Motion Picture Exhibition Research Articles

Stillness and Motion on the Coffee Table: Photochemical Motion Pictures in Gilded Age Periodicals

My research suggests that in addition to local practices, American film historians should continue to be attentive to mass experiences determined not only by location but, in this case, by 19th century periodical reading habits. I focus on the first four years of US public photochemical motion picture exhibition to consider the similarities I found in the use of still photographs to explain and introduce the machines and development processes used to introduce photochemical motion pictures to middle-class reading publics, effectively inviting readers to mentally animate the images themselves in imitatiion of a screening apparatus. I argue that the use of photographs in US magazines, the result of changes in printing practices in the period following the Civil War, shows that in addition to documented exhibitor practices, published magazine accounts also readied potential audience members for the new experience they would encounter by emphasizing the synthesis of individual photographs to create motion pictures. This relationship demonstrates that American periodicals played a crucial role in the way photochemical motion pictures and still photographs were depicted in mass culture to visualize the hidden relationship between photograms once they are placed in motion.

“Mr. Stubbs the Entertainer” and His Travelling Motion Picture Show

In the early days of cinema, before motion picture theatres were fully established, travelling exhibitors went from place to place with their stock of films, projectors, and other equipment, offering people a chance to see, sometimes for the first time, the new technological phenomenon of the age. A number of these exhibitors are relatively famous—and they had large business operations. A much lesser-known, and independent, travelling “showman” was James Stubbs, of Peterborough, Ontario, who took his regional and religious bandwagon on the road for about fifteen years, contributing as he went to the growth and acceptance of motion picture exhibition in the province.

Audiences and Moviegoing

Observers—sociologists, reformers, inspectors, journalists—have been interested in cinema's audiences virtually since the medium's emergence. Their observations constitute a rich source base for scholars that gives us access, however oblique, into the experiences of moviegoers. As these sources show, motion picture exhibition has been a dynamic social space for subjects marked by gender, race, class, national or regional identity, and age. These various vectors of identity, quite often in concert, shaped how audiences responded to what they saw on the screen, the performative milieu of the theater, and the discursive space of fan magazines and other print venues that published news and advertisements about motion pictures. Around the world, women's filmgoing became a particularly vexed topic, and women emerged as savvy observers of cinema's role in modern society.1 In this short essay, I trace a genealogy (not the genealogy) of feminist scholarship on audiences, sometimes referred to as historical spectatorship, and suggest the generative possibilities of a feminist orientation in historicizing cinema's audiences. In early scholarly accounts of cinema audiences, most of which focused on the nickelodeon, the contours of women's engagement with cinema were initially subsumed by concerns with class and ethnicity. In their considerations of American cinema, for example, Lary May and Robert Sklar argued that moviegoing became the site of a struggle for control over American mass culture, as the middle classes sought to exert control over the nickelodeon's working-class, ethnic …

When Movies Were Theater: Architecture, Exhibition, and the Evolution of American Film by William Paul

Reviewed by: When Movies Were Theater: Architecture, Exhibition, and the Evolution of American Film by William Paul Wes D. Pearce When Movies Were Theater: Architecture, Exhibition, and the Evolution of American Film. By William Paul. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. 426 pp. $40 paper. With his new book, When Movies Were Theater: Architecture, Exhibition, and the Evolution of American Film, William Paul has provided readers with a revelatory way to think and critique the early years of film exhibition in the United States. Focusing primarily on the first thirty years of film exhibition, and with special attention paid to New York City, Paul challenges many of the mythologies surrounding the early years of American movie exhibition. Paul's book is meticulously researched and is a rewarding and provocative exploration of a history many people think they already know. Much of Paul's analysis concerns the study of how the architecture of the "movie house" affected both the reception and the evolution of the exhibition of movies. That is, despite the "infinite reproducibility" of the motion picture, Paul argues, "how the image is situated in architectural space" (5) greatly affects spectatorship. I am old enough, although just barely, to remember when movie houses had just one screen, when the interiors of movie houses where awash with outrageous architectural details (such as a proscenium stage) and gloriously campy decor, and when the auditorium fell silent as the giant curtains swept open to reveal the movie screen and the start of something "magical." It is this connection between the site of exhibition and the reception of the "performance," or, as Paul suggests, an "[o]ngoing reciprocal relationship between movies and theaters, between text and context, [End Page 342] that has shaped both our expectations and our actual experiences of what a movie is" (19), that occupies the core of this book. When Movies Were Theater is more than just a revisionist history of early American film history; it is part architectural history, part popular culture history, and part theater history. Of particular interest to theater scholars is Paul's contention that, until the late 1920s, film exhibition and reception (and to an extent production) were inextricably connected to the aesthetics and reception of "legitimate theater."1 Paul challenges the notion that film and legitimate theater were immediate rivals and references many instances in the first thirty years of the twentieth century when film borrowed heavily from legitimate theater in order to legitimize the "moving images." For example, in chapter 2, "Store Theaters: A Radical Break," Paul draws upon several sources, including theater impresario/ moving picture exhibitor S. L. Rothapfel to detail the importance of presenting a varied and deliberate program of moving shorts. This successful type of exhibition programing copied aspects of vaudeville: "The vaudeville inheritance, then, was not left behind when movies moved from the vaudeville theater to a different home [the storefront theater]: rather, it is key to the development of motion pictures" (65). Earlier, Paul suggests that reception of motion pictures and the acceptance of late nineteenth-century staging practices (i.e., realism) both benefited from a new architecture that rejected the horseshoe auditorium and replaced it with an auditorium in which all the seats faced the "picture frame" stage. This new architectural arrangement provided a solution that solved "issues around realism for both live theater and motion pictures" (41). "Realism on stage and realism in motion pictures were oddly connected for contemporary viewers" (41), but the shared experience of the "new" theatrical architecture, be it the storefront theater for motion pictures or a state of the art live theater, allowed spectators to internalize the commonalities of space and reception rather than the differences of the artistic form. One last example of how motion picture exhibition drew heavily from legitimate theater practices to normalize the motion picture experience is found in chapter 5, "Uncanny Theater." In this chapter, Paul discusses the increasingly common practice of motion pictures being exhibited in legitimate theaters and the ensuing problem of space, insofar as "screens at the time ranged from twelve to twenty feet, [and] an 'ordinary stage opening' is … 'forty or fifty feet across'" (195). The solution was the evolution of the...

A Review of Scheduling Problems and Research Opportunities in Motion Picture Exhibition

New opportunities for operational efficiency in movie exhibition exist as a result of recent developments in the industry, such as the mass-scale conversion to digital cinema, the explosion of customer data sources, and the availability of new channels for watching movies. This paper provides an industry overview and a review of existing research on forecasting and scheduling problems in movie exhibition. The authors identify opportunities for academic research in a digital era of movie exhibition and provide context for practical applications in the industry.

Winner-Takes-All”: Influencing Factors of the Post-Theatrical Supply and Demand in Motion Picture Exhibition

The post-theatrical exhibition has become essential for motion pictures to break even. Nevertheless, besides the first attempts to study TV broadcasters and streaming providers as release windows, academic research in marketing has concentrated primarily on the initial theat-rical release. This article examines factors influencing supply and demand during the sequential release process of the motion picture industry. The authors build a modelling framework to ana-lyze the drivers resulting in comprehensive supply and strong demand in major exhibition win-dows (i.e., during the home video, video-on-demand, and free-to-air TV exhibition). They esti-mate the conceptual model of regressions using market data from Germany, including all 5 200 theater-released motion pictures between 2005 and 2014. The authors expand the existing suc-cess-breeds-success theory and use a winner-takesall theory to explain market supply and de-mand in sequential distribution. The results reveal a limited set of influencing factors (e.g., word-of-mouth communication or certain genres) that increase the probability of comprehensive exhibition and strong demand. Other influencing factors depend on the exhibition window (e.g., age ratings). The results add to existing theories of sequential distribution and can help research-ers and managers improve movie-specific exhibition strategies.

Modeling patronage shift to a new entrant for predicting disproportionate losses for incumbent outlets

Abstract In a retail market where market competition is intensifying due to increases in the numbers of outlets, an understanding of patronage-shifting behavior is critical to improving the prediction accuracy of changes in the market shares of existing outlets. Our objective is to understand consumers’ patronage shift patterns in response to a new outlet. This study develops a patronage shift model by incorporating outlet characteristics which affect the choice set formation of consumers. Factors of interest to us are the accessibility of the new outlet, outlet awareness, and inter-outlet substitutability. An empirical analysis of the motion picture exhibition industry shows that (i) patronage loss is significantly disproportionate across incumbent movie theaters due to the asymmetric substitution effect, (ii) substitutability is more crucial than accessibility in accurately capturing disproportionate substitution patterns at the market level, (iii) the probability of a consumer being aware of a new theater increases gradually, (iv) modeling the growth pattern of outlet awareness plays a significant role in representing actual market responses more accurately, and (v) patronage patterns estimated by the proposed model from aggregate market share data are consistent with actual consumer responses.

Profit Margins: Silent Era Precursors of Online Advertising Tactics

New media, in the process of stabilization, always encounter the challenge of consumer-goods advertising. This challenge takes recognizable form when successful (and unsuccessful) ideas developed for one medium are revisited as ways to integrate advertising as palatably as possible into a new medium. A study of early film and the early internet reveals historical parallels: the advertising industry conceived of techniques which it failed to integrate into motion picture exhibition, but which have returned and begun to flourish online. Using patent information, materials from academic and trade advertising journals, and examples of internet marketing, this paper reveals the complexity of interactions between emerging media and advertising, and the importance of a study of failed and fringe concepts to a complete understanding of media and marketing development.

Managing Store Market Share in the Face of Growing Competition

This study investigates the impact of new store entry on market share of existing stores using store market share data and a spatial market response model. Retailers can gain insight into the role of store characteristics in retail competition and predict patronage shifting patterns using the aggregate data before the entry of the competitor. The spatial market response model involves heterogeneous response across geographic segments to the new store, and a proposition on the response is that consumers shift their patronage to the new store if their store choice set changes. Store characteristics affecting choice set formation is accessibility to the new store, awareness of the new store, and substitutability among stores. An empirical analysis in the motion picture exhibition industry in Korea shows that both the substitutability and accessibility factors are critical to capture the disproportionate impact of a new entrant on market shares of existing theaters, and store awareness is a key factor in lowering the changing rate in market share of late entrants. The estimated patterns of theater patronage from aggregate market share data are consistent with the survey response from moviegoers.

When to Exit a Product: Evidence from the U.S. Motion-Picture Exhibition Market

When to Exit a Product: Evidence from the U. S. Motion-Picture Exhibition Market by Darlene C. Chisholm and George Norman. Published in volume 96, issue 2, pages 57-61 of American Economic Review, May 2006

The Effect of Local Competition on Admission Prices in the U.S. Motion Picture Exhibition Market

Abstract This paper provides empirical evidence on the relationship between local market structure and the prices charged to consumers in the U.S. motion picture exhibition market. I find that there is a statistically significant relationship between the geographic distribution of movie theaters in a market and the admission prices that they are able to charge. However, the magnitude of the price‐reducing effect of local competition appears to be economically modest. Moreover, I find no evidence that increases in geographic concentration lead to increased adult admission prices. The findings are directly relevant to merger policy in the industry and pertinent because of the dramatic changes in industry structure resulting from mergers that occurred during 2002. I conclude that the available evidence suggests that popular and governmental concerns about horizontal mergers in the industry leading to dramatically increased admission prices are likely misplaced.

The Hidden and the Unspeakable: On Theatrical Culture, Oscar Wilde and Ernst Lubitsch‘s Lady Windermeres Fan

The cinema is as much a theatrical form of entertainment as performance on the stage, a fact that is crucial to a full appreciation of Ernst Lubitsch‘s Lady Windermere‘s Fan (Warner Brothers, 1925). Particularly in the cinemas silent era (1895-1925), when motion picture exhibition relied on numerous performance elements, theatrical performance and film exhibition interpenetrated. This underscores a basic conundrum: cinema has been integral to, and an extension of, theatrical culture, even though it has also been something quite different - a new art form. Indeed, the unity of stage and screen was so well established that critics, theorists, historians and artists expended large amounts of intellectual energy distinguishing the two forms while paying little attention to what they held in common. One fundamental feature of theatrical practice that carried over into many areas of filmmaking was adaptation. For Lubitsch, adaptation was a central fact of his artistic practice. This article looks at the history of adaptations of Lady Windermere‘s Fan on stage and screen making reference to textual comparisons, public reception, painting, symbolism and queer readings.

Motion picture exhibition in Washington, D.C: an illustrated history of parlors, palaces and multiplexes in the metropolitan area, 1894-1997

Motion picture exhibition in Washington, D.C: an illustrated history of parlors, palaces and multiplexes in the metropolitan area, 1894-1997

Reading Local Histories of Early Film Exhibition, Part II: Roger William Warren's 'History of Motion Picture Exhibition in Denver, 1896-1911'

Reading Local Histories of Early Film Exhibition, Part II: Roger William Warren's 'History of Motion Picture Exhibition in Denver, 1896-1911'

Hollywood, in the Information Age: Beyond the Silver Screen by Janet Wasko

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 655 tion provides valuable insight into the relation between the ideologi­ cal context in which computing technology is introduced and the actual experiences of computer users. Janet Abbate Dr. Abbate is a postdoctoral fellow at the IEEE/Rutgers Center for the History of Electrical Engineering. She is writing a book on the history of the Internet, to be published by MIT Press. Hollywood, in the Information Age: Beyond the Silver Screen. By Janet Wasko. Austin: University ofTexas Press, 1995. Pp. x+308; illustra­ tions, tables, notes, index. $40.00 (cloth); $18.95 (paper). Hollywood in the Information Age examines contemporary Holly­ wood in the broadest sense of that term, including motion picture and television production, broadcast television, cable television, home video, and future means of video distribution and presenta­ tion.Janet Wasko, an associate professor in the School ofJournalism and Communications at the University of Oregon, seeks to describe how Hollywood corporations have moved from monopolizing film production and distribution to competing for control of (and domi­ nating) new video media, the world of “500 channels.” She also examines Hollywood’s role in the production and sale of video games, toys, trading cards, and a myriad of other cultural products. After two chapters on the state of Hollywood and its means of production, Wasko devotes single chapters to cable TV and other wired technologies for delivery of video products, the innovation and diffusion of home video, changes in theatrical motion picture exhibition, the commercialization of the film industry by Madison Avenue, and the recent successes ofHollywood in the realm of inter­ national distribution. A conclusion, extensive notes, and an index follow. To her credit, Wasko has stuffed her book with nearly two dozen tables and nearly a score of figures. These rich sources of informa­ tion apdy summarize shares of revenues, sales of new products, and patterns of corporate takeover. There are but four photographs in Hollywood in the Information Age, none from a motion picture or televi­ sion production. Instead we see a shuttered drive-in and movie pal­ ace, Ted Turner in repose, satellite dishes at a cable system facility, and a Blockbuster Video store. For a traditional photo-laden movie book, turn elsewhere. For other, more serious reasons, potential readers might also turn to other scholarship. Hollywood in the Information Agepromises a look to the future, but the book is actually a work of contemporary his­ tory. Readers of Technology and Culture will find Wasko’s discussions of the origins, dynamics, and consequences of technical change somewhat naive. For example, her introductory chapter, in which 656 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE the structure of the book is laid out, contains not a single endnote. We find the Frankfurt school mentioned on page 4, but no discus­ sion (or citation) of how to use that theory follows. The theoretical basis of Hollywood in the Information Age is defined by what Wasko does not accept; in only four single sentences does she lay out her approach. This is a work of Marxist political economy. We read lament after lament about the skill that Hollywood owners and managers have used to get and maintain corporate power. Some may admire how Hollywood has taken over each new mass entertainment technology. Wasko does not. But she seems frustrated at explaining why. For example, it is only after twenty-eight pages on the major and minor Hollywood corporate operations that we learn, in a mere 200 words, why Wasko thinks “the Big Boys are Big”: they are diversified. Moreover, in an analysis of contemporary Hollywood the reader expects, rightly, a book that is up-to-date. But that is difficult in a world where events are changing so rapidly, and university presses take their time. The cutoff here is early 1993, before Viacom had taken over Paramount and Matsushita sold, at a deep discount, MCA/Universal. Wasko’s conclusion that “MCA was certainly a plum for Matsushita” (p. 63) seems quaint in light of the subsequent near giveaway of MCA by the giantJapanese electrical manufacturer. Matsushita lost billions of dollars in its five-year foray into Holly­ wood. In a world where vast new alliances between Hollywood and...

Review: America Goes to the Movies: 100 Years of Motion Picture Exhibition by Barbara Stones

Book Review| October 01 1994 Review: America Goes to the Movies: 100 Years of Motion Picture Exhibition by Barbara Stones America Goes to the Movies: 100 Years of Motion Picture ExhibitionBarbara Stones Douglas Gomery Douglas Gomery Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Film Quarterly (1994) 48 (1): 65. https://doi.org/10.2307/1212952 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Douglas Gomery; Review: America Goes to the Movies: 100 Years of Motion Picture Exhibition by Barbara Stones. Film Quarterly 1 October 1994; 48 (1): 65. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/1212952 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentFilm Quarterly Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1994 The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

: America Goes to the Movies: 100 Years of Motion Picture Exhibition . Barbara Stones.

Book Review| October 01 1994 Review: America Goes to the Movies: 100 Years of Motion Picture Exhibition by Barbara Stones America Goes to the Movies: 100 Years of Motion Picture ExhibitionBarbara Stones Douglas Gomery Douglas Gomery Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Film Quarterly (1994) 48 (1): 65. https://doi.org/10.2307/1212952 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Douglas Gomery; Review: America Goes to the Movies: 100 Years of Motion Picture Exhibition by Barbara Stones. Film Quarterly 1 October 1994; 48 (1): 65. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/1212952 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentFilm Quarterly Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1994 The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Historical Paper: The Origins of 35mm Film as a Standard

The origins of 35mm film as a production and exhibition standard and the 4:3 image aspect ratio are examined. W. K. L. Dickson's work for Thomas Edison is reviewed in terms of the economic and aesthetic factors that influenced the selection of 35mm film as the ideal gauge for use in the Kinetoscope. The introduction of other wider gauges by Edison's rivals during the transformation of motion-picture exhibition from peep show to projection are also traced, suggesting several reasons for the industry-wide adoption of Edison's standards in the first decade of this century.

“The Finest Outside the Loop”: Motion Picture Exhibition in Chicago's Black Metropolis, 1905–1928

“The Finest Outside the Loop”: Motion Picture Exhibition in Chicago's Black Metropolis, 1905–1928

Errata: An Experiment in Preventive Anti-Trust: Judicial Regulation of the Motion Picture Exhibition Market under the Paramount Decrees

Errata: An Experiment in Preventive Anti-Trust: Judicial Regulation of the Motion Picture Exhibition Market under the Paramount Decrees