An overview of the film industry

Trying to write about and describe the concept of today's film industry and how does it work requires writing about the history of it, the way it developed through the decades, the way it functions and it is perceived differently from continent to continent and from country to country, so I do think it's a little bit too ambitious trying to summarize it all in a post in a clear and informing way.

Therefore all I can give you and want to give you are a few facts I find interesting about the industry today, focusing on a few key points of film production which are relevant to this blog.

Today, the major businesses of film making are located in the U.S., India and China but nevertheless, due to production and infrastructure costs, most of the films are shot in countries like the U.K., Canada, Eastern Europe, New Zealand and Australia.

The history of film is about a 100 years old and through the decades, films developed from purely entertaining novelty to an important tool of communication which has a huge impact on arts, technology, politics, economy and almost every other aspect of the society. For an extensive insight and detailed description on when and how the first motion picture was made click here and here I give you the first film ever made in history:



One of the major film centres today is obviously Hollywood. However, very curiously, most of the major film studios are owned by East coast companies. Only the Walt Disney Company and Sony Pictures are headquartered in California. As for the Hollywood movies we all know that from the start, Hollywood and it's system imposed itself as one of the more prolific, active, and influencing industries world-wide.

American films are divided into 2 categories: blockbusters and indipendent films. In order to remain profitable, every year studios rely on a few extremely expensive releases which are based upon factors like star power and massive advertising in order to attract huge audiences and remain profitable. These movies are supplemented by lower budget production usually based on niche targeting, and which success depends on critical praise; these films are more innovative, creative and of higher quality in terms of plot, acting and directing than the blockbusters.

Another significant development was the rise of the home video market in the late 80's which opened a vast new field for exploitation and a new way of reaching the audiences especially for the lower budget productions.

Now, as I already stressed, this was just a little introduction to the history and facts of the film industry, there is so much more to it that it's just impossible for me to fit it all in a post, so I did a little research and came across some really good sites on the movie industry in general, Hollywood, Bollywood, British film industry and other links you might find useful.

On Hollywood:
http://www.hollywoodusa.co.uk/hollywood.htm
http://ezinearticles.com/?About-The-Hollywood-Film-Industry&id=1099434
http://www.articlesbase.com/movies-articles/about-the-hollywood-film-industry-360786.html

On Bollywood (Indian film industry):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollywood

On U.K. 's film industry:
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/Explore_job_sectors/Broadcast__film_and_interactive_media/overview/p!eigLac#97080

Film industry news:
http://www.filmindustry.com/


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