Watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhIbI_URhco

Read:
Read and try to learn the timeline of film that the ex-
am board has provided.
You could highlight the main points.
Read and research:
Read the information about the Paramount
Court Case. What else can you find out?

Draw: Summarise:
Create a visual representation of the timeline of film Summarise in one paragraph what the
using images to show the key points.
Paramount Court case was about and
what the outcome was.
Create:
Quiz: https://forms.gle/7KJSx118Cw1h5whY6
Create a set of revision cards to help you learn the
information on the timeline.
APPENDIX B

Timeline of key developments in film and film technology

The following timeline provides the basis for GCSE learners' study of the significant developments in
film and film technology. Guidance for teachers will be offered by WJEC on key resources
appropriate for GCSE.

1895 First moving images (Lumière brothers)

1895 – 1927 Development of silent cinema from early short films to full-length feature films,
during which period the foundations of filmmaking were established – e.g. cinematography, the
principles of lighting and continuity editing and an extensive range of mise-en-scène, including
location shooting

1920s Gradual emergence of a vertically integrated Hollywood film industry, established by 1930
into five major studios (Paramount, Warner Bros, Loew's/MGM, Fox [Twentieth Century Fox in 1935]
and Radio Keith Orpheum [RKO]) and three minor studios (Columbia, Universal and United Artists) –
the so-called Big 5 and Little 3

1927 Alan Crosland's, The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson - the first feature film with a soundtrack

1935 Rouben Mamoulian's Becky Sharp, the Technicolor Corporation's first feature length, 'three
strip' colour film

1948 Paramount court case which prevented studios from owning all phases of the production,
distribution and exhibition process ('vertical integration') which led, in the 1950s, to the
emergence of independent film production and agents producing films for the Hollywood studios
to distribute and exhibit

1950s Emergence of widescreen and 3D technologies as a response to the growth of television

and the corresponding decline in cinema attendance

Late 1950s Although not the first examples, lightweight, portable cameras were produced suitable
for hand-held use (which had an immediate impact on documentary filmmaking and were used by a
new generation of directors in France – French 'new wave' directors)

1970s Steadicam technology developed by cinematographer Garrett Brown (a stabilising device

for hand-held cameras to keep image 'steady' whilst retaining fluid movement). First introduced,
1975

1990s More widespread use of computer-generated imagery, most significantly onwards

pioneered by Industrial Light and Magic in the 1970s, resulted in a move away from filmed 'special
effects' to visual effects created digitally in post-production to the computer generated imaging of
characters in films
 1948
May 03

U.S. Supreme Court decides Paramount

antitrust case
On May 3, 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court issues a decision in U.S. v. Paramount Pictures, et
al., the government’s long-running antitrust lawsuit against Paramount Pictures and seven
other major Hollywood movie studios.

The forerunner of the case was a 1928 antitrust lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade
Commission against the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation (the forerunner to Paramount)
and nine other major film studios. Declared guilty of violating antitrust law in 1930, the
studios were nonetheless able to resume functioning as normal after concluding a
controversial deal with the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great
Depression, under the auspices of the National Industrial Recovery Act. In July 1938, the
government reversed its stance toward Hollywood and filed its lawsuit against seven major
studios: Paramount, Universal, MGM, Twentieth Century-Fox, Warner Bros., Columbia and
RKO.

The government’s case accused the studios of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act in their
total control over movie distribution and exhibition. At the time, the seven studios controlled
almost all the country’s movie theaters, either through ownership of their own theater chains
or through a process known as “block booking,” in which independent theater owners signed
contracts with the studios that required them to show a given number (or “block”) of films. In
their antitrust case, the government was demanding that the studios end block booking and
get rid of either their distribution arms or theaters.

The case first went to trial in federal court in New York in June 1940, but was called off after
two weeks when the government and studio attorneys worked out a compromise deal in
which the studios would retain their movie theaters but limit block booking. Dissatisfaction
with this so-called consent decree led to the formation of the Society of Independent Motion
Picture Producers (SIMPP) by some of the leading independent movie producers of the day,
including Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick, Mary Pickford
and Orson Welles. The efforts by independent producers helped get the government’s
antitrust case back into court in the fall of 1945. After a New York District Court handed
down a guilty ruling (the terms of which nonetheless failed to satisfy the government and the
independent producers), both sides submitted appeals that would eventually take the case all
the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The trial proceeded quickly once it reached the Supreme Court in February 1948. On May 3,
the court issued its ruling, which affirmed the earlier verdicts and declared the studios guilty
of violating antitrust law. By the terms of the verdict, the studios were made to sign consent
decrees that would end the practice of block booking by requiring that all films be sold on an
individual basis. They were also required to divest themselves of their own theater chains.
With this decision, independent producers could finally begin to compete with the major
studios for audiences and actors, marking the beginning of the end for the Hollywood studio
system.