection, Library Special Collections, University of Los Angeles, CA. Letter from to General of and Ministry of and in and file, Ministry of from March 9, 1956, in and file, Ministry of from of Ministry of Industry and to the General of and Ministry of and January 1956, in and file, Ministry of Letter from the of and to the of the March 15, 1956, in and file, Ministry of in by in Spain,' October 1956, in and the clipping file, MHL. from the General of and to the of and April 27, 1956, in and file, Ministry of y el y de April in and file, Ministry of y April in and file, Ministry of y from the General of and to the Films May 25, 1956, in and file, Ministry of would be to script on one of his most films, the (1959), in to meet with the Franco regime's This motion which was filmed on in depicts the of to from a by a In to a Spanish for the film, in Spanish to which the regime on the that it Catholic 'The Motion Picture Industry in Spain,' from US Embassy, Madrid, to the US Department of State, February 8, 1960, in folder box 2583, RG 59, NA. from Spanish de June in and file, Ministry of telephone with of the 1996. the of his film to the Hollywood by writer his in a Letter from George Ornstein to Mary Pickford, May 1959, in folder, 'Family: Gwynne and Bud Ornstein, #1', Mary Pickford Collection, Special Collections, MHL. N.B. Anthony was the director of producer with 'For the of they had not for Spain and the 1960, p. 4, in file, Film Time, April 1959, p. from George Ornstein to the Ministry of and in and file, Ministry of and For in May 27, 1959, to from George Ornstein, United to General of and June 1959, in and file, Ministry of Letter from George Ornstein, United to General of and June 1959, in and file, Ministry of George The Film June 9, 1960, in 'George Ornstein' file, MHL. 'The of the New York Times, April in clipping file, MHL. James the US State Department on in when the producer sought in the United from James to American June 28, in folder, James D. Park, 72. Bronston to Paul for 23, in Paul clipping file, Hollywood Reporter, November 1958; to Los Angeles Times, October 27, all in Paul clipping file, MHL; of and John Paul October in John Paul Inc. and Thomas J. US of New York November National Archives and Administration of as by 23, 1953, in of clipping file, MHL. from the as noted 'runaway took place within which with a film of which foreign could John Author interview with Paul Jr., former vice-president of Samuel Bronston CA, Paul Jr., 'The Madrid Movie of of M. 1, of Frederick M. October both in John Paul Inc. and Thomas J. November John Franco this at in part as a the to the Spanish whom he John Preston, in Paul Movie by New York Times, August 1958; Paul Los Angeles Times both in Paul film clipping MHL. by Paul in Paul film clipping MHL. Bronston August 9, clipping file, Variety Los Angeles, thanks to Paul G. Nagle of the William Morris Agency, with whom I am a biography of Samuel Bronston of Texas Press, in for his aid in clipping of John J. the of in the United States from to at S. January 1960, in clipping file, Variety of see and New August p. see as well to U.S. for for Italian Motion Picture August p. which the Italian to to in Industry clipping folder, MHL.) see 'Hollywood for a be Motion Picture October 2, p. by October both in Industry clipping folder, MHL. See 1. in D. would to Spain and be a with See in de folder, Archives of the Ministry of Author Bronston CA, Dr. William Bronston CA, and Bronston London, 1996. John would in through the the most in Catholic in among them the of the for the of would be in by John's Paul in on the of the to online at The King of Kings script portrayed and as to from while was in historian the of the who were a in at the time of Ministry (see A of the (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, of Distribution to be by Hollywood Reporter, April 1, 1960, in clipping file, MHL; John shepherd of the world John would Franco's at the of the in the would ultimately

Film Tax Credits and the Economic Impact of the Film Industry on Georgia’s Economy

Singapore's commitment to knowledge-based economy (KBE) development in the past decade has enabled it to make a rapid and successful transition to a newly industrialized economy. Having invested heavily in ICT, the Singapore government is now keen to use content and creativity to enter the next wave of development. The film industry is chosen as a microcosm level of analysis to examine the creative economy as the latest phase in Singapore's current economic development, especially when technology and information are used to navigate and mediate its people, resources and capital. The objective of this research is to examine the types of competencies that enable firms to stay competitive in the contemporary knowledge-based economy in the light of technological advancement made in the industry. Examining the types of resources, especially the intangible ones that enable the film industry to thrive, develops our understanding of the complexity of this industry at a time when digital technology is leading to a period of great change in it. It also seeks to examine the extent to which digitalization contributes to the growth and expansion of the Singapore film and animation industry and whether the film and animation industry can leverage on digitalization to bring about competitive advantage. The analysis is based on surveys and interviews conducted on the local film and animation producers in the industry. Singapore was chosen as the subject of the analysis for two reasons. First, a great deal of government attention is currently being directed to the film industry there. Film now represents an emerging industry in Singapore. From 1995 to 1999, an average of less than four local films was produced per year. Singapore aims to build a sustainable industry producing 10 to 15 films per annum in three to five years. This evokes comparisons with the 'golden age of cinema' in the 1950s and 1960s, when the combined average annual output for Malay films was about 18 features. Second, the Singaporean government, responding to global developments, has recognised that creative industries, including the motion picture, television and digital media production industries are becoming powerful engines of economic growth. In recent years, efforts have been made to exploit the economic benefits of culture. Film is one of the contenders in the new era as Singapore seeks to rebrand its image from a conservative society to a 'new Asian creative hub' (ERC Report, September 2002, p.8). This study shows how the film industry in Singapore is transforming. Singaporean film remains marginal in the global circuit of film production and distribution. Can it rise to become more recognised while delivering economic returns on creative investment?

Riding, Shooting, ViewingRailroads, Amusement Parks, and the Experience of Place in Early Hollywood Dimitrios Latsis (bio) [End Page 48] "Sooner or later everyone goes to California." Thus begins the pitch of the Selig Polyscope company, urging its exhibitors, journalists, "and their friends" to buy tickets to the "Selig Exposition Special" of July 1915 and experience the "wonders of an unfolding fairyland," while spending "Seventeen Days in the Glorious West."1 There is something fitting and at the same time problematic about the inevitability in the rhetoric of this promotion. "Sooner or later," historians have often told us, the fi lm industry was going to have to move out West to avoid the tangle of the Edison patent wars; "sooner or later" filmmakers were going to seek out new, interesting, authentic locations and appealing scenery in which to stage their narratives. If, within the context of early twentieth-century boosterist language, such a [End Page 49] teleology is easy to understand (if not quite excuse), it is much harder to overlook the equally pronounced teleology in the historiography of the early American film industry, particularly regarding the role that the West, as a geographic area, as a mythos, and as a concept, played in its formation. The fact that the movies "moved west" during the early 1910s—tremendously aided by the railroad networks—was more than just the outcome of a patent dispute or merely on account of favorable climate conditions. Careful archival research can help illuminate the many facets of early studio culture that set the precedent for the models of leisure that we are now experiencing, in which the (moving) image undoubtedly dominates.2 In short, a lot more than film aesthetics and production economies are at stake when examining how geography figures into the history of silent Hollywood. The attention of historians of early Hollywood has thus far been focused on the city of Los Angeles itself and its surrounding area, the corporate history of individual studios, and the mass culture surrounding and enabling "the movies" as an institution. While this triptych is certainly a historiographical improvement over the generalizations in Terry Ramsaye's 1926 account of "The Discovery of California," it still lacks the crucial context of a "thick" historical description.3 When historians like Robert Sklar later attributed the gradual centering of production in Southern California to the latter's "obvious attractions" (weather, open-shop cities), one might well ask, what about the roads not taken—such ephemeral film centers as Colorado, Florida, or Texas, which preceded California, offering a variety of alternative production landscapes?4 Why and how, in other words, was Los Angeles as a physical place and as a construct of the silver screen (a cine-opolis) distinct from these other itinerant production centers and thus more "fecund" for the nascent film industry to settle in?5 One cannot begin to answer this question without accounting for the complex interactions between industries like tourism, transportation, banking, law and entertainment as interrelated in the West's rapid growth during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.6 This growth, delivered by the railroads, fertilized by the soil, and packaged by the advertising industry, fast outpaced the region's natural resources while simultaneously fashioning the Golden State as a kind of American Eden. With respect to the early development of cinema as a socially and geographically situated phenomenon, one ought to, above all, inquire as to how Los Angeles the space came to be experienced by moviegoers, tourists, and residents as Hollywood the place.7 The significance of the experience of place for the early development of cinema as an institution is as important as it is underappreciated. To begin rectifying this, what follows investigates an inaugural moment for the film industry's establishment in [End Page 50] Southern California, encapsulated in two westward train rides that took place in 1915.8 Starting in that year, California (and Los Angeles in particular) would come to be associated in the minds of spectators with the "movies" as no other region had before. This geographical movement also coincides with the emergence of the "movies" as an institution and of the rise of the movie studio, the...

This paper will discuss the most rapidly proliferating technology in current motion picture production: traveling matte composite photography. — The motion picture industry, and Visual Effects in particular, is undergoing a technological change unequaled since the advent of sound. The impact of computer digitization and manipulation of both sound and images has, during the last decade, profoundly altered the motion picture production process. — Probably the most dramatic impact has been felt in the field of traveling mattes, which have gone from an expensive rarity to becoming ubiquitous and relatively economical across the breadth of motion picture production. We now stand poised on the threshold of the full realization of the virtual set. Wherever a motion picture camera has been required to go in the past, a traveling matte technician must now also be prepared to go. — In the air, on land and even underwater are becoming routine venues for the demanding and complex technology of traveling matte photography. This paper will demonstrate a variety of approaches to the challenges of these new environments and describe advances in the systems for providing backings optimized for digital electronic compositing techniques.

The motion picture industry has been subject of extensive academic research over the last decades. However, most scholars focused on the U.S. theatrical motion picture market. The number of research activities regarding even more profitable release windows, such as home video or television, has been substantially lower. Although international distribution is essential for a motion picture project to break even, there has been little significant re‐search on most other markets. This paper aims at summarizing the current state of research on the motion picture industry, particularly from marketing and management perspective, revealing research gaps, and proposing recommendations for future research endeavors. Therefore, a three‐pillar scheme is developed to systemize previous findings: Research on intraorganizational decision making, contractual relationships between national stakeholders, and international market competition are differentiated. Since these insights are mainly derived from U.S. theatrical exhibition, they can hardly be applied to other markets and exhibition windows. Thus, potential research areas are identified to expand knowledge of posttheatrical and international markets.

Patterns and methods of imposing trade restrictions to control im1 ports, build and protect industries, conserve foreign exchange, direct consumption expep diture, and develop competition can be uncovered by tracing the techniques employed by foreign countries to control their imports of American-made films. Trade restrictions on films are of particular importance when it is recognized that world marketing of films performs an important function for American trade development, as business follows the film as well as the flag. film trade-an international salesman-acts as a stimulus to all kinds of American business. Although the contribution of films to general trade cannot be directly measured, it can be visualized. About two-thirds of the world's annual production of motion pictures, measured by footage or screen time, occurs in the United States. This represents, roughly, eightto nine-tenths of the value of world film output. domestic market helps support American exports by contributing approximately two-thirds of the world's receipts to the American film industry.' Even though foreign revenues vary from year to year and are greatly influenced by exchange controls and fluctuations, American companies have continued to derive the residual portion of their receipts from abroad. one-third of gross receipts from abroad is a result of exporting about nine-tenths of all domestically manufactured features, because this country supplies the majority of films shown in nearly every country of the world. amortization schedules for films are closely tied to this flow of receipts, and profits are made from these revenues. An American film exhibited throughout the world is seen by an estimated I35 million foreigners a week, slightly under 6o per cent of the world attendance at American-made films, estimated at 235 million a week.2 average sum remitted from an admission to a theater in the world to see such a film has been between 20 and 25 cents.3 export policy of American film producers is founded upon the relation between their costs of production and domestic receipts. Producers have a lucrative domestic market, blessed with a high standard of living and backed by adequate purchasing power. Large overI Data on the film industry have to be accepted with great reservation. published statistics are the roughest approximations and contain irreconcilable errors. E.g., the Film Daily Yearbook's. estimates of the world gross receipts from I946 to I949 were $2,700, $2,465, $2,445, and $2,250 million, respectively. In each year the estimated foreign receipts were $goo million (cf. William I. Greenwald, The Motion Picture Industry: Its Economic History and Practices (unpublished Ph.D. diss., New York University, Ig9o), Appendix A, The Availability and Reliability of Statistical Data on the Motion Picture Industry. 2 Film Daily Yearbook, I940-50 issues. These estimates have remained approximately the same for ten years. For I939 estimates see Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Motion Pictures Abroad, March Is, I940, p. 3.

Taiwan’s cinema has long been dominated by drama films. The audience is well accustomed to the common narratives, e.g. stories with obvious causal relationships centring on lead actors or movie stars – often the essential cues for viewers. Also it is easy to find a critical approach and mechanism replicating that of Hollywood, from viewing habits to judging criteria and directions of film festivals. Even at major multi-genre film festivals the audience is generally partial to drama, whilst experimental films are almost entirely absent. This thesis will, first of all, clarify the development of experimental cinema originated in Western cultures, through literature review and analysis, and further discuss the status and significance of contemporary experimental cinema. Secondly, through identifying the logistics and contemporary circumstances of Taiwan’s film industry, the thesis will reflect on the nonconformity and originality of the Huang Ya-Li Experimental Shorts Screenings. Finally, focusing on the experience of the screenings, it will examine the power relations amongst the participants. The audience’s feedback during the post-screening discussions will then come under scrutiny; distinct interpretations resulted from various knowledge backgrounds and life experiences portray the viewers' individual pursuits of imagination, beckoning further thoughts on the diversity of communication radiating from the event.

The motion picture industry is characterized by a dynamic market environment, limited shelf space and product category management, and consequently, complex channel contracts specifying the split o...

Lens of London: 'Granting Limited Copyright Protection for Performers'

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 425 Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements. By David Nasaw. New York: BasicBooks (HarperCollins), 1993. Pp. viii + 312; illus­ trations, notes, index. $25.00. From the dime museums and “concert saloons” of the early 19th century to the “pyrotechnic insanitarium” of Coney Island at the turn of the century to the “shrines of democracy,” the elaborate movie theaters of the 1920s, American urban public amusements were prime nourishers of civic sociability, of city centers and neighbor­ hoods as vital public spaces where a very heterogeneous American public came together. David Nasaw, a professor of history and Ameri­ can studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the College of Staten Island, traces the glitzy, extravagant rise of urban amusements as shapers and definers of a unified Ameri­ can public culture, and the recent transformation of entertainment to private, segmented sites, such as small, barren multiplex theaters in shopping malls and the private electronic “entertainment centers” of our living rooms. He documents and vividly conveys the sense of loss “as the public amusement realm is year by year impoverished, [and] the domestic one is enriched.” In charting this cultural pattern, Nasaw explores early theaters, vaudeville, the world’s fair Midway, traditional amusement parks like Coney Island and Chicago’s Riverview, baseball, dance halls, the pho­ nograph and kinetoscope, and finally motion pictures. Instead of de­ tailed histories of these forms of amusement, he focuses on how each of them brought many segments of the public together and how they paradoxically excluded one part of the citizenry, African Americans. Racial segregation and parody were systematically and purposely used as a means to attract a white audience composed of a multitude of immigrant nationalities, both men and women, and children. Nickel and dollar theaters alike had segregated undesirable balcony sections for blacks, as did vaudeville. The world’s fairs, most promi­ nently the World’s Columbian Exposition, excluded African Ameri­ cans except as “freak” attractions on the Midway. Amusement parks actively barred or discouraged entrance to blacks but used them for attractions such as “Coontown Plunge” or displayed them as savages. Phonograph recordings and kinetoscope peep shows always featured “darkie” music and derisive depictions of blacks dancing stereotyped jigs or eating watermelon. Baseball excluded blacks until the 1940s. Early motion pictures used white people in blackface to deride African American culture. Nasaw demonstratesthat these forms ofamusement deliberately focused on blacks as “unworthy” so that the status ofevery­ one else was elevated. Segregation and parody worked together to pro­ vide a “unifying point of reference” for the heterogeneous white audi­ ence and a visible reminder of its privileged status. In addition to ridicule, blacks were increasingly depicted as dangerous. A significant portion of this book is devoted to motion pictures, the content of films, and the development of ornate, massive, luxurious 426 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE movie theaters serving as “palaces for the people.” As early as 1912, Nasaw notes, researcher George Bevans reported in his study How Workingmen Spend Their Time that city laborers spent more time at the picture show than anywhere else, including the saloon. Movie mag­ nate William Fox stated that “if we never had prohibition, the motion picture would have wiped out the saloon.” In early movies, African Americans were reduced to “malicious caricatures” on the screen, most prominently in many white slavery films and D. W. Griffith’s The Birth ofa Nation, based on Thomas Dixon’s racist novel, The Clansman. During World War I, the movies found a new enemy to dramatize, the German kaiser and his troops. The motion picture industry will­ ingly became a propaganda arm for the U.S. government, producing scores of films graphically depicting the viciousness and inhumanity of enemy soldiers. Nasaw notes that the industry was so aligned with the government that when Robert Goldstein, a German Jew, pro­ duced a film in 1916 about the Revolutionary War with scenes of brutality by British troops in 1776, he was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to twelve years in prison. After the war and the subse­ quent rise of Stalin in the Soviet Union, no more movies...

In spite of the high financial stakes involved in marketing new motion pictures, marketing science models have not been applied to the prerelease market evaluation of motion pictures. The motion picture industry poses some unique challenges. For example, the consumer adoption process for movies is very sensitive to word-of-mouth interactions, which are difficult to measure and predict before the movie has been released. In this article, we undertake the challenge to develop and implement MOVIEMOD—a prerelease market evaluation model for the motion picture industry. MOVIEMOD is designed to generate box-office forecasts and to support marketing decisions for a new movie after the movie has been produced (or when it is available in a rough cut) but before it has been released. Unlike other forecasting models for motion pictures, the calibration of MOVIEMOD does not require any actual sales data. Also, the data collection time for a product with a limited lifetime such as a movie should not take too long. For MOVIEMOD it takes only three hours in a “consumer clinic” to collect the data needed for the prediction of box-office sales and the evaluation of alternative marketing plans. The model is based on a behavioral representation of the consumer adoption process for movies as a macroflow process. The heart of MOVIEMOD is an interactive Markov chain model describing the macro-flow process. According to this model, at any point in time with respect to the movie under study, a consumer can be found in one of the following behavioral states: undecided, considerer, rejecter, positive spreader, negative spreader, and inactive. The progression of consumers through the behavioral states depends on a set of movie-specific factors that are related to the marketing mix, as well as on a set of more general behavioral factors that characterize the movie-going behavior in the population of interest. This interactive Markov chain model allows us to account for word-of-mouth interactions among potential adopters and several types of word-of-mouth spreaders in the population. Marketing variables that influence the transitions among the states are movie theme acceptability, promotion strategy, distribution strategy, and the movie experience. The model is calibrated in a consumer clinic experiment. Respondents fill out a questionnaire with general items related to their movie-going and movie communication behavior, they are exposed to different sets of information stimuli, they are actually shown the movie, and finally, they fill outpostmovie evaluations, including word-of-mouth intentions.These measures are used to estimate the word-of-mouth parameters and other behavioral factors, as well as the movie-specific parameters of the model. MOVIEMOD produces forecasts of the awareness, adoption intention, and cumulative penetration for a new movie within the population of interest for a given base marketing plan. It also provides diagnostic information on the likely impact of alternative marketing plans on the commercial performance of a new movie. We describe two applications of MOVIEMOD: One is a pilot study conducted without studio cooperation in the United States, and the other is a full-fledged implementation conducted with cooperation of the movie's distributor and exhibitor in the Netherlands. The implementations suggest that MOVIEMOD produces reasonably accurate forecasts of box-office performance. More importantly, the model offers the opportunity to simulate the effects of alternative marketing plans. In the Dutch application, the effects of extra advertising, extra magazine articles, extra TV commercials, and higher trailer intensity (compared to the base marketing plan of the distributor) were analyzed. We demonstrate the value of these decision-support capabilities of MOVIEMOD in assisting managers to identify a final plan that resulted in an almost 50% increase in the test movie's revenue performance, compared to the marketing plan initially contemplated. Management implemented this recommended plan, which resulted in box-office sales that were within 5% of the MOVIEMOD prediction. MOVIEMOD was also tested against several benchmark models, and its prediction was better in all cases. An evaluation of MOVIEMOD jointly by the Dutch exhibitor and the distributor showed that both parties were positive about and appreciated its performance as a decision-support tool. In particular, the distributor, who has more stakes in the domestic performance of its movies, showed a great interest in using MOVIEMOD for subsequent evaluations of new movies prior to their release. Based on such evaluations and the initial validation results, MOVIEMOD can fruitfully (and inexpensively) be used to provide researchers and managers with a deeper understanding of the factors that drive audience response to new motion pictures, and it can be instrumental in developing other decision-support systems that can improve the odds of commercial success of new experiential products.

The Effect of Psychological Arousal on Online Word-of-Mouth Performance in the Movie Industry

The U. S. Army has become the largest distributor of motion pictures in the world. This paper describes the system of exchanges which handled distribution and reviews the contributions made by motion pictures to the war effort. — The success of the Army film program is in large measure attributable to the cooperation given by the motion picture industry and the motion picture engineers.

This is a co-authored article included in a themed collection on British Women’s Cinema that constitutes the most recent contribution to the prestigious Routledge series, British Popular Cinema. It analyses the star persona of Anna Neagle, Britain’s biggest ever box office success, tracing significant shifts in star image, and the management of those shifts, from highly suspect sexualised glamour to the Regal embodiment of English femininity. Neagle’s star image is also located in the challenges to the film industry, and associated formulations of national identity, occasioned by the introduction of both sound and colour technologies.