HUMA 2740

Lecture 6

D.W. Griffith

- Directed 500 films between 1908 and 1913 for the Biograph
Company (a member of the MPPC)
- These film were 10 to 20 minutes in length (silent films)
- Developed forms of film editing which are still used today
- Began to make feature films in 1913 (1 hour or longer in length
- Left MPPC because of dispute to make feature films
- Further development of editing
- Was a failed actor so tried filmmaking to make a living and was very
good at it
- The Birth of a Nation – racism and widely controversial film
- He knew who his audience was
A Corner in Wheat (D.W. Griffith for Biograph Company)

- Deals with a financial scandal

- Shows interconnection between farmer (city poor) and a wealthy
business man who corners wheat market and makes life miserable
- Film was sympathetic to the plight of workers (e.g. farmers)
- Frame composition – trying to use tableau from other visual arts,
deliberately borrowing from compositional art (from paintings)
- Moral film (plight of farmer)
Features of the Movie Business – 1910-1920

- Production organized around the shooting script (planning)

- Production organized around stars and genres (product
differentiation)
 - New forms of movie exhibition are developed – the Movie Palace
(replaced Nickelodeons – seating 3000-4000 people, instead of a
single piano player, had whole orchestras)
o Developed as a result of a want/need for feature films
(introduced by Griffiths)
o Developed as a result of increased cost so cost passed onto
the consumers
o Began to look like opera houses (boxes for rich people)
- Just before WW1, feature films became more prominent and many
movie palaces
Short films still exist but feature films more profitable

- National TV broadcasting systems are owned

- Form of ownership is outcome of state policy
- Canada’s broadcasting system emerged between two diametrically
opposed systems: the British public broadcasting system and the
American private broadcasting system
- In public service model, purpose of TV broadcasting primarily to
serve the public interest by informing, educating, and enlightening
citizens
- TV broadcasting serves the public good not by giving citizens the TV
shows they want but the kinds of the TV shows they need
- Criticized as being an elitist state instrument for the nationalist
integration and homogenization of citizens
- Commercial model treats TV as a for-profit industry
- Communications Act of 1934 – American public airwaves treated as a
capitalist venture
- First priority is to make a profit by keeping production costs low and
maximizing audience share
- Assumes that if an identifiable audience wants a certain type of show,
then the TV industry will provide it
- US private system dominant TV model is most countries
- In US and Cda, find capitalist media corporations and publicly owned
media corps
- Cda’s TV system is a single system because it exhibits a mix of public
and private ownership and fusion of public and private interests in
state policy and regulation