How Has Hollywood Movies Changed

The way movies are financed have changed from the Golden Age. According to Barsham and Monahan Hollywood was divided into four kind of film productions companies: majors, minors, “B” studios, and independent producers. The five major studios- Paramount, MGM, Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox and RKO were all integrated companies that followed a structured hierarchy in which corporate officers and a board of directors. They were able to obtain financing from wealthy individuals like Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney or Joseph Kennedy. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney was a philanthropist and multi-millionaire while Joseph Kennedy was a business man that went on to be a congressman and was the Patriarch of the Kennedy family. Financial institutions like Chase

Selznick and Walt Disney. These producers owned their own studios and were able to release either through their own studios but released pictures through their own distribution companies. Walt Disney produced his classic animated films like Pinocchio (1940) at the Walt Disney studios and released them through his own distribution company Buena Vista Productions. David Selznick left MGM in 1936 to establish his own international film company. In 1940 three of his films Gone With The Wind -Victor Fleming (1939), Rebecca – Alfred Hitchcock (1940), and Intermezzo -Gregory Ratoff (1939). Combined to earn $10 million in net profit, more than all the Major Studios films during the same period. The independent system during the 1930s and 1940s developed a package system in which allowed them to coexist with the Major Studios. The package system was controlled by producers not affiliated with the studio system. The independent producers was involved with every aspect of the film from the story, director and actors in order for them to produce high quality films. Furthermore producers may have also chosen to be involved in the creative responsibilities from development, revising the screenplays, to assembling the key members of the production team and supervising the final production to include editing, marketing and