New Hollywood

Lesson 11: New Hollywood and the rise of the blockbuster

Blockbusters!

A film with an extremely high production and marketing budget that attains considerable commercial success.

Define Blockbuster…

Top Blockbusters

4 3

2 1

Changes in Distribution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONdwZEqUYt0

Changes in Exhibition

• Opened in hundreds of cinemas simultaneously

• Summer release

Exhibition

After Jaws, more emphasis on TV advertising

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mgrxvTdl-Q

Spielberg Filmography

1. Began experimenting with film in early teens making movies he would show at his family house.

2. Repeatedly applied to the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television and the University of Southern California's School of Cinema and Television but failed to gain entry.

3. Attended California State University, Long Beach -first job in the film industry as unpaid intern in editing department of Universal Studios.

4. Job at Universal came almost by accident as he jumped from a tour bus and ventured inside one of the buildings on the studio grounds.

6. His enthusiasm made such an impression on one of the workers, they gave him a pass to come back and watch directors at work. Spielberg made a point of being friendly with the security guards on the lot and on the fourth day he just waved rather than displaying his pass.

5. Every day for a summer, he returned to the set, found himself an office and just moved in.

It is perhaps the signature of Spielberg’s visual style. Images flooded with what he calls “God light”, shafts coming out of the sky (or usually bubbling clouds) or from a spaceship or through a window or doorframe. Yet Jaws isn’t really interested in the powerful possibilities of light, most scenes going for a naturalistic, never calling attention to itself realism. Except one.

http://www.empireonline.com/features/jaws-god-light

‘Jaws was my turning point’

“I could have shot the movie in the tank or even in a protected lake somewhere, but it would not have looked the same,”

“I was naive about the ocean, basically. I was pretty naive about mother nature…but I was too young to know I was being foolhardy when I demanded that we shoot the film in the Atlantic Ocean and not in a North Hollywood tank.”

Spielberg reflects…

Two different sharks were constructed for left-to-right and right-to-left movements – the other side has no skin. Here right-to-lefty is hoisted out of the water for a break

3 full sized sharks made called ‘Bruce’

‘flaws’

14 operators to work the moving parts

Another 'platform shark' was built for the underwater cage sequences. Here it is readied in MGM’s studio tank. The tank would additionally be used for the underwater point-of-view shots of bathers’ dangling limbs

•unwanted sailboats drifted into frame, cameras got soaked, and the Orca once began to sink with the actors on board. The prop sharks frequently malfunctioned owing to a series of issues including bad weather, pneumatic hoses taking on salt water, frames fracturing due to water resistance, corroding skin, and electrolysis. From the first water test onward, the “non-absorbent” neoprene foam that made up the sharks’ skin soaked up liquid, causing the sharks to balloon, and the sea-sled model frequently got entangled among forests of seaweed. Spielberg later calculated that during the 12-hour daily work schedule, on average only four hours were actually spent filming. Gottlieb was nearly decapitated by the boat’s propellers, and Dreyfuss was almost imprisoned in the steel cage. The actors were frequently seasick. Shaw also fled to Canada whenever he could due to tax problems, engaged in binge drinking, and developed a grudge against Dreyfuss, who was getting rave reviews for his performance in Duddy Kravitz. Editor Verna Fields rarely had material to work with during principal photography, as according to Spielberg “we would shoot five scenes in a good day, three in an average day, and none in a bad day.”

•unwanted sailboats drifted into frame, cameras got soaked, and the Orca once began to sink with the actors on board. The prop sharks frequently malfunctioned owing to a series of issues including bad weather, pneumatic hoses taking on salt water, frames fracturing due to water resistance, corroding skin, and electrolysis. From the first water test onward, the “non-absorbent” neoprene foam that made up the sharks’ skin soaked up liquid, causing the sharks to balloon, and the sea-sled model frequently got entangled among forests of seaweed. Spielberg later calculated that during the 12-hour daily work schedule, on average only four hours were actually spent filming. Gottlieb was nearly decapitated by the boat’s propellers, and Dreyfuss was almost imprisoned in the steel cage. The actors were frequently seasick. Shaw also fled to Canada whenever he could due to tax problems, engaged in binge drinking, and developed a grudge against Dreyfuss, who was getting rave reviews for his performance in Duddy Kravitz. Editor Verna Fields rarely had material to work with during principal photography, as according to Spielberg “we would shoot five scenes in a good day, three in an average day, and none in a bad day.”

•unwanted sailboats drifted into frame, cameras got soaked, and the Orca once began to sink with the actors on board. The prop sharks frequently malfunctioned owing to a series of issues including bad weather, pneumatic hoses taking on salt water, frames fracturing due to water resistance, corroding skin, and electrolysis. From the first water test onward, the “non-absorbent” neoprene foam that made up the sharks’ skin soaked up liquid, causing the sharks to balloon, and the sea-sled model frequently got entangled among forests of seaweed. Spielberg later calculated that during the 12-hour daily work schedule, on average only four hours were actually spent filming. Gottlieb was nearly decapitated by the boat’s propellers, and Dreyfuss was almost imprisoned in the steel cage. The actors were frequently seasick. Shaw also fled to Canada whenever he could due to tax problems, engaged in binge drinking, and developed a grudge against Dreyfuss, who was getting rave reviews for his performance in Duddy Kravitz. Editor Verna Fields rarely had material to work with during principal photography, as according to Spielberg “we would shoot five scenes in a good day, three in an average day, and none in a bad day.”

• Unwanted sailboats drifted into frame• cameras got soaked• the Orca once began to sink with the actors on board• The prop sharks frequently malfunctioned owing to a series of issues

including bad weather• From the first water test onward, the “non-absorbent” neoprene foam that

made up the sharks’ skin soaked up liquid, causing the sharks to balloon• Shark model frequently got entangled among forests of seaweed.

• Spielberg later calculated that during the 12-hour daily work schedule, on average only four hours were actually spent filming.

• Gottlieb was nearly decapitated by the boat’s propellers• Dreyfuss was almost imprisoned in the steel cage• The actors were frequently seasick• Shaw also fled to Canada whenever he could due to tax problems, engaged

in binge drinking… • According to Spielberg “we would shoot five scenes in a good day, three in

an average day, and none in a bad day.”

Problems at sea…

Legacy of Jaws

‘Jaws in space’

Legacy of JawsWide national release backed by heavy television advertising

Saturation booking: film opens simultaneously at thousands of cinemas,

Established summer as the prime season for the release of studios’ biggest box-office contender

Marked beginning of the end of the New Hollywood period, which saw auteur films increasingly disregarded in favour of profitable big-budget pictures.

Jaws and Star Wars are regarded as marking the beginning of the new U.S. film industry business model dominated by “high-concept” pictures—with premises that can be easily described and marketed

Links

• http://www.theguardian.com/film/gallery/2012/sep/27/sharks-jaws-spielberg-in-pictures?intcmp=ILCMUSTXT9385