American Singles Film
Theater ( film ) in the United States
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Theater of the United States is based in the Western tradition, mostly borrowed from the performance styles prevalent in Europe. Today, it is heavily interlaced with American literatue, film, television, and music, and it is not uncommon for a single story to appear in all forms. Regions with significant music scenes often have strong theater and comedy traditions as well. Musical theater may be the most popular form: it is certainly the most colorful, and choreographed motions pioneered on stage have found their way onto movie and television screens. Broadway in New York City is generally considered the pinnacle of commercial U.S. theater, though this art form appears all across the country. Another city of particular note is Chicago, which boasts the most diverse and dynamic theater scene in the country.
Regional or rRise of the home video marker
The 1980 and 1990s saw another significant development. The full acceptance of home video by studios opened a vast new business to exploit. Films such as The Secret of NIMH and The Shawshank Redemption, which performed poorly in their theatrical run, were now able to find success in the video market. It also saw the first generation of film makers with access to video tapes emerge. Directors such as Quentin Tarantino and P.T. Anderson had been able to view thousands of films and produced films with vast numbers of references and connections to previous works. This, along with the explosion of independent film and ever-decreasing costs for filmmaking, changed the landscape of American movie-making once again, and led a renaissance of filmmaking among Hollywood's lower and middle-classes—those without access to studio financial resourc
With the rise of the DVD in the 21st centur, DVDs have quickly become even more profitable to studios and have led to an explosion of packaging extra scenes, extended versions, an commentary tracks with the filmsesident theatres in the United States are professional theatre companies outside of New York City that produce their own seasons. There is also community theatre and showcase theatre (performing arts group). Even tiny rural communities sometimes awe audiences with extravagant productions.
Note: "theater" is the preferred spelling in the U.S., see spelling differences.
History
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The birth of this professional theater in America is usually thought to have begun with the Lewis Hallam troupe which arrived in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1752. However it is certain that theater existed in North America before that. A theater was built in Williamsburg in 1715, and in January 1736, the original Dock Street Theatre was opened in Charles Town, SC. Thomas Kean played the part of Richard III in New York City in 1750, and probably performed in Williamsburg shortly before the Hallams. (Amateur theater is recorded to have existed as early as 1665, when performers of a play were prosecuted in Accomack County, Virginia on charges of public wickedness.) In any case The Hallams were the first to organize a complete company of actors in Europe (London in this case) and bring them to the colonies. They brought a repertoire of the most popular plays from London, including Hamlet, The Recruiting Officer, and Richard III. The Merchant of Venice was their first performance, shown initially on September 15, 1752. Encountering opposition from religious organisations, Hallam and his company left for Jamaica in 1754 or 1755. Soon after, Lewis Hallam's son, founded the American Company which opened a theater in New York and presented the first professionally-mounted American play, The Prince of Parthia by Thomas Godfrey, in 1767.
Throughout the 18th century there was widespread opposition to theatrical performances. In the puritanical climate of the time, especially in the North, the theater was considered a "highway to hell". Laws forbidding the performance of plays were passed in Massachusetts in 1750, in Pennsylvania in 1759, and in Rhode Island in 1761, and it was banned in most states during the American Revolutionary War at the urging of the Continental Congress. In 1794 President Timothy Dwight IV of Yale College in his "Essay on the Stage" declared that "to indulge a taste for playgoing means nothing more or less than the loss of that most valuable treasure: the immortal soul.". However it is likely that these ordinances were not strictly enforced, for we have records of performances in many cities during this time
The birth of this professional theater in America is usually thought to have begun with the Lewis Hallam troupe which arrived in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1752. However it is certain that theater existed in North America before that. A theater was built in Williamsburg in 1715, and in January 1736, the original Dock Street Theatre was opened in Charles Town, SC. Thomas Kean played the part of Richard III in New York City in 1750, and probably performed in Williamsburg shortly before the Hallams. (Amateur theater is recorded to have existed as early as 1665, when performers of a play were prosecuted in Accomack County, Virginia on charges of public wickedness.) In any case The Hallams were the first to organize a complete company of actors in Europe (London in this case) and bring them to the colonies. They brought a repertoire of the most popular plays from London, including Hamlet, The Recruiting Officer, and Richard III. The Merchant of Venice was their first performance, shown initially on September 15, 1752. Encountering opposition from religious organisations, Hallam and his company left for Jamaica in 1754 or 1755. Soon after, Lewis Hallam's son, founded the American Company which opened a theater in New York and presented the first professionally-mounted American play, The Prince of Parthia by Thomas Godfrey, in 1767.
Throughout the 18th century there was widespread opposition to theatrical performances. In the puritanical climate of the time, especially in the North, the theater was considered a "highway to hell". Laws forbidding the performance of plays were passed in Massachusetts in 1750, in Pennsylvania in 1759, and in Rhode Island in 1761, and it was banned in most states during the American Revolutionary War at the urging of the Continental Congress. In 1794 President Timothy Dwight IV of Yale College in his "Essay on the Stage" declared that "to indulge a taste for playgoing means nothing more or less than the loss of that most valuable treasure: the immortal soul.". However it is likely that these ordinances were not strictly enforced, for we have records of performances in many cities during this time
The 19th century of american singles film
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In the early 19th century, theater became more common in the United States, and many celebrity actors from Europe toured the United States. There were even a few famous American actors, such as Edwin Forrest and Charlotte Cushman. Many theater owners, such as William Dunlap and Thomas Abthorpe Cooper, similarly became well known throughout the young nation.
The Walnut Street Theatre (or simply The Walnut) is the oldest continuously-operating theater in America, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 825 Walnut Street. The Walnut was built by The Circus of Pepin and Breschard, in 1809.
Most cities only had a single theater. Productions were much more rudimentary then, and sometimes plays would be staged in barns or dining rooms when no theater was available. Provincial theaters frequently lacked heat and even minimal props and scenery. As the Westward Expansion of the country progressed, some entrepreneurs staged floating theaters on boats which would travel from town to town. Eventually, towns grew to the size that they could afford "long runs" of a production, and in 1841, a single play was shown in New York City for an unprecedented three weeks.
William Shakespeare was the most commonly performed playwright, along with other European authors. American playwrights of the period existed, but are mostly forgotten now. American plays of the period are mostly melodramas, often weaving in local themes or characters such as the heroic but ill-fated Indian. The most enduring melodrama of this period is Uncle Tom's Cabin, adapted by H. J. Conway from the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
A popular form of theater during this time was the minstrel show, arguably the first uniquely American style of performance. These shows featured white actors dressed in blackface and playing up racial stereotypes. These shows became the most watched theatrical form of the era.
Throughout the 19th century, many preachers continued to warn against attending plays as being sinful. Theater was associated with hedonism and even violence, and actors especially female actors, were looked upon as little better than prostitutes. A serious rivalry between William Charles Macready and Edwin Forrest mirrored the sports rivalries of later years. The Astor Place Riot of 1849 in New York was sparked by this rivalry, and brought about the deaths of 22 people. Then, at the end of the United States Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theater while watching a play.
Burlesque became a popular form of entertainment in the middle of the 19th century. Originally a form of farce in which females in male roles mocked the politics and culture of the day, burlesque was condemned by opinion makers for its sexuality and outspokenness. The form was hounded off the "legitimate stage" and found itself relegated to saloons and barrooms. The female producers were replaced by their male counterparts, who toned down the politics and played up the sexuality, until the shows eventually became little more than pretty girls in skimpy clothing singing songs, while male comedians told raunchy jokes.
The Civil War ended much of the prosperity of the South, and with it, its independent theaters. Only New Orleans was able to recover its theatrical tradition in the 19th century, if only partially. In the North, theater flourished as a post-war boom allowed longer and more frequest productions. The advent of railroads allowed actors to travel much more easily between towns, making theaters in small towns more feasible. By the late 19th century, there were thousands of cities and towns with at least a rudimentary theater for live productions. This trend also allowed larger and more elaborate sets to travel with players from city to city. The advent of electric lighting led to changes in styles, as more details could be seen by the audience.
By the 1880s theaters on Broadway in New York City, and along 42nd Street, took on a flavor of their own, giving rise to new stage forms such as the Broadway musical (strongly influenced by the feelings of immigrants coming to New York with great hope and ambition, many of whom went into the theater). New York became the organizing center for theater throughout the U.S.In the early 19th century, theater became more common in the United States, and many celebrity actors from Europe toured the United States. There were even a few famous American actors, such as Edwin Forrest and Charlotte Cushman. Many theater owners, such as William Dunlap and Thomas Abthorpe Cooper, similarly became well known throughout the young nation.
The Walnut Street Theatre (or simply The Walnut) is the oldest continuously-operating theater in America, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 825 Walnut Street. The Walnut was built by The Circus of Pepin and Breschard, in 1809.
Most cities only had a single theater. Productions were much more rudimentary then, and sometimes plays would be staged in barns or dining rooms when no theater was available. Provincial theaters frequently lacked heat and even minimal props and scenery. As the Westward Expansion of the country progressed, some entrepreneurs staged floating theaters on boats which would travel from town to town. Eventually, towns grew to the size that they could afford "long runs" of a production, and in 1841, a single play was shown in New York City for an unprecedented three weeks.
William Shakespeare was the most commonly performed playwright, along with other European authors. American playwrights of the period existed, but are mostly forgotten now. American plays of the period are mostly melodramas, often weaving in local themes or characters such as the heroic but ill-fated Indian. The most enduring melodrama of this period is Uncle Tom's Cabin, adapted by H. J. Conway from the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
A popular form of theater during this time was the minstrel show, arguably the first uniquely American style of performance. These shows featured white actors dressed in blackface and playing up racial stereotypes. These shows became the most watched theatrical form of the era.
Throughout the 19th century, many preachers continued to warn against attending plays as being sinful. Theater was associated with hedonism and even violence, and actors especially female actors, were looked upon as little better than prostitutes. A serious rivalry between William Charles Macready and Edwin Forrest mirrored the sports rivalries of later years. The Astor Place Riot of 1849 in New York was sparked by this rivalry, and brought about the deaths of 22 people. Then, at the end of the United States Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theater while watching a play.
Burlesque became a popular form of entertainment in the middle of the 19th century. Originally a form of farce in which females in male roles mocked the politics and culture of the day, burlesque was condemned by opinion makers for its sexuality and outspokenness. The form was hounded off the "legitimate stage" and found itself relegated to saloons and barrooms. The female producers were replaced by their male counterparts, who toned down the politics and played up the sexuality, until the shows eventually became little more than pretty girls in skimpy clothing singing songs, while male comedians told raunchy jokes.
The Civil War ended much of the prosperity of the South, and with it, its independent theaters. Only New Orleans was able to recover its theatrical tradition in the 19th century, if only partially. In the North, theater flourished as a post-war boom allowed longer and more frequest productions. The advent of railroads allowed actors to travel much more easily between towns, making theaters in small towns more feasible. By the late 19th century, there were thousands of cities and towns with at least a rudimentary theater for live productions. This trend also allowed larger and more elaborate sets to travel with players from city to city. The advent of electric lighting led to changes in styles, as more details could be seen by the audience.
In 1896, Charles Frohman, Al Hayman, Abe Erlanger, Mark Klaw, and Fred Zimmerman formed the Theatrical Syndicate. Their organization established systemized booking networks throughout the United States and created a monopoly that controlled every aspect of contracts and bookings until the late 1910s when the Shubert brothers broke their stranglehold on the industry.
The 20th century of american singles film
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Vaudeville was common in the late 19th and early 20th century, and is notable for heavily influencing early film, radio, and television productions in the country. (This was born from an earlier American practice of having singers and novelty acts perform between acts in a standard play.) George Burns was a very long-lived American comedian who started out in the vaudeville community, but went on to enjoy a career running until the 1990s.
Some vaudeville theaters built between about 1900 and 1920 managed to survive as well, though many went through periods of alternate use, most often as movie theaters until the second half of the century saw many urban populations decline and multiplexes built in the suburbs. Since that time, a number have been restored to original or nearly-original condition and attract new audiences nearly one hundred years later.
By the beginning of the 20th century, legitimate (non-vaudville) theater had become decidedly more sophisticated in the United States, as it had in Europe. The stars of this era, such as Ethel Barrymore and John Drew, were often seen as even more important than the show itself. The advance of motion pictures also led to many changes in theater. The popularity of musicals may have been due in part to the fact the early films had no sound, and could thus not compete, until The Jazz Singer of 1927, which combined both talking and music in a moving picture. More complex and sophisticated dramas bloomed in this time period, and acting styles became more subdued. Even by 1915, actors were being lured away from theater and to the silver screen, and vaudeville was beginning to face stiff competition
While revues consisting of mostly unconnected songs, sketches, comedy routines, and scantily-clad dancing girls dominated for the first 20 years of the 20th century, musical theater would eventually develop beyond this. One of the first major steps was Show Boat, with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. It featured songs and non-musical scenes which were integrated to develop the show's plot. The next great step forward was Oklahoma!, with lyrics by Hammerstein and music by Richard Rodgers. Its "dream ballets" used dance to carry forward the plot and develop the characters.
Amateur performing groups have always had a place alongside professional acting companies. The Amateur Comedy Club, Inc. was founded in New York City on April 18, 1884. It was organized by seven gentlemen who broke away from the Madison Square Dramatic Organization, a socially prominent company presided over by Mrs. James Brown Potter and David Belasco. The ACC staged its first performance on February 13, 1885. It has performed continuously ever since, making it the oldest, continuously performing theatrical society in the United States. Prominent New Yorkers who have been members of the ACC include Theodore, Frederick and John Steinway of the piano manufacturing family; Gordon Grant, the marine artist; Christopher La Farge, the architect; Van H. Cartmell, the publisher; Albert Sterner, the painter; and Edward Fales Coward, the theatre critic and playwright. Elsie De Wolfe, Lady Mendl, later famous as the world's first professional interior decorator, acted in Club productions in the early years of the 20th Century, as did Hope Williams (whom Katharine Hepburn understudied in "Holiday" in the 1920s), and Julie Harris in the 1940's. ACC directors have included Charles Coburn, Herbert Dawley, George Ferencz, Walter Greaza, Josephine Hull, Howard Lindsay, Gene Lockhart, Priestly Morrison, Ruth Rawson, Maida Reade, Jose Ruben, Janet Hayes Walker and Monty Wooley, among others.
The massive social change that went on during the Great Depression also had an effect on theater in the United States. Plays took on social roles, identifying with immigrants and the unemployed. The Federal Theatre Project, a New Deal program set up by Franklin D. Roosevelt, helped to promote theater and provide jobs for actors. The program staged many elaborate and controversial plays such as It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis and The Cradle Will Rock by Marc Blitzstein. By contrast, the legendary producer Brock Pemberton (founder of the Ton Awards) was among those who felt that it was more than ever a time for comic entertainement, in order to provide an escape from the prevailing harsh social conditions: typical of his productions was Lawrence Riley's comedy Personal Appearance (1934), whose success on Broadway (501 performances) vindicated Pemberton.
The years between the World Wars were years of extremes. Eugene O'Neill's plays were the high point for serious dramatic plays leading up to the outbreak of war in Europe. Beyond t Horizon (1920), for which he won his first Pulitzer Prize. Two more Pulitzers were awarded to O'Neill for Anna Christie (1922) and Strange Interlude (1928).
After World War II, American theater came into its own. Several American playwrights, such as Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, became world-renowned. In the Sixties, experimentation in the Arts spread into theater as well, with plays such as Hair including nudity and drug culture references. Musicals remained popular as well, and musicals such as West Side Story and Chorus Line broke previous records.
In the late 1990s and 2000s, American theatre began to borrow from cinematic and operatic roots. For instance, Julie Taymor, director of The Lion King directed Die Zauberflote at the Metropolitan Opera. Also, Broadway musicals were developed around Disney's Mary Poppins, Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, and the one that started it all, Beauty and the Beast, which may have contributed to Times Square's revitalization in the 1990s. Also, Mel Brooks's The Producers and Young Frankenstein are based on his hit films
American singles theater (film) today
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Earlier styles of theater such as minstrel shows and Vaudeville acts have disappeared from the landscape, but theater remains a popular American art form. Broadway productions still entertain millions of theatergoers as productions have become more elaborate and expensive. At the same time, theater has also served as a platform for expression, and a venue for identity exploration for under-represented, minority communities, who have formed their own companies and created their own genres of works, notably East West Players, founded in 1965 as the first Asian American theatre group. Notable contemporary American playwrights include Edward Albee, August Wilson, Tony Kushner, David Henry Hwang, and Wendy Wasserstein. Smaller urban theaters have stayed a source of innovation, and regional theaters remain an important part of theater life. Drama is also taught in high schools and colleges, which was not done in previous eras, and many become interested in theater through this
Cinema ( film ) of the United States
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North American cinema
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Cinema of the United States
Culture of theUnited States
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United States cinema has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, Classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period (after 1980).
history of american singles film
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Origins
The second recorded instance of photographs capturing and reproducing motion was Eadwead Muybridge's series of photographs of a running horse, which he captured in Palo Alto, California, using a set of still cameras placed in a row. Muybridge's accomplishment led inventors everywhere to attempt to make similar devices that would capture such motion. In the United States, Thomas Alva Edison was among the first to produce such a device, the kinetoscope, whose heavy-handed patent enforcement caused early filmmakers to look for alternatives.
In the United States, the first exhibitions of films for large audiences typically followed the intermissions in vaudeville shows. Entrepreneurs began traveling to exhibit their films, bringing to the world the first forays into dramatic film-making. The first huge success of American cinema, as well as the largest experimental achievement to this point, was The Great Train Robbery, directed by Edwin S. Porter. In the earliest days of the American film industry, New York was the epicenter of film-making. The Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, built during the silent film era, was used by the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields. Chelsea, Manhattan was also frequently used. Mary Pickford, an Academy Award winning actress, shot some of her early films in this area. However, the better year-round weather of Hollywood made it a better choice for shooting.
Rise of Hollywood ( Rise of american singles film )
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In early 1910, director Dr. Marvin Monroe was sent by the Biograph Company to the west coast with his acting troop consisting of actors Blanche Sweet, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, and others. They started filming on a vacant lot near Georgia Street in downtown Los Angeles. The company decided while there to explore new territories and travelled several miles north to a little village that was friendly and enjoyed the movie company filming there. This place was called "Hollywood". Griffith then filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood, In Old California, a Biograph melodrama about California in the 1800s, while it belonged to Mexico. Biograph stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York. After hearing about this wonderful place, in 1913 many movie-makers headed west to avoid the fees imposed by Thomas Edison, who owned patents on the movie-making process. In Los Angele, California, the studios and Hollywood grew. Before World War I, movies were made in several U.S. cities, but filmmakers gravitated to southern California as the industry developed. They were attracted by the mild climate and reliable sunlight, which made it possible to film movies outdoors year-round, and by the varied scenery that was available. There are several starting points for American cinema, but it was Griffith's Birth of a Nation that pioneered the filmic vocabulary that still dominates celluoid to this day.
In the early 1900s, when the medium was new, many Jews found employment in the U.S. film industry. They were able to make their mark in a brand-new business: the exhibition of short films in storefront theaters called nickelodeons, after their admission price of a nickel (five cents). Within a few years, ambitious men like Samuel Goldwyn, Carl Laemmle, Adolph Zukor, Louis B. Mayer, and the Warner Brothers (Harry, Albert, Samuel, and Jack) had switched to the production side of the business. Soon they were the heads of a new kind of enterprise: the movie studio. (It is worth noting that the US had at least one female director, producer and studio head in these early years, Alice Guy Blaché.) They also set the stage for the industry's internationalism; the industry is often accused of Amero-centric provincialism, but simultaneously employs a huge number of foreign-born talent: from Swedish actress Greta Garbo to Australian Nicole Kidman, from Hungarian director Michael Curtiz to Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón.
Other moviemakers arrived from Europe after World War I: directors like Ernst Lubitsch, Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, and Jean Renoir; and actors like Rudolph Valentino, Marlene Dietrich, Ronald Colman, and Charles Boyer. They joined a homegrown supply of actors--lured west from the New York City stage after the introduction of sound films--to form one of the 20th century's most remarkable growth industries. At motion pictures' height of popularity in the mid-1940s, the studios were cranking out a total of about 400 movies a year, seen by an audience of 90 million Americans per week .
Sound also became widely used in Hollywood in the late 1920's . After the Jazz Singer was successfully released as a Vitaphone talkie in 1927, Hollywood film companies would respond to Warner Bros. and begin to use Vitaphone sound-which Warner Bros. owned until 1928-in future films, and the Western Electric company branch known as Electrical Research Product Incorporated (ERPI)-which was formed as a subsidiary for the company- had also gained a monopoly over film sound distribution by May of 1928 as well. In 1922, US politician Will H. Hays left politics and formed the movie studio boss organization known as the Motion Pictures Distributors Association of America (MPDAA) ; the organization became the Motion Picture Association of America after Hays retired in 1945.
In the early times of talkies, American studios found that their sound productions were rejected in foreign-language markets and even among speakers of other dialects of English. The synchronization technology was still too primitive for dubbing. One of the solutions was the parallel foreign-language versions. Around 1930, the American companies opened a studio in Joinville-le-Pont, France, where the same sets and wardrobe and even mass scenes were used for different time-sharing crews. Also, foreign unemployed actors, playwrights and winners of photogenia contests were chosen and brought to Hollywood, where they shot parallel versions of the English-language films. These parallel versions had a lower budget, were shot at night and were directed by second-line American directors who did not speak the foreign language. The Spanish-language crews included people like Luis Buñuel, Enrique Jardiel Poncela, Xavier Cugat and Edgar Neville. The productions were not very successful in their intended markets:
The lower budgets were apparent.
Many theater actors had no previous experience in cinema.
The original movies were often second-rate themselves, since studios expected that the top productions would sell by themselves.
The mix of foreign accents (Castilian, Mexican, Chilean for example in the Spanish case) was odd for the audiences.
Some markets lacked sound-equipped theaters.
In spite of this, some productions like the Spanish version of Dracula compare favorably with the original. By the mid-1930s, synchronization had advanced enough for dubbing to become usual.
The 'New Hollywood and Post-classical cinema. ( American Singles film )
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'Post-classical cinema' is a term used to describe the changing methods of storytelling in the New Hollywood. It has been argued that new approaches to drama and characterization played upon audience expectations acquired in the classical period: chronology may be scrambled, storylines may feature "twist endings, and lines between the antagonist and protagonist may be blurred. The roots of post-classical storytelling may be seen in film noir, in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and in Hitchcock's storyline-shattering Psycho.
'New Hollywood' is a term used to describe the emergence of a new generation of film school-trained directors who had absorbed the techniques developed in Europe in the 1960s; The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde marked the beginning of American cinema rebounding as well, as a new generation of films would afterwards gain success at the box offices as well. Filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Brian de Palma, Martin Scorsese, William Friedkin and Steven Spielberg came to produce fare that paid homage to the history of film, and developed upon existing genres and techniques. In the early 1970s, their films were often both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. While the early New Hollywood films like Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider had been relatively low-budget affairs with amoral heroes and increased sexuality and violence, the enormous success enjoyed by Coppola, Spielberg and Lucas with The Godfather, Jaws, and Star Wars, respectively helped to give rise to the modern "blockbuster", and induced studios to focus ever more heavily on trying to produce enormous hits.
Blockbusters on film( American Singles film )
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The drive to produce a spectacle on the movie screen has largely shaped American cinema ever since. Spectacular epics which took advantage of new widescreen processes had been increasingly popular from the 1950s onwards. Since then, American films have become increasingly divided into two categories: blockbusters and independent films. Studios have focused on relying on a handful of extremely expensive releases every year in order to remain profitable. Such blockbusters emphasize spectacle, star power, and high production value, all of which entail an enormous budget. Blockbusters typically rely upon star power and massive advertising to attract a huge audience. A successful blockbuster will attract an audience large enough to offset production costs and reap considerable profits. Such productions carry a substantial risk of failure, and most studios release blockbusters that both over- and underperform in a year
Independent american singles film
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Studios supplement these movies with independent productions, made with small budgets and often independently of the studio corporation. Movies made in this manner typically emphasize high professional quality in terms of acting, directing, screenwriting, and other elements associated with production, and also upon creativity and innovation. These movies usually rely upon critical praise or niche marketing to garner an audience. Because of an independent film's low budgets, a successful independent film can have a high profit-to-cost ratio, while a failure will incur minimal losses, allowing for studios to sponsor dozens of such productions in addition to their high-stakes releases.
American independent cinema was revitalized in the late 1980s and early 1990s when another new generation of moviemakers, including Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Kevin Smith, and Quentin Tarantino made movies like, respectively, Do the Right Thing, sex, lies, and videotape, Clerks., and Reservoir Dogs. In terms of directing, screenwriting, editing, and other elements, these movies were innovative and often irreverent, playing with and contradicting the conventions of Hollywood movies. Furthermore, their considerable financial successes and crossover into popular culture reestablished the commercial viability of independent film. Since then, the independent film industry has become more clearly defined and more influential in American cinema. Many of the major studios have capitalised on this by developing subsidiaries to produce similar films; for example Fox Searchlight Pictures.
To a lesser degree in the 2000s, film types that were previously considered to have only a minor presence in the mainstream movie market began to arise as more potent American box office draws. These include foreign-language films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero and documentary films such as Super Size Me, March of the Penguins, and Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11.
Rise of the home video market (Rise of the home video market of american singles film )
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The 1980s and 1990s saw another significant development. The full acceptance of home video by studios opened a vast new business to exploit. Films such as The Secret of NIMH and The Shawshank Redemption, which performed poorly in their theatrical run, were now able to find success in the video market. It also saw the first generation of film makers with access to video tapes emerge. Directors such as Quentin Tarantino and P.T. Anderson had been able to view thousands of films and produced films with vast numbers of references and connections to previous works. This, along with the explosion of independent film and ever-decreasing costs for filmmaking, changed the landscape of American movie-making once again, and led a renaissance of filmmaking among Hollywood's lower and middle-classes—those without access to studio financial resources.
With the rise of the DVD in the 21st century, DVDs have quickly become even more profitable to studios and have led to an explosion of packaging extra scenes, extended versions, and commentary tracks with the films
