As the film industry was establishing itself at the start of the twentieth century, trade associations played a pivotal role in the emergence of the studio system. These producer-distributor trade associations were forums for internal and external conflicts, as well as the true sources of influence and power in early Hollywood. In The Hollywood Trust: Trade Associations and the Rise of the Studio System, Kia Afra provides a detailed account of three successive trade organizations from 1915 to 1928. By examining the Motion Picture Board of Trade, the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry (NAMPI), and the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), Afra outlines the relationships of power in Hollywood’s early years, asking questions such as: How and why did the studio system come about, and what were the industrial and institutional forces that impacted Hollywood’s development? In order to answer these crucial questions, The Hollywood Trust explores the role played by film industry trade associations in navigating important issues facing the burgeoning studio system, including censorship, public relations, trade practices, government regulation, film distribution, labor conflicts, taxes and tariffs, and exhibitor opposition. A vital look at an under-reported aspect of the studio system, this volume fills a gap in the history of the American film industry. As such The Hollywood Trust will be of particular interest to scholars of film history, as well as those concerned with cultural history and the political economics of entertainment.

"Peter Decherney tells the story of Hollywood, from its nineteenth-century origins to the emergence of internet media empires. Using well-known movies, stars, and directors, the book shows that the elements we take to be a natural part of the Hollywood experience--stars, genre-driven storytelling, blockbuster franchises, etc.--are the product of cultural, political, and commercial forces"--

At the beginning of the 21st century, the US film industry had overtaken aeronautics and car industries to become one of the highest exporters of American products. Mark Wheeler's important new book provides both a political history of Hollywood and a reflection on the relationship between cinema and politics in America, from 1900 to the present day. Wheeler considers the interplay between the movies studios, state and national government and cultural policy and legislation, with case studies of the censorship that followed in the wake of the Hays Code 1930 and the investigations of the House Committee of Un-American Activities (HUAC) in the 1950s that led to the notorious blacklisting of alleged or known Communist sympathisers. His history of political constituencies within Hollywood ranges from the conservative right to the liberal and the communist left, from trades unionists to movie moguls. The book concludes with a look at the politics of show business, addressing links between Hollywood and political activism, films such as 'The Candidate' and 'Bulworth' that have themselves engaged with the political process, and considering the irony that despite the fact that Hollywood is perceived as a bastion of liberalism the two most famous actors-turned-politicians have been Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

This illuminating study charts the changing role of the Hollywood film sequel over the past century. Considering a range of sequels in their industrial, historical and aesthetic contexts, from The Son of a Sheik (1926) to Toy Story 3 (2010), this book provides a comprehensive history of this critically-neglected yet commercially-dominant art form.

What would you do if alligators were loose in your office? Or if your place of business changed 80 times during a four month period? What if two of your key employees were infant twins? Or you were asked to manage 130 people who were hired yesterday? Tom Reilly has faced these obstacles and thousands more in his three-decade career managing major motion pictures. He’s led more than 100,000 employees and been responsible for overseeing over two billion dollars in pro-rated production budgets and learned that successful management isn’t about what you want; the question is, what do you NEED? Often filming at live locations, Reilly was forced to adopt a unique set of strategies to accommodate for extreme workplace conditions and the challenge of leading and managing big budget projects, a revolving-door workforce of technicians, and actors such as Al Pacino, Robert de Niro, Tom Hanks, Charlize Theron, Sean Connery, and Harrison Ford. In The Hollywood MBA, Reilly explores the ten key strategies he utilized to manage big crews, big budgets, and big personalities on major motion pictures, and shows us how these strategies can be leveraged in any business for success. With an eye for making small adjustments to management strategy that produce big results, Reilly utilizes the narrative backdrop of the film set as an extreme case study in modern management identifying proven, easy-to-implement, and often counter intuitive practices that will increase engagement, team cohesion, efficiency, creativity, quality, and the bottom line in any industry.

Hollywood in the years between 1929 and 1948 was a town of moviemaking empires. The great studios were estates of talent: sprawling, dense, diverse. It was the Golden Age of the Movies, and each studio made its distinctive contribution. But how did the studios, "growing up" in the same time and place, develop so differently? What combinations of talents and temperaments gave them their signature styles? These are the questions Ethan Mordden answers, with breezy erudition and irrepressible enthusiasm, in this fascinating and wonderfully readable book. Mordden illuminates how the style of each studio was primarily dictated by the personality, philosophy, and attitudes of its presiding mogul—and how all these factors affected the work and careers of individual actors, directors, writers, and technicians, and the success of the studio in general.

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. For the first half of the twentieth century, no American industry boasted a more motley and prolific trade press than the movie business—a cutthroat landscape that set the stage for battle by ink. In 1930, Martin Quigley, publisher of Exhibitors Herald, conspired with Hollywood studios to eliminate all competing trade papers, yet this attempt and each one thereafter collapsed. Exploring the communities of exhibitors and creative workers that constituted key subscribers, Ink-Stained Hollywood tells the story of how a heterogeneous trade press triumphed by appealing to the foundational aspects of industry culture—taste, vanity, partisanship, and exclusivity. In captivating detail, Eric Hoyt chronicles the histories of well-known trade papers (Variety, Motion Picture Herald) alongside important yet forgotten publications (Film Spectator, Film Mercury, and Camera!), and challenges the canon of film periodicals, offering new interpretative frameworks for understanding print journalism’s relationship with the motion picture industry and its continued impact on creative industries today.