The 90’s

The 90’s • 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 90’s • Non-linear editing – Lost in Yonkers, 1993, edited entirely on an Avid Media Composer

The 90’s • CGI grows up – Morphing in T2 – George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic create CGI dinosaurs for Jurassic Park

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

The 90’s • The rise of animation • Pixar – All CGI with shading and texture - 1995

• Disney – Celebrity voices - 1994

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

The 90’s • 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 90’s • Titanic, 1997 • Costliest film of all time ($200 million) until … 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 90’s • 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 90’s • “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 90’s • 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 90’s • 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 90’s – Of all the major studios, only Disney remained a freestanding entity – Became it’s own multi-national corporation

The 90’s • 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 90’s • 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 d’Or at Cannes

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

The 90’s • The Good: – – – – – – – – – –

Miramax Box Office

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

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

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

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

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

The 90’s • Sundance Film Festival •

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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 90’s • After fights over such films as Fahrenheit 9/11 and Dogma, Miramax’s split from Disney in 2005

The 90’s • 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

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

http://www.blairwitch.com/

The 90’s – – – – – – – – –

Blair Witch Parodies on YouTube

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

The 90’s • The Player, 1992 • Dir. Robert Altman w/ Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Whoopi Golgberg – After working independently, film is Altman’s “comeback” to Hollywood (Popeye) – Opening shot is 8 minutes long & while the shot was practiced, the dialogue is improvised – All the celebrity cameos were unscripted – More Oscar-winning actors in the cast (12) than any other movie in history: Cher, James Coburn, Louise Fletcher, Whoopi Goldberg, Joel Grey, Anjelica Huston, Jack Lemmon, Marlee Matlin, Tim Robbins, Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, Rod Steiger - 13 if you count Oscar-winning producer-director Sydney Pollack – Theme is treating artists badly in the name of commerce, leading to many inside jokes

The 90’s • Robert Altman, 1925-2006 • Like many directors who worked in the 70’s, he came from television before M*A*S*H, 1970 • Films marked by critical acclaim & often hostile popular reception • Refused to tell a straightforward story • Genius or irritating?

The 90’s • Realistic gore and humor in the same shot

The 90’s • Religious imagery

The 90’s • Altman films all have similar characteristics – Large ensemble casts – Actors on nontraditional parts – Mixing in real people with actors – Seemingly improvised scripts

The 90’s – Constantly moving camera – Fluid and shifting storylines – Innovative, layered use of sound – True versus idealized reality

The 90’s • Nashville, 1975 – 24 characters over five days – Show Business and Politics used to underline the shallow aspects of American life – Based on real characters – Improvised dialogue & nontraditional character communication (phone calls, PA systems, radio, TV) – Actors wrote their own music

The 90’s • Altman’s films include: – – – – – – – – – –

A Prairie Home Companion (2006) Gosford Park (2001) Dr T and the Women (2000) Prêt-à-Porter (1994) Short Cuts (1993) The Player (1992) Vincent & Theo (1990) "Tanner '88" (1988) Fool for Love (1985) Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) – Popeye (1980)

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HealtH (1980) A Wedding (1978) 3 Women (1977) Nashville (1975) California Split (1974) Thieves Like Us (1974) The Long Goodbye (1973) Images (1972) McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) Brewster McCloud (1970) M*A*S*H (1970)

Review for Final • • • • • • • • • • •

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