The Film Industry: Hollywood

Hollywood is a metonym

• Metonym - a word, name and expression used as a substitute for something else with which it is closely associated. For example, Washington is a metonym for the US government

Hollywood is a place in Southern California, where many of the major film studios set up around 100 years ago.

How did Hollywood become powerful?

• Film was invented in France, but Hollywood studios started to become all powerful by 1920s
• The studios built up their power by following what is called a 'Fordist' economic model and establishing a system of vertical integration.

Fordism

• Named after Henry Ford
• A very efficient way of producing goods (like cars) based on:

1. Standardising the product
2. Assembly line production

Verical Integration

• This refers to companies controlling all the means of production, distribution and consumption

The Big 5 Studios

• These studios, known as the Big 5, were all vertically integrated. 
• They owned:

1. Production (equipment and talent under contract)
2. Distribution 
3. Consumption

Antitrust Laws

• In the late 1940s, the US government brought an end to the vertical integration system and forced the studios to sell of their cinemas.