The Filmmaking Process In Hollywood

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In today’s modern society, watching a film which satisfies people both visually and audibly is part of everyday entertainment. Being one of many entertainments which can be approached easily, film provides variety of genres which can satisfy various people with different choices. Moreover, films are created in different studios of different countries with variety of languages. However, an oligopoly of Hollywood studios, also known as ‘the Majors’, has dominated world cinema for more than nine decades and still does today (Silver, 2007). During the ninety years, a lot have changed in the film industry including development of equipments, introduction of colours, and most significantly, introduction of sound. Sound was not always synchronized with moving images nor was it always heard by audiences during the screening. The technological changes and development allowed moving images to be seen and to be heard as we experience today. In order to keep up with the transition from silent era to talkie era, Hollywood naturally went through changes in their filmmaking process and shaped various genres that exist today. This essay will, therefore, examine how introduction of sound has affected the filmmaking process in Hollywood, how sound has had an impact in different genres of films, and show that transition to sound film did cause apparent changes in process of filmmaking but did not result in the creation of a new film genre in Hollywood.
FILMMAKING PROCESSES
It is widely said that the introduction of sound in the 1920s had an impact on Hollywood’s filmmaking practices as the film industry tried to incorporate new technologies and filmmaking practices after the huge success of first sound film, The Jazz Singer (Crosland, 1927). Howev...

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...triarchy power started to be destroyed due to Great Depression. Using this as a chance, Hollywood used sexual difference to play with higher classes and social values. In It Happened One Night, characters talked non-stop without a pause and the narrative of the film flew very quickly. This allowed audiences to stay awake and did not give them time to be bored. Moreover, the film’s portrayal of role of women, Great Depression and class stratification entertained the audiences. Since then, screwball comedy became one of the most popular film genres in the film industry until 1943 when its fame started to burn down. However, the genre’s certain elements still can be seen in today’s contemporary films such as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (Petrie, 2003) which include battle of sexes, and Two Weeks Notice (Lawrence, 2002) which include contrast between different classes.

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