Deviprasad Goenka Management college of Media Studies http://www.dgmcms.org.in/ Subject: Understanding cinema film studies Lesson 2: Early Indian cinema Faculty Name: Amol Jadhav

1. +
Lesson 4
Early years of Hollywood
Studio culture and Genres
Subject:
understanding
cinema
Faculty Name:
Amol Jadhav
Batch:
FYBA- FTNP
India’s premier M-school
Deviprasad Goenka Management College of Media Studies (dgmcms.org.in)

2. India’s premier M-school
+ Kinetograph and Edison
 Thomas Edison’s patented Kinetoscope which was kept in his
studio Black Maria was argued to be an instrument developed
prior to cinematogrph in order to capture moving images.
 Due to which, Edison claimed that cinematograph is a
copy of his invention and levied heavy royalties on movie
producers who shot movies. After some time, his troops
started bashing up movie units if they were found filming.
 Frustrated with this anarchy, group of producers and
filmmakers moved to Californian town of Hollywood
where they found apt location and conditions for filming.
 Later on, this small town of Hollywood was developed as
a capital of one of the largest movie businesses in the world.

3. India’s premier M-school
+Edwin Porter
 Edwin Porter was filming a live action documentary with fire
brigade in 1902 and while this project, he came to conclusion
that situations can be staged.
 He established new norms for films by making A great train
robbery (1903) which was considered a pioneering attempt
in cinema.
 This was the first film that was about 800 ft. long with 10 min.
duration. This film overthrew many old conceptions and was
extremely popular.

4. India’s premier M-school
+Movie Theatres
 After the grand success of The Great train Robbery, there was
a need of common dedicated places where films would be
screened. Thus films moved from salons and were screened
in a which were called Nickelodeons.
 These were small salons or halls where movies were
screened for as cheaper rates as a nickel or two.
 Many producers arrived at Hollywood with their crew and
occupied every inch of this town.
Carl Laemmle (Universal),
Adolf Zukor (Paramount),
Sam Goldwin (Goldwyn Pictures, later on MGM),
Albert and Harry Warner (Warner Bros.)
formed the formidable names in films production and
business. This paved way for the ‘studio era’ of Hollywood.

5. India’s premier M-school
+David Wark Griffith
 After apprenticeship with Edwin Porter, D. W. Griffith joined
Bioscope and made few short films. He defied the
conventional ways of film making and brought about
revolutionary changes in camera and lighting techniques.
 He successfully attempted spectacular sequences.
 He worked on a feature length, 40 min. film- Birth of a Nation
which was based on the struggle of Black American slaves in
South.
 This film received positive reviews due to
its strong social message Griffith received
an acclaim.
 He is considered to have modernized the
film making process and invented a
famous terminology,
“Lights, Camera and Action !!”

6. India’s premier M-school
+David Wark Griffith
 His next film Intolerance (1916) set new records of films. This
was one of the earliest big budget films that saw a manually
constructed set that mapped for almost 1 km. and featured
around 2000 junior actors.
 This film had an extravagant grandeur
which provided a new definition to set
designing.
 Griffith is also known to have introduced
mood lighting. This paved a way for
closer and definitive definition of
expressions and moods of the situations.
 He also introduced tight close shot, close shot and
long shot which added more meaning to making and
viewing experience.

7. +Long, Close and Tight close Shots
India’s premier M-school
Long Shots Close Shot
Tight Close shot (Extreme Close)

8. India’s premier M-school
+Early Genres
 Griffith formed his new film company Mutual in 1915 and its
productions were decisive in terms of both- commercial and
critical success.
 Tomas Ince ( westerns, Invaders ), Griffith (social drama, Birth
of nation) and Mack Senette (Slapstick Comedy, Chaplin)
were responsible for establishing distinctive genres and
their audience. (as shown below)
 New trends of filming and outdoor sequences were
practiced.
 Their genre based films set new stereotypes which resulted
in box office collections.

9. India’s premier M-school
+
 Ince carefully used pre-planning his films on paper inventing
the use of a detailed shooting script which also contained
information on who was in the scene, and the scene plot
which listed all interiors and exteriors, cost plans and so on,
and then meticulously breaking down the shooting
schedule so that several scenes could be shot simultaneously
by assistant directors.
 This disciplined way marked Ince emerge as creative
producer- one who would control production creatively and
also get done several productions at once with the help of
crew.
 Slapstick comedy was developed by Mack Senette with
Mable Normand and Charles Chaplin. His hillarious car
chase sequences and custard pie experiments proved to
be highly grossing for the genre.

10. India’s premier M-school
+
Sources:
 How to read a film- James Monaco
 Oxford History of World Cinema- Geoffery Nowell- Smith
 Tales of Cinema- Ganesh Matkari