Blockbuster

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Blockbuster

• FS344
• American Film since 1969

2
Announcements

• We need FS student volunteers
• For Laurier Day (Fri Nov 5)
• high schoolers and their parents
• be able to speak about FS at WLU
• 2 students per time slot
• 945-1030 1030-1130 1130-1230
• GenX Video
• one block north of Erb one block east of King
• Looking for cinephiles to work part-time
• Cover letter including FS courses you have taken
  and your specific film interests as well as a CV

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Term Test

• Next Monday
• Term Test (1030-1130)
• BRING pencils eraser student card
• You are responsible for the readings, lectures,
  and films up to and including this week (week 6)
• Lecture notes are on the web www.wlu.ca/wwweng/f
  aculty/pgates
• Format 50 marks
• 25 multiple choice on the lectures
• 10 multiple choice on the course films
• 15 true/false on the readings

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Essay Proposal (due in 2 weeks Nov 3)

• You need to do research and plan your topic
• Spend a day in the library looking at books and
  articles
• Proposal consists of 2 parts
• 1. 500 word proposal
• Summary of what you are planning to argue in your
  essay
• You need to state your thesis (main argument) and
  main points
• 2. Annotated bibliography
• A list of at least 6 sources (books or articles
  from library)
• on-line sources and reviews dont count towards
  those 6 sources
• Sources must be listed in MLA style (see web or
  handout)
• THEN you must offer2-3 sentences on why that
  source is being used
• Ie. what points does that source support or
  inform
• All double-spaced and must include at top title
  of paper, student name and number, professors
  name and course number
• Proposal 5 of final mark
• Proposals will not be accepted ONE week past
  deadline
• Late penalties for proposal and paper are 2 marks
  a day
• Topics on the web

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Introduction

• Last Week
• Commercial Auteurs
• Spielberg and Cameron
• This Week
• Birth of the Blockbuster
• End of the Renaissance
• Beginning of an increasingly commercial
  corporate Hwood

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Roadshowing (Bordwell Thompsons Film History)

• In 50s and 60s,
• people less inclined to go see films unless a
  special event
• big-budget films played longer runs fewer films
  needed
• no B pictures and fewer A films so more money
  spent on each film
• often went into attractions like widescreen and
  colour
• Roadshowing (limited release)
• a film that played in only one theatre per market
• with only 2 or 3 showings a day
• higher-priced seats avail in advance helped make
  up for fewer screenings
• actually an old technique from silent days of
  film
• To refine sales and ad approaches
• To differentiate film from tv and attract
  audiences
• some successful others not
• move to target audiences even within roadshows
  ethnic, youth
• During limited release built up a rep as a
  must-see event

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Big events and Big flops

• Many big releases lost money
• Execs proved slow to understand that a big
  picture was no longer a sure thing by 60s
• big spectacle epics
• ie. high box-office intake but higher production
  costs
• Cleopatra (1963),The Fall of the Roman Empire
  (1964), The Battle of Britain (1969)
• Musicals also no longer guarantee to be popular
• Sound of Music (1965) big hit
• Doctor Doolittle (1967), Star! (1968), and Paint
  your Wagon (1969) were expensive flops
• Bright spots were the low budget niche films
• Target/differentiated audience
• Like youth films Butch Cassidy, Easy Rider, The
  Graduate, etc
• But the 1970s saw a shift away from Renaissance
  film

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Big Hits of the 70s

• Films that saved the industry
• 1970 and 1971s top-grossing films were
• Love Story MASH Patton
• The French Connection Fiddler on the Roof
• made 25-50m each in box-office returns to their
  studios
• did well but nothing compared to what would come
• 1972 The Godfather 81m
• 1973 The Exorcist 84m
• American Graffiti 55m
• 1975 Jaws 130m
• 1976 Rocky 56m
• 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind 82m
• Saturday Night Fever 74m
• Star Wars 190m in US rentals (250m worldwide)
• Studios were saved from financial crisis

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End of Renaissance Return of Classical

• 1970s
• crisis serious discontent produced 2 effects
• Progressive films
• construct new codes, style, and attitudes
• Ie. youth, counter-culture, art films
• Regressive films
• secure traditional social models revived
• Ie. genre films, Classical films etc
• 70s disaster films metaphor for the
  immorality of 60s
• regressive response to Renaissance
• 1970s the 2 forms battle it out

• But by late 70s
• return to classical-style film
• Genre film, blockbuster
• Realist narrs, structures, characs, romance
• Aftermath of political scandal
• Desire for a return to innocence
• Films defined by nostalgia
• Denial of historical events
• Comic-book heroes
• Childhood innocence
• Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Back the Future, Close Encounters
• 1980s nostalgia craze for 50s
• 1980s a utopia from future

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Buy-outs and Mergers

• Late 1960s, Hollywood suffering
• Loss of audience massive failure of big epics
• Led to buy-outs and mergers
• RKO by the General Tire and Rubber Corporation
  1955
• Universal by MCA 1962
• Paramount by Gulf and Western Industries 1966
• United Artists by Transamerica Corporation in
  1967
• Warner Bros. by Kinney National Services 1969
• MGM by the Las Vegas financier Kirk Kerkorian
  1970
• Disney only studio-era survivor in hands of
  veteran management
• Producer/distributor organizations - Orion and
  Tri-Star - abounded
• Conglomeration and inflation occurred 1972-79
• Average cost increased by more than 500
• Unprecedented popularity of a few films produced
  enormous financial profits
• The major companies investing in only 5 or 6
  films a year

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Changes

• Estab Hwood studios no longer directly controlled
  prod
• Conglomerate investment corps were buying up
  studio properties
• Shift from Hwood Renaissance to New Hollywood
• Production, filming, and financing increasingly
• in the hands of independent studios, producers,
  and/or agents
• Creative artists agency (Michael Ovitz)
  packager of talent
• All the elements of a film were brought together
  and packaged
• The properties of original screenplay, novel,
  or stage play were combined with proven stars,
  directors, marketing strategies
• Cheaper cost of on-location filming encouraged
  more location shoots or in rented production
  facilities
• Faster film stock, lightweight equipment, and
  influence of cinema vérité (documentary French
  New Wave)

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Case Study

• 1970s, changes
• In the function of filmmakers
• From distinct roles as director, actor, producer
• To actor-producers, director-producers,
  writer-producers, actor-writers
• Avildsens Rocky (1976)
• featured rags-to-riches actor and first-time
  scriptwriter (Stallone)
• Changes in technology too
• Rocky, 1st Hollywood feature to use Steadicam
  (invented by Garrett Brown)
• Hand-held camera that produced fluid, unjerky
  motion shots

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Birth of the Blockbuster

• Change in the industry with Jaws
• Hollywoods economic crises in 1950s and 1960s
• Eased with the emergence in the 70s of summer
  blockbusters
• Average ticket by 1978 2.50
• Average film budget by 1978 was 5m
• Increasing to 11 million by 1980
• Hollywoods real renaissance
• Financial rebirth in the 1970s
• With the perfection of traditional genres
• With bigger, blockbuster dimensions
• Studios would invest heavily in only handful of
  bankrolled films
• fewer movies but bigger movies
• Jaws started it all!

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Jaws (1975)

• Directed by Steven Spielberg
• Starring
• Roy Scheider
• Robert Shaw
• Richard Dreyfuss
• Oct 1974
• Spielberg finished making
• but had lost control of film
• Cost12 million
• 300 original budget
• 4 x the average
• Shooting schedule from 55 days to 159
• Still, Jaws wasnt a big-budget movie

• Cleopatra had nearly bankrupted C20th Fox in
  1963 with 42m budget
• Adjusted for inflation Cleopatra cost 200m,
  Spartacus 90m,
• Lawrence of Arabia 70m
• Jaws would cost 40 m
• nearly 15m less than average prod costs today

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Clearance and Jaws

• Now films open in 100s of theatres at the same
  time
• Trend for saturation release set with The
  Godfather (1972)
• Pre-1970s roadshowing still the norm
• play for 3 months in one location
• then slowly moved into other cities then to 2nd
  and 3rd run
• 1st run theatre had a monopoly in its zone
• The Godfather
• opened in 5 then moved to 316 in the next week
• The studio was able to challenge the theatres
  zone policy
• before long The Godfather was taking 1m a day
• setting box-office records
• Jaws opened in 465 theaters
• and in 78 days dethroned The Godfather for
  box-office glory

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Marketing Summer

• For years summer was
• considered the off-season for the industry
• Then, 3 movies all released in summer
• Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
• Easy Rider (1969)
• American Graffiti (1973)
• Jaws was positioned to capitalize on this trend
• Now, movies released between Memorial Day and
  Labour Day
• nearly 40 of the annual box-office revenue

• Before 1975,
• studios did not advertise their movies on network
  TV
• Columbia Pictures bought 42 prime-time TV spots
  for Breakout
• Despite advertising, earned only 3.5m
• Universal saturated the networks during primetime
  with 30-second trailers for Jaws
• It worked surpassed the 100m mark and broke the
  previous records

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Blockbusters

• Blockbuster phenomenon begun with Jaws
• Industry youth marketlegacy of Star Wars
• Hollywood producers/studios aim at
• one large event film per year
• Everyone talking about everyone has to see it
• From niche audience to mass audience
• Take fortunes to produce but promises bigger
  payoffs
• Features of blockbusters
• Cost lots of money
• Reliance/exploitation of spectacular f/x tech
• Heavily promoted and advertised
• early and saturation marketing
• Opens simultaneously in many cinemas
• Presold to audiences
• adaptations, video games, sequels, remakes, comic
  book
• Aimed at largest possible audience

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Auteurs and Blockbusters?

• Auteur
• Personal signature on each film
• Similar themes and stylistics across all films
• 1970s Hollywood a directors cinema
• Part of the new package
• 1980s power back w/ exec producers
• 2 reasons
• directors out of control brought an end to the
  freedom
• also the predominance of the blockbuster
• But in the 1980s
• A big name still could guarantee an audience
• just less power than they had in the 1970s
• 1 or 2 commercial successes, then more personal
  projects
• The directors who retain real power?

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Auteurs in New Hollywood

• Directors become
• producers, executive producers, studio owners
• Success for the auteur was 1 of 2 paths
• To produce modest pictures that cost little but
  return a lot
• To produce mass-market mainstream that return a
  lot
• Failure
• Coppolas own studio (1980) Zoetrope Studios
• Success
• Lucas with prod co and new technologies
• Spielberg with prod co Amblin Ent DreamWorks
• The auteur also important in contemporary film
• The Directors Cut
• Return to the original vision freed from
  industrial pressures?
• Or a marketing ploy? Or both?
• Auteurism once an escape from commercialism
• Now about achieving a status that sells films