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38-572: The Independent Moving Pictures Company ( IMP ) was a motion picture studio and production company founded in 1909 by Carl Laemmle . The company was based in New York City , with production facilities in Fort Lee, New Jersey . In 1912, IMP merged with several other production companies to form Universal Film Manufacturing Company , later renamed Universal Pictures Company with Laemmle as president. The Independent Moving Pictures Company

76-408: A boom barrier and explain the purpose of their visit to a security guard . The sound stage is the central component of a studio lot. Most studios have several; small studios may have as few as one, and large studios have as many as 20 to 30. Movie studios also provide office space for studio executives and production companies, and makeup rooms and rehearsal rooms for talent. If space allows,

114-656: A growing proportion of Hollywood movie revenue, with approximately 70% of total movie revenue coming from international ticket sales; and the Chinese domestic box-office revenue is projected to outpace those of US in 2020. The growth of film studios and filmmaking outside of Hollywood and the US has produced popular international film studio locations such as Hollywood North ( Vancouver and Toronto in Canada ), Bollywood ( Mumbai , India ), and Nollywood ( Lagos , Nigeria ). As

152-433: A movie studio has usually been housed on a "studio lot." Physically, a studio lot is a secure compound enclosed by a tall perimeter wall. This is necessary to protect filmmaking operations from unwanted interference from paparazzi and crazed fans of leading movie stars . Movement in and out of the studio lot is normally limited to specific gates (often capped with grand decorative arches), where visitors must stop at

190-561: A moving object or follow action. For example, Harold M. Shaw panned his camera during one of the final moments of The Land Beyond the Sunset (1912) while Alice Guy-Blaché mounted a camera on the back of a moving truck in Matrimony's Speed Limit (1913). What made Henry Alder Leach's cinematography so groundbreaking is how he deliberately choreographed his camera movements to convey meaning and anticipate action—a technique that predicted

228-541: A prostitute, the film's release eventually resulted in the adding of "white slavery" to the list of topics banned under the Hays Code . Terry Ramsaye , an early film historian, wrote in his book A Million and One Nights , that Traffic In Souls was made in under four weeks with a small budget of $ 5,000. He also claimed that all the money came from George Loane Tucker , Herbert Brenon , William Robert Daly, King Baggot , and Jack Cohn. Furthermore, he also wrote that

266-615: A studio in Hollywood at Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street , which became known as " Gower Gulch " due to the actors dressed as cowboys and Indians waiting on that corner to be cast in Westerns . By May 1912, the Motion Picture Distributing and Sales Company began to collapse, its supporting production companies removing their distribution needs to other companies or under their own direction. On June 10, 1912,

304-788: A studio may have an outside backlot . Finally, there is a studio "commissary", which is the traditional term in the movie industry for what other industries call a company cafeteria . In addition to these basic components, the largest film studios are full-service enterprises offering the entire range of production and post-production services necessary to create a motion picture, including costumes, props, cameras, sound recording, crafts, sets, lighting, special effects , cutting, editing, mixing, scoring, automated dialogue replacement (ADR), re-recording, and foley . Independent suppliers of all these services and more (e.g., photographic processing labs) are often found in clusters in close proximity to film studios. Nitrate film , manufactured until 1951,

342-533: A total of eight generally recognized major studios. United Artists, although its controlling partners owned not one but two production studios during the Golden Age, had an often-tenuous hold on the title of major and operated mainly as a backer and distributor of independently produced films. Smaller studios operated simultaneously with the majors. These included operations such as Republic Pictures , active from 1935, which produced films that occasionally matched

380-654: A tram tour of the backlot where films such as Psycho and Back to the Future were once shot. In fall 2019, movie mogul Tyler Perry opened Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta . The studio lot is claimed to be larger than any movie-studio lot in Hollywood. In the 1980s and 1990s, as the cost of professional 16mm film equipment decreased, along with the emergence of non-film innovations such as S-VHS and Mini-DV cameras, many young filmmakers began to make films outside

418-789: Is an early example of the narrative style in American films. The film consists of six reels, which was longer than most American films of the era. A copy of Traffic in Souls is preserved at the Library of Congress and the Film Preservation Associates. In 2006, the film was added to the National Film Registry for preservation in the Library of Congress because it "presaged the Hollywood narrative film" and drew attention through its riveting depiction of

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456-503: The 1918 flu epidemic by Los Angeles compared to other American cities reduced the number of cases there and resulted in a faster recovery, contributing to the increasing dominance of Hollywood over New York City. The Big 5 By the mid-1920s, the evolution of a handful of American production companies into wealthy motion picture industry conglomerates that owned their own studios, distribution divisions , and theaters , and contracted with performers and other filmmaking personnel led to

494-532: The Fox Film Corporation ), and Adolph Zukor ( Famous Players Film Company , a precursor to Paramount ). The flexible, stealthy and adventurous independents avoided coercive MPPC restrictions (the requirement to use only Trust film stock and projectors, for example) by using unlicensed equipment, obtaining their own film materials, and making movies on the sly. After many of the independents, including IMP, organized their distribution subsidiaries into

532-530: The Hollywood area was Nestor Studios , opened in 1911 by Al Christie for David Horsley . In the same year, another 15 independents settled in Hollywood. Other production companies eventually settled in the Los Angeles area in places such as Culver City , Burbank , and what would soon become known as Studio City in the San Fernando Valley . The stronger early public health response to

570-554: The Motion Picture Distributing and Sales Company in mid-1910, with Laemmle as their president, the Trust issued an injunction against Laemmle for the camera being used, claiming that it was an infringement on their patents, but eventually lost. Before long, the independents began moving to Southern California , and opened up a West Coast movie-making industry. In 1910, IMP began production in Los Angeles, and had

608-492: The Cohns and another IMP employee, Joe Brandt , left to form Cohn-Brandt-Cohn (CBC) Film Sales Corporation which later became Columbia Pictures . Film studio There are also independently owned studio facilities, who have never produced a motion picture of their own because they are not entertainment companies or motion picture companies; they are companies who sell only studio space. In 1893, Thomas Edison built

646-653: The Edison company in 1912. The pioneering Thanhouser movie studio was founded in New Rochelle, New York in 1909 by American theatrical impresario Edwin Thanhouser . The company produced and released 1,086 movies between 1910 and 1917, successfully distributing them around the world. In the early 1900s, companies started moving to Los Angeles, California . Although electric lights were by then widely available, none were yet powerful enough to adequately expose film;

684-553: The assets of Independent Moving Pictures were transferred to the newly incorporated Universal Film Manufacturing Company , which undertook to distribute for several of the departing Sales Company producers in continued opposition to the Edison trust. IMP was corporately dissolved but its name continued to be used as a brand name for Laemmle's productions. In 1913, Jack Cohn was put in charge of production at IMP's studio at Tenth Avenue and 59th Street, and he and his brother, Harry Cohn , made their first film, Traffic in Souls . In 1918

722-547: The beginning of the 20th century. Additional footage was shot on location at Ellis Island and Manhattan . Its subjects were working women who had immigrated to the United States, and it was released at a time when the country was undergoing a " moral panic " over the issue of prostitution. While the film was passed by the National Board of Review as suggesting methods of controlling prostitution or reform of

760-686: The best source of illumination for motion picture production was natural sunlight. Some movies were shot on the roofs of buildings in Downtown Los Angeles . Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company , based in New York City, controlled almost all the patents relevant to movie production at the time. Early movie producers relocated to Southern California to escape patent enforcement, thanks to more lenient local courts and physical distance from company detectives and mob allies. (Edison's patents expired in 1913.) The first movie studio in

798-443: The course of three days and consists of a prologue; the main narrative in which one of the sisters is kidnapped by a pimp and the other sister and her boyfriend rush to rescue her in time and the pimp is killed; and an epilogue in which the viewer finds out the consequences from a trashed news article. The film concludes with a joke ending, an ending to a thriller that at the time was not the cliché it has become now. Traffic in Souls

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836-479: The federal government won a case against Paramount in the Supreme Court , which ruled that the vertically integrated structure of the movie industry constituted an illegal monopoly . This decision, reached after twelve years of litigation, hastened the end of the studio system and Hollywood's "Golden Age". By the 1950s, the physical components of a typical movie studio had become standardized. Since then,

874-459: The film actually had a large cast and expensive shooting locations in two states, while Laemmle supported the film because the public's intense interest in white slavery promised substantial profits. The film is notable for its pioneering use of camera movement while shooting scenes. Most films made prior to 1913 relied heavily on scenes shot head-on with a stationary camera. Some filmmakers had been moving, tilting or panning their cameras to track

912-661: The film had to be made in secret because Carl Laemmle (the future head of Universal Film ) tried to stop the film's production and did not want to release it when completed. While Ramsaye's account of the Silent Era is influential, many of his claims have been challenged or rejected by contemporary scholars. Film historian Kevin Brownlow found evidence that the film actually started with $ 25,000 provided by theater magnate Lee Shubert , former U.S. Representative Joseph L. Rhinock , and others. And rather than being made in secret,

950-729: The film industry had once hoped—movie studios were increasingly being used to produce programming for the burgeoning medium. Some midsize film companies, such as Republic Pictures , eventually sold their studios to TV production concerns , which were eventually bought by larger studios, such as the American Broadcasting Company which was purchased by Disney in 1996. With the growing diversification of studios into such fields as video games , television stations , broadcast syndication , television , theme parks , home video and publishing , they have become multi-national corporations. International markets account for

988-587: The first " movie stars " to be given billing and screen credits , a marquee as well as promotion in advertising , which contributed to the creation of the star system . In the early 20th century, the Motion Picture Patents Company , or the Trust, was fought by the unlicensed independent films (dubbed "pirates" or "outlaws"), led by Laemmle. Others against the MPPC included Harry E. Aitken (Majestic Films), William Fox (founder of

1026-527: The first movie studio in the United States when he constructed the Black Maria , a tarpaper-covered structure near his laboratories in West Orange , New Jersey , and asked circus, vaudeville, and dramatic actors to perform for the camera. He distributed these movies at vaudeville theaters, penny arcades, wax museums, and fairgrounds. The first film serial , What Happened to Mary , was released by

1064-437: The future of film-making. Traffic in Souls opened on November 24, 1913, at Lou Fields 's Theatre at 1215 Broadway in New York City . The film was made for $ 5,700, and reportedly earned $ 400,000 during its theatrical run, helping to make Universal a major player among movie studios. Traffic in Souls was released on VHS by Kino International accompanied by a piano score by Philip Carli in 1994. Flicker Alley released

1102-406: The methods used to entrap young women into prostitution. The storyline concerns two young Swedish women immigrants who are approached by men soliciting for white slavery under the guise of a legitimate work offer. In the scenes filmed at Battery Park , after the women are transported there from Ellis Island , real immigrants can be seen in the background. The entire film takes place over

1140-504: The scale and ambition of the larger studio, and Monogram Pictures , which specialized in series and genre releases. Together with smaller outfits such as PRC TKO and Grand National, the minor studios filled the demand for B movies and are sometimes collectively referred to as Poverty Row . The Big Five's ownership of movie theaters was eventually opposed by eight independent producers, including Samuel Goldwyn , David O. Selznick , Walt Disney , Hal Roach , and Walter Wanger . In 1948,

1178-723: The sometimes confusing equation of studio with production company in industry slang. Five large companies: RKO Radio Pictures , 20th Century Fox , Paramount Pictures , Warner Bros. , and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer came to be known as the Big Five, the majors, or the Studios in trade publications such as Variety , and their management structures and practices collectively came to be known as the studio system . The Little 3 Although they owned few or no theaters to guarantee sales of their films, Universal Pictures , Columbia Pictures , and United Artists also fell under these rubrics, making

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1216-578: The studio system. Filmmakers and producers such as Mike Judge , Adam Sandler , Jim Jarmusch , Robert Rodriguez , Steven Soderbergh , Quentin Tarantino , Kevin Smith and Richard Linklater made films that pushed boundaries in ways the studios were then reluctant to do. In response to these films, many distributed by mini-studios like Miramax , the majors created their own in-house mini-studios meant to focus on edgier, independent content. Focus Features

1254-601: The studios increased in size they began to rely on production companies like J. J. Abrams ' Bad Robot to handle many of the creative and physical production details of their feature films. Instead, the studios transformed into financing and distribution entities for their films (generally made by their affiliated production companies). With the decreasing cost of CGI and visual effects , many studios sold large chunks of their once-massive studio spaces or backlots to private real-estate developers. Century City in Los Angeles

1292-507: Was based on a story by the film's director George Loane Tucker. The scenario was written by Walter MacNamara who also served as producer with Jack Cohn . Executive producers include King Baggot , Herbert Brenon , William Robert Daly , and Carl Laemmle . The film was shot and produced by Universal Film Manufacturing Company in Fort Lee, New Jersey , where many early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based at

1330-519: Was created by Universal Pictures and Fox Searchlight was created by 20th Century Fox for this purpose. Traffic in Souls Traffic in Souls (also released as While New York Sleeps ) is a 1913 American silent crime drama film focusing on forced prostitution ( white slavery ) in the United States. Directed by George Loane Tucker and starring Jane Gail , Ethel Grandin , William H. Turner , and Matt Moore , Traffic in Souls

1368-482: Was founded in 1909 by Carl Laemmle and was located at 573 11th Ave New York City , with a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey . The first movie produced by IMP was Hiawatha ( 1909 ) starring Gladys Hulette , a one-reel drama short based on the 1855 poem The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . At a time when leading screen players worked anonymously, IMP performers Florence Lawrence , formerly known as "The Biograph Girl," and King Baggot became

1406-435: Was highly flammable, and sets and backlots were and still are very flammable, which is why film studios built in the early-to-mid 20th century have water towers to facilitate firefighting . Water towers "somewhat inexplicably" evolved into "a most potent symbol ... of movie studios in general." Halfway through the 1950s, with television proving to be a lucrative enterprise not destined to disappear any time soon—as many in

1444-399: Was once part of the 20th Century Fox backlot, which was among the largest and most famous of the studio lots. In most cases, portions of the backlots were retained and are available for rental by various film and television productions. Some studios offer tours of their backlots , while Universal Pictures allows visitors to its adjacent Universal Studios Hollywood theme park to take

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