Napoleonrules
Banned
How would the movie industry be like if it had chosen a city like Chicago instead of LA?
Movie industry in Chicago instead of LA?
- Thread starter Napoleonrules
- Start date
There was a reason the film industry wound up in Southern California: sunny weather and warm temperatures plus abundant natural landscapes were an advantage in being able to film virtually any type of geographic location outdoors year-round. An industry in Chicago is going to do much less location shooting and much more on sound stages.
In terms of what sort of films get made, you will see a lot more films set in Chicago or elsewhere in the Midwest and fewer films set in the Los Angeles area or California generally. The big effect is probably on Los Angeles itself. Rather than being a center of a well-known global industry and being thought of as a glamorous location because of it, it probably is a much more industrial sort of place and a manufacturing and shipping center. Without the film business to prop it up, the 1970s/1980s deindustrialization of the United States could have made for some hard times there as aircraft and auto plants are shut down.
In terms of what sort of films get made, you will see a lot more films set in Chicago or elsewhere in the Midwest and fewer films set in the Los Angeles area or California generally. The big effect is probably on Los Angeles itself. Rather than being a center of a well-known global industry and being thought of as a glamorous location because of it, it probably is a much more industrial sort of place and a manufacturing and shipping center. Without the film business to prop it up, the 1970s/1980s deindustrialization of the United States could have made for some hard times there as aircraft and auto plants are shut down.
I don't want to piss on the POD, but I had the impression that the runner up to LA was New York and/ or New Jersey. Part of the reason for the relocation was to get away from Edison.
Not to mention that unions were weaker than in New York or Chicago (or for that matter San Francisco).
I thought it was Arizona, for the same reasons they moved to LA.
By the way? How was the entertainment industry in Chicago around 1900? One reason New York would be more likely than Chicago is that New York already had Broadway. However before the advent of sound recording this really didn't matter much as playing theater turned out completely different from playing for movies...
Chicago before the prohibition however had a blooming tradition of beerhall entertainment due to the large influx of German and Irish immigrants. If we find a way to tweak the development of movie technology in a way that cantina orchestras becomes more valuable then fair weather, Chicago might stand a chance.
Chicago before the prohibition however had a blooming tradition of beerhall entertainment due to the large influx of German and Irish immigrants. If we find a way to tweak the development of movie technology in a way that cantina orchestras becomes more valuable then fair weather, Chicago might stand a chance.
Another possibility is of course that the famously corrupt Chicago politicians of that time, in cooperation with the famous Chicago Gangsters refuse to let any of the local early movie makers leave for California but instead even manage to blackmail movie makers from other cities to relocate to Chicago.
See the Wikipedia article on Edison Studios:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_Studios
The story -and I'm no expert on the history of movies in the US- is that Edison was really aggressive on patent enforcement, so competing studios moved as far away from the New York area as they could get. If this is true, presumably a POD where Edison is less aggressive and/ or successful in enforcing his patents would keep competing studios in New York. They might move away later because of labor costs, the same reason the motion picture industry later partially relocated away from LA. But until then, there would be no real reason to leave the New York area, which already was and to some extent would remain IOTL the center of the entertainment industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_Studios
The story -and I'm no expert on the history of movies in the US- is that Edison was really aggressive on patent enforcement, so competing studios moved as far away from the New York area as they could get. If this is true, presumably a POD where Edison is less aggressive and/ or successful in enforcing his patents would keep competing studios in New York. They might move away later because of labor costs, the same reason the motion picture industry later partially relocated away from LA. But until then, there would be no real reason to leave the New York area, which already was and to some extent would remain IOTL the center of the entertainment industry.
Probably bull but I think I read that Maryland was a big part of the early film industry. Lot of different terrain in a small area with good infrastructure.
In the mid 20th Century Illinois did have a robust studio for making educational films.
How did geography prevent Edison from suing anyone? I can understand maybe if you move to a different state, where New York law(assuming that's what Edison was using) has no jurisdiction, but once you're out of New York, what difference does it make if you're in New Jersey, or California? I would assume the relevant issue is the laws in whatever state you're in, not how far it was from New York.
Was it just that Edison didn't have enough knowledge of what was going in California to monitor their technology? Maybe I'm just a child of the high-speed information age, but I would assume a man of Edison's means and influence would have ways of keeping tab on the film industry in California.
Was it just that Edison didn't have enough knowledge of what was going in California to monitor their technology? Maybe I'm just a child of the high-speed information age, but I would assume a man of Edison's means and influence would have ways of keeping tab on the film industry in California.
I suspect the issue is getting an injunction to stop the filming n the first place which means a lot of resources to keep tabs on who is doing what and unlike NY of Chicago they can do it outdoors in LA where the movie makers are a comparatively important employer.
Obergruppenführer Smith
Banned
They say that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and covers the area, was averse to enforcing patent claims.
Interesting article: Was Hollywood Built on Piracy?