Production Contexts

Hollywood

In the early stage of the film industry independent film makers started moving to Hollywood to get away from the ‘Motion Pictures Patent Company’. They wanted to do this as the MPPC had complete control over the film stock and equipment film makers used. The MPPC made sure that film makers only used Edison’s equipment or stock from people that were part of his trust.

It wasn’t until 1911, when a man named Eastman Kodak modified his contract with the trust so he could sell his own raw film stock, the MPPCs hold on the fim industry was broken. This made him very popular as he could under sell Edison and the MPPC and then eventually create his own business and film stock.

The Studio Era

From 1930 through to 1949 the majority of American cinema was produced by the Hollywood Studio system. The main studios of Hollywood are 20th Century Fox, Universal, Warner Brothers, MGM and Paramount. These companies had a monopoly on the film industry for a long time before people started making independent films.

Hollywood films can be distinguished from the other types of films by looking at a few facts about the film. Hollywood productions will often use high profile actors to help draw in a wider audience, for example ‘World War Z’ uses Brad Pitt to gain more publicity and draw in more audience and money for the film. Another thing that tells us about the production context is the budget, normally Hollywood films are given most of the budget by a studio and then bring in private investors to finance the remainder of the budget whereas independent films will be almost completely funded by investors or other means.

Bollywood

Bollywood is the name given to the genre of Indian cinema, the name comes from combining Bombay (what is now Mumbai) and Hollywood.  Over the last few years technologies in film have developed and being able to create films is cheaper and easier than ever, because of this Bollywood cinema has become a huge part of the film industry and now create more films than Hollywood per year. Most of Bollywood films rarely make it out of the country though as the quality of the overall film is not up to standards of modern films, however Bollywood films are getting better and better and we are seeing more creeping into mainstream film. For example ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ which is a British/Bollywood co-production won an oscar in 2009.

Like Hollywood films there are some defining characteristics for Bollywood films. Some examples of these include cast, funding and production companies or studios they are released through. The cast in Bollywood films are predominantly Indian, this is so film makers don’t have to spend lots of money on high profile actors, however by using the same actors in bigger Bollywood films they have created their own high profile Bollywood stars. Budgets for Bollywood films are usually extremely low and will come from investors, crowd sourcing or film studios within India.

 British

The British film industry started in 1889 when William Freise Greene developed the first moving image celluloid images. For some time the British film industry was level with Hollywood’s production standards up until 1920, when Hollywood films started taking over British cinema. British cinema started to get behind the times opposed to Hollywood who were breaking new technology faster than anyone else, films were getting better and better and the British films couldn’t keep up. This led to Hollywood taking over the UK and in 1927 Parliament passed the ‘Cinematographers Trade Bill’ this meant that 5% of movies shown had to have been produced in the UK, this raised to 20% in 1936.

This bill increased the number of films being produced but had a severe effect on the overall quality of the films. However it opened the gates for young British film makers like Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Powell.

Again there are aspects of British films that can help us class the film into the ‘British’ film genre. Similar to Bollywood, British films will mainly use a UK cast or will have been produced/directed by someone British. Another aspect could be how it is produced, British films are produced through a company that is within the UK, unless its a co-production.