15 Unknown Shocking Things About The Film Industry
Or perhaps you just like to watch movies and want to know some unknown things about the film industry. A lot of people here assume it’s easy to make any film; many-one also believe that all you need is talent and lots of money to get instantly hired.
Yes, talent is important, but there is so much more to the film industry that you may not be aware of. From stolen-scripts to animal cruelty, you might find this list shocking.
So here are 15 Surprising Things about the Film Industry that you never knew about:
1) Hollywood was presumed to be a religious community
This might be one of the most shocking facts about Hollywood to you. The people who created Hollywood, Harvey and Daeida Wilcox, wanted to make a quiet place where no alcohol was to be served.
They even offered to refrain land charges when more churches were built on the property. It was made for a good purpose, but Hollywood turned out a little differently than planned.
2) First three movies ever filmed
The first movie ever filmed, The Horse in Motion, was created with few cameras to test a popular question about horses which was whether or not all hooves touch the ground while horses are galloping. It turns out that they do. Do you know it was directed by Eadweard Muybridge and released on 15 June 1878.
The second film was called Roundhay Garden Scene and it was only 2.11 seconds long, which does technically qualify as a movie. According to Guinness, it’s the oldest surviving film today. It was directed by Louis LePrince and released on 14 October 1888.
The third film was called Arrival of a Train. It’s one single shot of a train pulling up to a station and people getting on. There is a story that when people first saw this, they were freaked out by the train. Many thought it was going to come through the screen and they ran to the back of the theater to escape. It was directed by The Lumiere Brothers and released on 25 January 1896.
3) Filmmakers had to prove he didn't kill artists
In 1980, a low-budget movie was made titled Cannibal Holocaust. It was about a group of anthropologists who go to the Amazon Rainforest to discover what happened to a documentary film crew that went to research cannibal tribes.
The film was so realistic that the director of the film, Ruggero Deodato, actually had to go to court and prove that no artists were really killed. This film is considered a cult classic among horror fanatics, despite it being banned in several countries.
4) Can an award be bought?
A few years back, there was a scandal at the Golden Globe Awards about involvement of corruption. It was reported that many films that won only did so because filmmakers had bribed the Association with lavish gifts and other incentives.
In 1982, unknown actress Pia Zadora won an Oscar for her role in the movie Butterfly. Critics severely criticized her performance and many speculate that her husband, who was the producer of the film, flew the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) to Las Vegas for the weekend before they voted.
5) Animals are mistreated?
You may have seen movies that have animals in them and a caption that reads “No Animals were Harmed During the Making of this Film”. Sometimes this is a fact, but at other times, it’s completely fiction.
Many films have abused animals or even real animal deaths. The tiger in Life of Pi reportedly almost drowned during the making of the film.
6) Alan Rickman character’s secret
Before his death due to cancer, Alan Rickman was told the secret of his Harry Potter character, Severus Snape, by the author of the series herself, J.K. Rowling.
(Spoiler ahead) The end of the series reveals that Snape was actually a good guy defending the young Harry Potter because Snape was in love with Potter’s mother. Rickman kept the secret to his grave.
7) Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Sometimes an actor will pretend to be surprised that they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The truth is, they knew about it the whole time as there is a process of getting your Brass Star.
You need to apply for a star through the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. The cost of it is $30,000 approx.which covers both installation and upkeep of the star.
8) Movie trailers that purposely cheats you
Is that movie you’ve been wanting to see nothing like what was shown in the trailer? There is a good reason for that; the studio cheated you.
There are a few reasons why filmmakers put out a trailer completely different from the movies. They want to fill as many seats on opening day so they will make the trailer to appease to different audiences. For e.g., a romantic movie can be made to look like a comedy.
The other reason is so as not to spoil the ending of the movie. (Spoiler) Kevin Spacey’s name wasn’t in the trailer for the movie Seven because they didn’t want to reveal the killer.
9) The Wilhelm Scream
The Wilhelm scream is a stock sound effect that has been used in at least 400 films and TV series when someone is shot, falls from a great height, or is thrown from an explosion. It was created 60 or some odd years ago, and you can see it being used even in today’s films.
The effect was first used in the 1951 film Distant Drums, starring Gary Cooper, when a man crossing a river gets dragged underwater by a crocodile.
10) Story of the Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
You might be very well aware of Warner Brothers Studios which is one of the most famous and biggest movie studios in the world. They have produced great films like Goodfellas and Malcolm X along with everybody’s favorite clever rabbit, Bugs Bunny.
The Warner Brothers themselves are rather outstanding as well. Albert, Sam, Harry, and Jack Warner are responsible for putting sounds in motion pictures. They were also the first to put animals in movies.
11) The first movie with sound
The Jazz Singer was credited with being the first movie to have sound, produced in 1927. It starred May McAvoy, Warner Oland, and Al Jolson.
The film cost over $400,000, which at the time was a pretty hefty amount. The film has also rightfully been labeled racist, as Jolson had put on “blackface” for this role and others.
12) The morality clause
If you thought an actor’s job is tough today, I can assure you it’s nothing like it was in the early 20th century. Not only were actors constantly under watch, but they also had to sign a morality clause. This was basically a promise/contract to the studio that they would be perfect and not get in any trouble.
The studio had a say on who the actors dated and married, and whether they were allowed to have children. If the actor broke the contract, they got fired.
The clause still exists today but it’s gotten much looser, which some say may not be a good thing. The clause is apparently now used to punish those who have used their position of power to prey on the vulnerable.
13) Hitler v/s Warner Brothers
I previously mentioned exceptional things done by the Warner Brothers in Hollywood. What you also might not know is that Jack Warner took on former Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler by producing the film Confessions of a Nazi Spy.
The film put Warner on Hitler’s execution list. Thankfully, Hitler didn’t receive the chance to carry out this intention.
14) Fake reviews of movies by some critics
Maybe this has happened to most of you: you read the reviews about a movie and think, “Woww, this sounds like a great film!” But after seeing the movie, you say, “That movie was terrible unlike reviews. What were these film critics thinking?”
It turns out that some reviews are either fake or mixed and matched with other movie reviews. The marketing department will take a piece of a blurb (short note) about a movie here, and put it in a blurb about a movie there. And that’s not all. Filmmakers will even go so far as to bribe critics with free movie screenings, free snacks, gifts, and free visits to the set where the movie is being made.
One of the most infamous of these people is Earl Dittman, who actually emailed Fox, sent them different film reviews for the movie Robots, and told them to pick the one they liked the most.
15) The overpricing of movie theater snacks
I know some of you are very curious to know why a box of popcorn or a cold drink is so expensive at the cinema halls? Well, that’s how they make their profit, especially in the first week of a major picture being shown up.
They don’t make money from ticket sales until the film has been shown for a few weeks. There are also fees that a theater has to pay in order to screen the movie. So, you must think twice before sneaking food into the theater.
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