The 'majors' īy 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. 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 a faster recovery, contributing to the increasing dominance of Hollywood over New York City. 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. In the same year, another 15 independents settled in Hollywood. The first movie studio in the Hollywood area was Nestor Studios, opened in 1911 by Al Christie for David Horsley. 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 Motion Picture Patents Company, based in New York City, controlled almost all the patents relevant to movie production at the time. Some movies were shot on the roofs of buildings in Downtown Los Angeles. 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. In the early 1900s, companies started moving to Los Angeles, California. The company produced and released 1,086 movies between 19, successfully distributing them around the world. The pioneering Thanhouser movie studio was founded in New Rochelle, New York in 1909 by American theatrical impresario Edwin Thanhouser. The first film serial, What Happened to Mary, was released by the Edison company in 1912. He distributed these movies at vaudeville theaters, penny arcades, wax museums, and fairgrounds. 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 the camera. 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.īeginnings The Babelsberg Studio near Berlin was the first large-scale film studio in the world and the forerunner to Hollywood. The day-to-day filming operations are generally handled by their production company subsidiary. They may have their own privately owned studio facility or facilities however, most firms in the entertainment industry have never owned their own studios, but have rented space from other companies. Further information: Studio, Television studio, and Recording studioĪ film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company that makes films.

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