"42nd Street" -1933

 42^nd Street is one of the first backstage musical

Conventions

·         Alot of “lively” music is used in the introduction

·         Singing

·         Happy music within the performances

·         Costumes

·         Stage girls

·         Dancing

·         Story telling within the performance

Musicals

Musicals

·         Musicals have gone up and down in popularity in time.

·         1927 – 1931 musicals were very popular

·         In 1931 the popularity of musicals started to decline.

·         1933 a film came along called "42nd street", made by Busby Burkey??

·         MGM was a very famous studio for producing musicals

·         60’s did see some success of musicals, such as Mary Poppins, Sound of Music, and Westside Story etc

·         Grease was one of the main musicals from the 1970’s

·         Disney kept the genre of musical “alive” but declined in the 1990’s

·         Mama Mia was produced in 2008 and is the one of the most successful musical films of all time

The Musical Genre

·         Musicals are centred on combinations of music, dance, song or choreography.

·         The musical was created following the technical innovation of synchronizing live music and film

·         At first many musical were “Revues” – programs of numbers with little or no narrative link between each other

·         Hollywood Musicals tend to celebrate typically American ideals – a search for love, success, wealth and popularity

·         We are reminded over and over in Musicals that this world makes it possible for people at any time and in any place to express themselves through songs and dancing

Musical Conventions

·         The range of the subjects in musicals makes it difficult to define very specific iconography

·         But there iconographical settings e.g., dressing rooms, studios, nightclubs and dance floors

·         We can also find iconographical costumes e.g. Fred Astaire’s top hat and John Travoltas white suit, the umbrella in “singing in the rain”

Two typical plot patterns of the musical genre emerged during the 1930s:

·         The Backstage Musical – The narrative centres on singers and dancers who perform for an audience within the film

Most famous iconographic stars are Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire

·         The Straight Musical – where people may sing and dance in situations of everyday life

·         Often romantic comedies where characters express their fears, desires and joys while singing.

Technical Aspects

Musicals are usually brightly lit to:

·         Highlight the colourful costumes and settings – happy?

·         Keep the dancing clearly visible

The camera is usually high mobile to show off patterns formed by the dancers. Crane shots are commonly used.

Studio History

The Way Studios Worked

·         Golden age - companies did everything they filmed and distributed to their cinemas and collect all the profit.

·         Later on that becomes very expensive.

·         1950s ' couldn’t afford to this anymore, began to look for a new model.

·         Companies started to break up, cinemas was the first thing to break up.

·         The big studios worked as distributers and funded the films, then sold their films to cinemas

Western Films

Stagecoach & Unforgiven

Stagecoach 1939

Unforgiven 1992

Dominant Conventions of Science Fiction Films

Conventions are elements that allow us to recognise a film as being a part of a genre, and help us to know what to expect from a film.

Settings

• Space - e.g Star Wars and Star Trek
• Unknown planets
• Future Earth

Iconography

• spaceships
• space suits
• floating cars
• aliens
• time machines
• uniform
• robots

Style

• Futuristic
• advance technology

Narrative

• Future settings

Range of characters and relationships

• Good Vs Bad
• Hero
• Spaceman
• Human Vs Nature/technology

Paramount Pictures

Basic Profile
Paramount Pictures is an American film production and distribution company, founded in 1912 by W.W. Hodkinson. It is Americas oldest exsisting film studio aswell as one of the top-grossing movie studios. Headquaters are located in Hollywood, California, United States.

History
1910s ;

• Paramount began its creation in May 1912. Adolph Zukor, who had invested in Nickelodeons, noticed that the majority of movies appealed to working-class immigrants. With Partners Daniel Frohman and Charles Frohman, he planned to offer films that would appeal to the middle class by featuring the leading theatrical players of the time, leading to the slogan "Famous Players in Famous Plays". By 1913, they had completed five films and Zukor was on his way to success. That same year, another aspiring producer, Jesse L. Lasky, opened his Lasky Feature show Company.
• As Famous Players and Lasky were privately owned Paramount was a corporation so the other two companies were merged into Paramount. Paramount soon dominated the business.

1920s ;

• Zukor believed in stars, so he signed and developed many leading early stars such as,  Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, and Wallace Reid. Giving Paramount a leading position.

1930's ;

• Zukor shed most of his early partners, including the Frohman brothers, Hodkinson and Lasky, who was blamed for the near collapse of Paramount during the depression years. in 1935 Paramount became bankrupt, leading to Zukor reorganizing the company as Paramount Pictures, Inc. and was able to successfully bring the studio out of bankruptcy.
• Paramount created successful cartoon characters such as Betty Boop and Popeye the sailor. After the Production Code was enforced, Betty Boops character popularity declined as she was forced to have a more "tamed" personality and wear a longer skirt.
• The Paramount logo was designed by the founder in 1914

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros, also known as Warner Brothers is an American Producer of film and television entertainment, which was founded in 1918
After the success off "The Jazz Singer", it followed with the success of "The Singing Fool", becoming one of the top studios in Hollywood