The 90s

By 1992, Americans spend $12 billion to buy or rent video tapes, compared to just $4.9 billion on box office ticket sales 76 percent of homes have VCRs

The 90s
Technical Innovation
Non-linear editing
Lost in Yonkers, 1993, edited entirely on an Avid Media Composer

Avid vs Steenbeck

The 90s
Technical Innovation
CGI grows up
Morphing in T2 George Lucas Industrial Light & Magic creates CGI dinosaurs for Jurassic Park

The 90s
Technical Innovation Dolby Stereo Digital
Batman Returns, 1992 DTS Digital Sound
Jurassic Park, 1993

The 90s
Technical Innovation & The Rise of Animation
Pixar
All CGI with shading and texture - 1995

Disney
Celebrity voices - 1994

The 90s
1997 - DVDs! 1998 - HDTV broadcasts begin to appear 1999 - TiVo & DVR

The 90s
By 1999, the average cost of a Hollywood movie was $53 million Average cost of marketing was $25 million A movie that made $100 million could conceivably be a financial bomb Obsessive reporting of openings and grosses

The 90s
Number of releases cut Costs cut Studios take on production partners or co-financiers Less $$ for studio as foreign rights are often handled by partner Costs cut except for actors and special effects

The 90s
Perk epidemic
Demi (Gimme) Moore and her support staff to promote $50 million flop, The Scarlet Letter, included a personal assistant, cook, makeup artist, hairdresser, trainer and three nannies at a cost of $877,000 Two jets and two helicopters to get her on the David Letterman Show for G.I.Jane Julia Roberts and her private plane on standby during Mary Reilly at a cost of $41k a month for three months Bruce Willis and Kevin Costner bringing in SFX team to enhance their hairline

The 90s
Titanic, 1997
Costliest film of all time (about $200 million) until probably Avatar? First cut was 3 hours Re-built the Titanic in Mexico Ship faced the wrong way so it was flipped James Cameron forfeited his $8 million salary when studio became concerned about the budget Own company, Digital Domain provided SFX including CGI extras

The 90s
Internationalization of industry continues
Product has to do well in foreign markets Verbal comedy and elaborate plots do not translate although slapstick comedy makes the leap Everyone wants to go Hollywood

Who Owns What

The 90s
Repercussions
Films for critical success or prestige disappear Everything is designed to make $$ Critical success left to art house studios like New Line, Miramax, October, Lions Gate, etc. who were often absorbed by larger mainstream studios

The 90s
Of all the major studios, only Disney remained a freestanding entity Became its own multi-national corporation

The 90s
Miramax & Independent film
Bob & Harvey Weinstein Ran like an old-fashioned studio Re-cut foreign films for American sensibilities Took risks with unproven directors and unconventional material Pioneered heavy advertising Oscar campaigns

The 90s
The Good:
sex, lies & videotape, 1989 kicked off the indie boom Steven Soderbergh wrote it in 8 days Bought by Miramax at Sundance, cost $1.2 million & made $25 million Established commercial viability of indie films Palme dOr at Cannes

The 90s
The Good:
Pulp Fiction, 1994 Quentin Tarantinos third film as a director (his first film is lost and only survives in fragments) Never finished high school Video store clerk Palme dOr at Cannes Best Screenplay Oscar

The 90s
The Good:
Shakespeare in Love The English Patient Good Will Hunting Clerks Sling Blade Il Postino Life is Beautiful The Crying Game Chicago Scream & Halloween franchises

Miramax Box Office

The 90s
The Bad:
Gangs of New York All the Pretty Horses Captain Corellis Mandolin The Shipping News Jersey Girl Duplex Reindeer Games Cold Mountain Kate & Leopold

The 90s
Art films can cost a lot of money too

The English Patient - $35 million & Shakespeare in Love - $26 Million

The 90s
The Indies and Niche Cinema
Crossover of indie directors to mainstream - some did (Coen Brothers, Soderbergh, Tarantino) and some did not (Jim Jarmusch, Alison Anders, Nancy Savoca) and some work both sides

The 90s
The Indies and Niche Cinema
African American
Julie Dash, Leslie Harris, John Singleton

Women
Nancy Savoca, Allison Anders, Amy Heckerling, Penelope Spheeris

Queer
Rose Troche, Todd Haynes, Gregg Araki, Jennie Livingston

The 90s
Miramax sold to Disney in 1993 for $80 million New Line sold to Time Warner, etc., etc. Studios also open their own independent producing arms - Fox Searchlight, Sony Classics

The 90s
Sundance Film Festival
Filmmakers: Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, Edward Burns and Jim Jarmusch Films: The Blair Witch Project, Reservoir Dogs, Little Miss Sunshine, El Mariachi, Clerks, Thank You for Smoking, sex, lies, and videotape, The Brothers McMullen, Napoleon Dynamite Independent fest started in 1979 is now an arm of Hollywood machine

The 90s
After fights over such films as Fahrenheit 9/11 and Dogma, The Weinsteins split from Disney in 2005 to found The Weinstein Company

The 90s
In 2009, Disney cut staff & reduced releases to 3 a year Miramax officially died in January, 2010 after 31 years

The 90s
The Weinstein Company
After lots of venture capital $$ and mediocre box office, company was restructured in 2009 wiping out a $450 million debt

The 90s
Dreamworks/SKG - 1994
David Geffen of Geffen Records, Jeffrey Katzenberg of Disney, Steven Spielberg and Paul Allen (Microsoft) who cashed out in 2007 Never lived up to expectations DreamWorks Records sold in 2003 Animation spun off in 2004 Studio sold to Viacom (Parent co. of Paramount) 2006 Split from Paramount in 2008, Geffen out & financing arranged through Bollywood's Reliance ADA Group Distribution deal w/Disney in 2009 for live action (not including sequels to existing films they stayed with Paramount) Animation remains distributed through Paramount until 2012

The 90s
Marketing in the 90s
The Blair Witch Project, 1999 Guerilla marketing campaign Website Claimed actors were missing & presumed dead in IMDB Univ. of Central Florida grads Eduardo Snchez and Daniel Myrick

http://www.blairwitch.com/

The 90s
Cost $22,000 to make Made $240 million Digital video Handheld camera Shot in 8 days by the actors themselves Improvised Actors believed mythology was real Directors gave them less food each day Most parodied movie ever probably

Blair Witch Parodies on YouTube

The 90s
Bound, dir. Andy Wachowski & Lana Wachowski (formerly The Wachowski Brothers), 1996 w/ Gina Gershon, Jennifer Tilly & Joe Pantoliano
In their world, you can't buy freedom, but you can steal it. The Matrix was made on the strength of this film Pantoliano was instructed to base his character on Humphrey Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra Madre Sex scenes were choreographed & tequila was consumed

The 90s
Wrote comic books Re: The Matrix sequels they would not do press junkets or interviews and they would not have to be photographed for promotional purposes Andy did all the press for Speed Racer so as not to alienate the family audience for Speed Racer

The 90s

The 90s
Bill Pope (cinematographer) & the Wachowskis heavily influenced by Frank Millers Sin City

Review for Final

Vertical Integration Studio System Dissolving of the Studio System Paramount Decision House Un-American Activities Committee & the Blacklist Influence of current events on film Economic Changes for Industry 1940s to today Genre - Classic vs Revisionist Stylistic influences like Film Noir & Social Realism Wide Screen, video & other technical innovations Method Acting Production Code History & Influence of