History of Short Film and Hollywood

In 1895 some of the first short films were made such as Sortie a 'l'usine also known as workers leaving the factory which was made by the lumier brothers. In those days short films were the only films that could be viewn in the local cinema and despite thinking now why would people go to watch a film for a couple of seconds/ minutes. The answer to that would be because it was all new then. It was the first of it's kind and many found it interesting and was a form of entertainment for them. These short films were so short because of technical restrictions which is why short film can now be longer because technology has enabled us to do so.

Short film in Hollywood eclipsed by the dominant mode of film production and "classical narrative". Hollywood created genres which meant all types of different people with different interests could go and watch what ever it is they wanted which made going to the cinema more appealing. Cinema experts required films to be longer then 90 minutes so that this would allow two hour blocks for food, advertising and trailers which are all ways for them to make more money and make the cinema experience more pleasurable. All these different things eventually made short film come out of the limelight as there was now more to offer to it's once target audience. As now the target audience were more interested and fascinated by mainstream films.

Currently Hollywood no longer follows the studio system and in 1930's short film production was a marginal activity and meant that Hollywood could take over and began to steal ideas from the short film. They saw short film as a cut price and as an laboratory experimental innovation. They would steal the ideas and add more to them eventually creating a feature length film out of them. They new they could get away with it as these were huge company's with loads of money where as allot these short filmmakers didn't have the power to fight for their rights.