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44-746: The Vim Comedy Company was a short-lived movie studio in Jacksonville, Florida and New York City . Vim bought out Siegmund Lubin 's Lubin Manufacturing Company Jacksonville, Florida facilities at 750 Riverside Avenue in 1915 after that company went bankrupt . It was founded by Louis Burstein and Mark Dintenfass. Vim specialized in two-reel comedies, producing hundreds of them in the short time it existed. Notable Vim actors were Oliver Hardy , Ethel Marie Burton , Walter Stull , Billy Ruge , Rosemary Theby , Billy Bletcher and his wife Arline Roberts , and Kate Price . At its peak Vim had

88-404: 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, a studio may have an outside backlot . Finally, there

132-445: A copy of the DVD is ordered, and then ship it to the customer. A distributor may also maintain contact with wholesalers who sell and ship DVDs to retail outlets as well as online stores, and arrange for them to carry the DVD. The distributor may also place ads in magazines and online and send copies of the DVD to reviewers. Although there are now numerous distribution techniques, in the past

176-401: A distributor is going to distribute a movie on a physical format such as DVD, they must arrange for the creation of the artwork for the case and the face of the DVD and arrange with a DVD replicator to create a glass master to press quantities of the DVD. Some movie producers use a process called "DVD-on-demand." In DVD-on-demand, a company will burn a DVD-R (a process called "duplication") when

220-613: 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 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

264-531: A film and the method by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing; for example, directly to the public either theatrically or for home viewing ( DVD , video-on-demand , download , television programs through broadcast syndication etc.). A distributor may do this directly, if the distributor owns the theaters or film distribution networks, or through theatrical exhibitors and other sub-distributors. A limited distributor may deal only with particular products, such as DVDs or Blu-ray, or may act in

308-644: 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

352-463: A minimum amount of money that theater is to keep—often called "the house nut"—after which the sliding scale kicks in for revenue generated above the house nut. However, this sliding scale method is falling out of use. Whatever the method, box office revenue is usually shared roughly 50/50 between film distributors and theaters. If the distributor is handling an imported or foreign film, it may also be responsible for securing dubbing or subtitling for

396-578: 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 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

440-486: A non-theatrical screening are that the latter has to be to a closed audience in some way, e.g. pupils of a school, members of a social club or passengers on an airline, and that there can be no individual admission charge. Most non-theatrical screening contracts also specify that the screening must not be advertised, except within the group that is eligible to attend (e.g. in a membership organisation's newsletter or an in-flight magazine ). Non-theatrical distribution includes

484-415: A particular country or market. The primary distributor will often receive credit in the film's credits , one sheet or other marketing material. If a distributor is working with a theatrical exhibitor, the distributor secures a contract stipulating the amount of the gross ticket sales the exhibitor will be allowed to retain (usually a percentage of the gross). The distributor collects the amount due, audits

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528-415: A profit and eliminate failure. These new distribution methods benefited audiences that were normally too small to reach and expanded the content of television. With the new age of technology, networks accepted the fact that it was a consumer demand industry and accepted the new models of distribution. The primary distribution companies will usually receive some billing for the film. For example, Gone With

572-449: A specified time period. The latter are often purchased by pubs and students' unions , to enable them to show occasional feature films on a TV in their bars. Some distributors only handle home video distribution or some subset of home video distribution such as DVD or Blu-ray distribution. The remaining home video rights may be licensed by the producer to other distributors or the distributor may sub-license them to other distributors. If

616-404: A studio decides to partner with a native distributor, upon release both names will appear. The foreign distributor may license the film for a certain amount of time, but the studio will retain the copyright of the film. When a film is produced and distributed by an independent production company and independent distributor (meaning outside the studios), generally an international sales agent handles

660-640: 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

704-543: A workforce of nearly 50 people. The Vim Comedy Company went out of business in 1917 after Oliver Hardy discovered that both Burstein and Dintenfass were stealing from the payroll. Vim was bought out by the King-Bee Films studio started by Burstein. The following films were produced by the Vim Comedy Company: Movie studio There are also independently owned studio facilities, who have never produced

748-407: 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 a boom barrier and explain the purpose of their visit to

792-733: 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,

836-613: Is not provided by the production company, and arrange for the physical delivery of the advertising items selected by the exhibitor at intervals prior to the opening day. Film distributors spend between $ 3.5 billion and $ 4 billion a year in the United States alone on direct buys of advertising such as TV commercials, billboards, online banner ads, radio commercials and the like. That distributor-spending figure does not include additional costs for publicity, film trailers and promotions, which are not classified as advertising but also market films to audiences. Distributors typically enter into one of

880-409: The airlines and film societies . Non-theatrical distribution is generally handled by companies that specialize in this market, of which Motion Picture Licensing Company (MPLC) and Film bank media are the two largest: Motion Picture Licensing Company Film bank media Representing the major Hollywood studios and independent producers. Home video media is sold with a licence that permits viewing in

924-454: 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 the Hollywood area was Nestor Studios , opened in 1911 by Al Christie for David Horsley . In

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968-407: 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, a movie studio has usually been housed on a "studio lot." Physically, a studio lot

1012-630: 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 a total of eight generally recognized major studios. United Artists, although its controlling partners owned not one but two production studios during

1056-562: 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 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,

1100-457: The Wind was shown on the one sheet as "A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Release". A modern example, Jurassic Park , would be the credit " Universal Pictures presents ...". The Universal production logo also opened the film's trailer . In some cases, there is split distribution as in the case of Titanic (1997) : " 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures present ...". Both companies helped to finance

1144-613: 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 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

1188-456: The contract-based opening day , ensure their physical delivery to the theater by opening day, monitor exhibitors to make sure the film is in fact shown at the particular theatre with the minimum number of seats and show times, and ensure the prints' return to the distributor's office or other storage resource also on the contract-based return date. In practical terms, this includes the physical production of release prints and their shipping around

1232-451: The exclusive right to exploit the film in various media (theatrical, TV, home entertainment, etc.) for a certain amount of time. This term, used mainly in the British film industry , describes the distribution of feature films for screening to a gathered audience, but not in theatres at which individual tickets are sold to members of the public. The defining distinctions between a theatrical and

1276-421: The exhibitor's ticket sales as necessary to ensure the gross reported by the exhibitor is accurate, secures the distributor's share of these proceeds, surrenders the exhibitor's portion to it, and transmits the remainder to the production company (or to any other intermediary, such as a film release agent). The distributor must also ensure that enough film prints are struck to service all contracted exhibitors on

1320-717: 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

1364-413: The film, and securing censorship or other legal or organizational "approval" for the exhibition of the film in the country/territory in which it does business, prior to approaching the exhibitors for booking. Depending on which studio that is distributing the film, the studio will either have offices around the world, by themselves or partnered with another studio, to distribute films in other countries. If

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1408-502: The home only. Until these technologies were widespread, most non-theatrical screenings were on 16 mm film prints supplied by the distributor. Today, the most common business model is for a distributor to sell the exhibitor a licence that permits the projection of a copy of the film, which the exhibitor buys separately on a home video format. These licences can either be for individual, one-off screenings, or cover an unlimited number of screenings of titles represented by that distributor for

1452-402: The licensing of international rights to the film. The international sales agent will find a local distributor in each individual international territory and license the exclusive rights to the film for a certain amount of time but in the same case as the studios described above, the production company will retain the copyright of the film. This means that this distributor in a certain territory has

1496-468: 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, the federal government won a case against Paramount in the Supreme Court , which ruled that

1540-540: 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 the 1918 flu epidemic by Los Angeles compared to other American cities reduced the number of cases there and resulted in

1584-569: 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

1628-437: The studios and networks were slow to change and did not experiment with different distribution processes. Studios believed that new distribution methods would cause their old methods of revenue to be destroyed. With time, the development of new distribution did prove to be beneficial. The studios revenue was gained from myriad distribution windows. These windows created many opportunities in the industry and allowed networks to make

1672-595: 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

1716-439: The two types of film booking contracts. The most common is the aggregate deal where total box office revenue that a given film generates is split by a pre-determined mutually-agreed percentage between distributor and movie theater. The other method is the sliding scale deal, where the percentage of box office revenue taken by theaters declines each week of a given film's run. The sliding scale actually has two pieces that starts with

1760-456: The world (a process that is being replaced by digital distribution in most developed markets) as well as the creation of posters, newspaper and magazine advertisements, television commercials , trailers, and other types of ads. The distributor is also responsible for ensuring a full line of advertising material is available for each film which it believes will help the exhibitor attract the largest possible audience, create such advertising if it

1804-568: 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; 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

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1848-417: Was created by Universal Pictures and Fox Searchlight was created by 20th Century Fox for this purpose. Film distributor A film distributor is a person responsible for the marketing of a film . The distribution company may be the same as, or different from, the production company . Distribution deals are an important part of financing a film. The distributor may set the release date of

1892-435: 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

1936-399: 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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