Encyclopedia of Early Cinema（Part U） .pdf

U Umeya Shokichi b. 1873; d. 1934 exhibitor, producer, Japan Born in Nagasaki, Umeya believed strongly in Japans economic and political expansion into Far East and Southeast Asia. Accordingly, he operated several businesses in Malaya and Singapore, including film exhibition. Returning to Japan with a large stock of film prints, he established his own film company, M.Pathe, in 1906. After the company was merged into Nikkatsu in 1912, Umeya established a new film company, M.Kashii. The film business, however, never became his primary interest. He was more engaged in Asian political movements and supported Sun Wen in his bid for revolution in China. HIROSHI KOMATSU Universal Film Manufacturing Company Formed through an alliance of independent production companies in June 1912, the Universal Film Manufacturing Company is the oldest of the surviving Hollywood studios. Universals early history illustrates many of the changes of the transitional era, including the demise of the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), the rise of studiobased mass production methods, the move westward to Hollywood, and the eventual dominance of multiple-reel/feature films. Universal united several independent production companies operating outside of the powerful MPPC, including Independent Motion Picture (IMP), New York Motion Picture (Bison), Powers, Rex, Centaur/Nestor, Crystal and Éclair American. These outfits came together shortly after the formation of rival Mutual Film Corporation, which had acquired several film exchanges earlier in the year and had begun to distribute the work of competing independents, among them American, Majestic, Reliance and Thanhouser. A previous alliance of independents, the Motion Picture Distributing and Sales Company, which had opposed the MPPCs distribution arm, General Film, fell apart earlier in 1912 as the distribution of new multiple-reel films became an increasing problem for the industry. The realignment of independent companies under the banners Entries A-Z 939 of Universal and Mutual also appeared the same year that the federal government filed its antitrust suit against the MPPC, signaling the beginning of Trusts demise. Universals first president was Charles Baumann of the New York Motion Picture Company, but Carl Laemmle of IMP soon took control and stayed at the companys helm until 1936. Initially centered in New York, Universal quickly began to branch westwards where one of its members, Nestor, had established the first Hollywood-based production facility in 1911. Universal purchased a large ranch property on the outskirts of Los Angeles in 1913 and began constructing vast production facilities there. Universal City, as the studio was named, opened in 1915, and the company moved its business headquarters west to the site that same year. Designed to consolidate the companys production operations for maximum efficiency and productivity, the facilities included several large, electricallyequipped indoor shooting stages, standing outdoor sets, an enormous location backlot, as well as film processing labs and editing rooms. Universal City was so large that it became the only studio with its own municipal designation, complete with post office, telegraph office, voting precinct, and police and fire departments. Under Laemmles leadership, Universal initially resisted both the move toward feature films, favoring instead a “balanced” program of shorts, newsreels, serials and dramas. King Baggot, Mary Fuller, Arline Pretty and Warren Kerrigan, all worked at Universal in the early years, along with serial stars Grace Cunard and Francis Ford. Many female directors and screenwriters were employed at Universal at a time when women had unrivaled access to positions of creative control within the industry. Lois Weber, one of the decades top-ranked director/screenwriters, worked at the company alongside Jeanie MacPherson, Cleo Madison, Ida May Park, and several others. Further reading Edmonds, I.G. (1977) Big U: Universal in the Silent Days, South Brunswick, New Jersey: A.S.Barnes. SHELLEY STAMP Urban, Charles b. 1867; d. 1942 producer, distributor, USA, Britain Urban was born and raised in the German community of Cincinnati. He first flourished as a traveling book agent, before settling in Chicago where he ran a stationery store, and where he saw the Edison Kinetoscope exhibited in 1894, and set up his own Kinetoscope parlor early Encyclopedia of early cinema 940 Figure 121 Entrance to Universal City, c. 1915. in 1895. He began touring with a Vitascope projector in 1896, but had his own projector developed, the Bioscope. He was hired by the Edison concessionaries, Maguire migration/ immigration: USA; leisure time and space: USA; monopoly capitalism: USA. Further reading Fogelson, Robert M. (2001) Downtown, New Haven: Yale University Press. Gomery, Douglas (1992) Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Presentation in the United States, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Levy, John M. (2000) Urban America, New York: Prentice-Hall. Tabb, William K. and Larry Sawers (eds.) (1978) Marxism and the Metropolis, New York: Oxford University Press. DOUGLAS GOMERY Encyclopedia of early cinema 944 Uruguay The cinema arrived in Montevideo in 1896, with Lumière screenings taking place on July 18, the same day as in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Although still relatively small, Montevideo had an active port and its population was quite attuned to news from Europe and eager to replicate modern experiences. The Edison Kinetoscope already had been welcomed in April 1895. Throughout 1896, various locales announced screenings, ranging from the Salón Rouge dance hall to the more prestigious Teatro San Felipe, where moving pictures were shown between acts of traditional zarzuela or light operetta. By November 1896, the city had its first moving picture theater. In 1898, Félix Oliver, a Spanish immigrant, returned from a European trip with a Cinématographe Lumière and film stock and shot the first Uruguayan film: Una carrera de ciclismo en el Velódromo de Arroyo Seco A Bicycle Race at the Arroyo Seco Velodrome. The following year, he shot Juego de niñas y fuente del Prado Girls Game and the Prado Fountain and opened his own moving picture theater in downtown Montevideo. After another trip to Europe, in which he encountered George Méliès trick films, Oliver produced his own trick films and various news event films. Among the trick films was Oliver, Juncal 108 (1900), which promoted his signpainting business. Around the turn of the century, the Casa Lepage in Buenos Aires (an important photographic supplies and motion picture pioneer) sent a cameraman, M.Corbicier, to Montevideo to shoot actualités. Corbicier recorded films of historical significance such as the 1904 Civil War and La paz de 1904 The peace of 1904. In 1908 he produced the countrys first newsreel, although he was unable to continue regular production. Later, in 1909, Lorenzo Adroher visited the Lumière factory in Lyons and purchased seven cameras and a projector with which he established the first Uruguayan production company. Adroher and his brother Juan also opened the Biógrafo Lumière theater, until recently the Cine Independencia. Between 1910 and 1914, they showed their own actualités and news event films as well as imported European films. The outbreak of World War I and subsequent stock shortages and high costs sharply curtailed their business, and the firm went bankrupt. Production in Uruguay remained sporadic and artisanal. Its domestic market was simply too small (in 1911, Montevideo had twenty moving picture theaters, supplied largely by foreign imports), and the presence of Argentina, too strong: those interested in the business tended to go to Buenos Aires, where there were more opportunities. Perhaps the most important films from this period were newsreels produced by the Uruguayan branch of Max Glücksmanns Argentine company between 1913 and 1931, which documented all aspects of national life. Unfortunately, many of these were destroyed in a fire. One of the few salvaged films is Viaje presidencial Presidential Trip (19241925), a detailed record of President José Serratos trips through the countrys interior. The first fiction film, Carlitos y Tripín de Buenos Aires a Montevideo Carlitos and Tripín from Buenos Aires to Montevideo (1918), was co- produced with an Argentine studio and directed by Julio Irigoyen (from Argentina). The following year, Eduardo Figari, a store-owner turned film impresario, produced the first multiple-reel film, Puños y noble Fists and Nobility, about the popular boxer Angelito Rodríguez; it was directed by Juan Borges and shot by Isidoro Damonte. Pervanche (1920), directed by León Ibáñez Entries A-Z 945 Saavedra and photographed by Emilio Peruzzi, was unusual in that it was made to raise funds for a philanthropic organization and featured the elite of Montevideo societythe film disappeared in 1925, when the protagonists husband bought and destroyed all copies in order to eradicate all evidence of her scandalous acting career. Further reading Hintz, Eugenio (ed.) (1988) Historia y filmografía del cine uruguayo, Montevideo: Ediciones de la Plaza. Vanrell Delgado, Rafael (1993) Salones de biógrafo y cines de Montevideo, Montevideo: Ediciones de la Plaza. ANA M.LÓPEZ US patent wars The first decade of film production was dominated by a series of formative if disruptive patent disputes having to do with the moving picture camera and by extension the projector and films. Issues such as the economic control of the medium, technological standardization, and attempts to organize the new industry into something like a monopoly were central to these developments. But unintended consequences could be found in film production, where adverse conditions limited creative investment and possibly delayed the widespread emergence of the story film until after American Mutoscope the Latham brothers sought recognition for his contributions; and AM comic vignettes drawn from newspaper comic strips; specialty dances and other abbreviated vaudeville routines; Wild West exhibitions; historical re-enactments; and highlights from theatrical comedy hits. Edisons output fell off in 1895, as the kinetoscope novelty faded and competitors began selling less expensive knock-offs. Within a year, however, new demand was Entries A-Z 947 spurred by the invention of projection systems, developed independently by a number of different teams, that enabled films to be incorporated into vaudeville shows. Having neglected to develop its own projecting mechanism (preoccupied by a more familiar business model based on the precedent of the phonograph parlor), the Edison company instead acquired rights to the Phantoscope projector devised by C.Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat Renamed Edisons Vitascope, it enjoyed a successful New York debut in the spring of 1896, screening short loops of the sort used in kinetoscopes. The hit of the program, however, was not an Edison film, but a British import,Robert W. Pauls Rough Sea At Dover. Noting that early audiences delighted in the cinematic mediums intrinsic realism and its capacity to capture scenes of daily life, the Edison company built a portable camera and shifted its production toward actualité views of the city and its environs, along with “scenics” or travelogues. Proving less expensive to produce than staged films, actualités comprised the great majority of Edisons releases for the next several years. Several other companies emerged as competitors shortly after the Vitascopes debut. Firms like American Mutoscope and Biograph (AM Sigmund Lubins Cineograph Co. (Philadelpia); and William Seligs Polyscope Company (Chicago) functioned as complete, self-sufficient purveyors of motion picturesbuilding their own cameras and projectors, producing exclusive film subjects, and providing long-term exhibition service for vaudeville houses and other venues. The weekly rental fees paid by vaudeville circuits provided the crucial basis for the early expansion of the US film industry. Until around 1903, their programs were modeled on newspapers, mixing views of local interest, actualités of newsworthy and sporting events, and comic sketches built around simple gags. A typical comedy was AM and since films now were pulled from circulation after a predictable amount of time, manufacturers also could produce larger numbers of copies, Entries A-Z 949 confident that each reel would find a willing buyer. One crucial reform emerged in late 1908, when producers adopted the 1,000-foot reel as the standard unit of film manufacture. While split-reel subjects were still produced, increasingly the dominant form of narrative filmmaking was the 1,000-foot single-reel story. This standardized limitation on film length promoted a corresponding rationalization of every phase of production, from narrative construction to shooting schedules to delivery of prints. While the MPPCs strides in efficiency, standardization, and overall industrial stabilization enabled its members to boost their output greatly, it was still unable to meet the extraordinary demand created by thousands of nickelodeons. Excess demand, coupled with the anger felt by exhibitors forced to pay royalties and by distributors disenfranchised by General Film, led to the steady growth of a competing faction of producers known as the Independents. The ranks of the Independents, or “non-licensed” companies, soon swelled to rival those of the MPPC. By 1911, the burgeoning US production sector consisted of approximately two dozen manufacturers of wildly varying means and standards. Quite a few surfaced only to release a small slate of films before dissolving, but many endured and prospered, including the Independent Moving Picture Company (IMP), New York Motion Picture, Thanhouser, Reliance, American Film Manufacturing Company, Solax, Majestic, Powers, Keystone, and others. They did so by organizing their own distribution companiesMotion Picture Distributing and Sales, Film Supply, Universal, and Mutualto supply “nonlicensed” exhibitors and with the inadvertent assistance of a US government anti-Trust court case against the MPPC. While the overall number of manufacturers increased dramatically and shooting sites became more dispersed after 1908, production practices grew increasingly more similar. A drive toward increased production efficiency becomes more evident during this period, manifesting itself most notably in the adoption of a central producer system by many companies around 1909. Producers developed various measures to help ensure their films met standards of narrative competence while also trying to guarantee their completion in time to meet an unforgiving delivery schedule. Scenario (and, eventually, continuity) scripts functioned as blueprints for filming schedules dictated by the orderly use of sets and locations for all