Hollywood History

As with any family or culture, heritage is important. The same is true for the filmmakers of Southern California. At Home Shoot Home we thought it would be interesting for our readers if we punctuated our blogs with a bit of the history that made Hollywood and the Southern California Film Industry what it is today. Cinema in the United States can ultimately be broken into four very distinct periods: the Silent Film Era, Classical Hollywood Cinema, New Hollywood and what is referred to as the Contemporary Period.

As the name implies, silent films are silent “with no synchronized recorded sound” (3). The dialogue and story line were communicated through gestures and title cards. The highest grossing silent film of all time was the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in 1921. The first non silent film to hit the cinema was the Jazz Singer in 1927.

As technology progressed, so did the ways in which films were edited. Thus, the term Classical Hollywood Cinema was developed which primarily referrers to the way films were produced between 1910 and in the 1960’s. The principle of this type of editing rested on the premise that the camera and recorded sound should not distract from the actual film where both had in previous times (5).

The term New Hollywood was coined in the mid 1960’s (Think Bonnie and Clyde and the Graduate) and lasted until the early 1980’s. The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde were  important turning points in Hollywood history, both appealed to the youth of Southern California and ultimately tapped into an entirely new market (1). In a nutshell, the New Hollywood era of film is defined by the new ideas and new approaches to filmmaking by many film makers in America.

The Contemporary Period of Hollywood started in the 1980’s and Hollywood is still defined by the Contemporary Period. The Contemporary Period is ultimately defined by special effects, blockbusters, marketing and digital video (2).

Resources:
1.) http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/hollywood_1960s.cfm
2.) http://sparkcharts.sparknotes.com/film/film/section8.php
3.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_film
4.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hollywood
5.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Hollywood_cinema