A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertain

ment company or motion picture company that has its own privately owned studio f
acility or facilities that are used to make films, which is handled by the produ
ction company. The majority of firms in the entertainment industry have never ow
ned their own studios, but have rented space from other companies.
There are also independently owned studio facilities, who have never produced a
motion picture of their own because they are not Entertainment companies or Moti
on Picture companies; they are companies who sell only studio space.
Contents [hide]
1 Beginnings
2 The "majors"
3 The minors
4 The independents
5 Typical major film studio components
6 Film to television
7 Today
8 Independent film and the studios
9 Notable film studios
10 See also
11 References
12 External links
Beginnings[edit]
The Babelsberg Studio near Berlin was the first large-scale film studio in the w
orld and the forerunner to Hollywood. It still produces global blockbusters ever
y year.
In 1893, Thomas Edison built the first movie studio in the United States when he
constructed the Black Maria, a tarpaper-covered structure near his laboratories
in West Orange, New Jersey, and asked circus, vaudeville, and dramatic actors t
o perform for the camera. He distributed these movies at vaudeville theaters, pe
nny arcades, wax museums, and fairgrounds. The pioneering Thanhouser film studio
was founded in New Rochelle, New York in 1909 by American theatrical impresario
Edwin Thanhouser. The company produced and released 1,086 films between 1910 an
d 1917, successfully distributing them around the world. The first film serial e
ver, Million Dollar Mystery, was released by the Thanhouser company in 1914.
In the early 1900s, companies started moving to Los Angeles, California. Althoug
h electric lights were by then widely available, none were yet powerful enough t
o adequately expose film; the best source of illumination for motion picture pro
duction was natural sunlight. Some movies were shot on the roofs of buildings in
Downtown Los Angeles. Early movie producers also relocated to Southern Californ
ia to escape Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company, which controlled almost al
l the patents relevant to movie production at the time.
The first movie studio in the Hollywood area was Nestor Studios, opened in 1911
by Al Christie for David Horsley. In the same year, another 15 independents sett
led in Hollywood. Other production companies eventually settled in the Los Angel
es area in places such as Culver City, Burbank, and what would soon become known
as Studio City in the San Fernando Valley.
The "majors"[edit]
For more details on this topic, see Major film studio.
The Big 5
By the mid-1920s, the evolution of a handful of American production companies in
to wealthy motion picture industry conglomerates that owned their own studios, d
istribution divisions, and theaters, and contracted with performers and other fi
lmmaking personnel, led to the sometimes confusing equation of "studio" with "pr

oduction company" in industry slang. Five large companies, 20th Century Fox, RKO
Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer came to be
known as the "Big Five," the "majors," or "the Studios" in trade publications su
ch as Variety, and their management structures and practices collectively came t
o be known as the "studio system."
The Little 3
Although they owned few or no theaters to guarantee sales of their films, Univer
sal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and United Artists also fell under these rubric
s, making a total of eight generally recognized "major studios". United Artists,
although its controlling partners owned not one but two production studios duri
ng the Golden Age, had an often-tenuous hold on the title of "major" and operate
d mainly as a backer and distributor of independently produced films.
The minors[edit]
Smaller studios operated simultaneously with "the majors." These included operat
ions such as Republic Pictures, active from 1935, which produced films that occa
sionally matched the scale and ambition of the larger studio, and Monogram Pictu
res, which specialized in series and genre releases. Together with smaller outfi
ts such as PRC TKO and Grand National, the minor studios filled the demand for B
movies and are sometimes collectively referred to as Poverty Row.
The independents[edit]
The Big Five's ownership of movie theaters was eventually opposed by eight indep
endent producers, including Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick, Walt Disney, Hal
Roach, and Walter Wanger. In 1948, the federal government won a case against Par
amount in the Supreme Court, which ruled that the vertically integrated structur
e of the movie industry constituted an illegal monopoly. This decision, reached
after twelve years of litigation, hastened the end of the studio system and Holl
ywood's "Golden Age".
Typical major film studio components[edit]
By the 1950s, the physical components of a typical major film studio had become
standardized. Since then, a major film studio has usually been housed inside a p
hysically secure compound with a high wall, which protects filmmaking operations
from unwanted interference from paparazzi and crazed fans of leading movie star
s. Movement in and out of the studio is normally limited to specific gates (ofte
n capped with grand decorative arches), where visitors must stop at a boom barri
er and explain the purpose of their visit to a security guard. Studio premises g
enerally feature multiple sound stages along with an outside backlot, as well as
offices for studio executives and production companies. There is normally a stu
dio "commissary", which is the traditional term in the film industry for what ot
her industries call a company cafeteria. Early nitrate film was notoriously flam
mable, and sets were and are still very flammable, which is why film studios bui
lt in the early-to-mid 20th century have water towers to facilitate firefighting
.
Film to television[edit]
Halfway through the 1950s, with television proving to be a lucrative enterprise
not destined to disappear any time soon as many in the film industry had once hope
d movie studios were increasingly being used to produce programming for the burgeo
ning medium. Some midsize film companies, such as Republic Pictures, eventually
sold their studios to TV production concerns, which were eventually bought by la
rger studios, such as the American Broadcasting Company which was purchased by T
he Walt Disney Company in 1996.
Today[edit]
With the growing diversification of studios into such fields as video games, tel
evision, theme parks, home video and publishing, they have become multi-national

corporations. As the studios increased in size they began to rely on production

companies, like J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions, to handle many of the creat
ive and physical production details of their feature films. Instead the studios
transformed into financing and distribution entities for the films made by their
affiliated production companies as well as the decreasing cost of CG and visual
effects, many studios sold large chunks of their once massive studio spaces or
backlots to private real-estate developers. Century City in Los Angeles was once
part of the 20th Century Fox backlot, which was among the largest and most famo
us of the studio lots. In most cases portions of the backlots were retained and
are available for rental by various film and television productions. Some studio
s offer tours of their backlots, while Universal Pictures allows visitors to its
adjacent Universal Studios Hollywood theme park to take a tram tour of the back
lot where films such as Psycho and Back to the Future were once shot.
Independent film and the studios[edit]
In the 1980s and 90s, as the cost of professional 16mm film equipment decreased,
along with the emergence of non-film innovations such as S-VHS and Mini-DV came
ras, many young filmmakers began to make films outside the "studio system". Film
makers such as Jim Jarmusch, Robert Rodriguez, Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarant
ino, Kevin Smith and Richard Linklater made films that pushed boundaries in ways
the studios were then reluctant to do. In response to these films, many distrib
uted by "mini-studios" like Miramax, the "majors" created their own in-house min
i-studios meant to focus on edgier "independent" content. Focus Features was cre
ated by Universal Pictures and Fox Searchlight was created by 20th Century Fox f
or this purpose.
Notable film studios[edit]
20th Century Fox (USA)
Amblin Entertainment (USA)
Anchor Bay Entertainment (USA)
Annapurna Studios (Hyderabad, India)
Ardmore Studios (Ireland)
Artisan Entertainment (USA)
Atlas Entertainment (USA)
Atlas Studios (Morocco)
AVM Productions (Chennai, India)
Babelsberg Studio (Germany)
Barrandov Studios (Czech Republic)
Bavaria Film (Germany)
BBC Films (UK)
Belarusfilm (Belarus)
Bigfoot Entertainment (USA, Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong)
Biograph Studios (USA)
Blue Sky Studios (USA)
The Bridge Studios (British Columbia, Canada)
Bosphorus Film Studios (Turkey)
Cannon Films (USA)
Carolco (USA)
CBS Films (USA)
Christie Film Company (USA)
Ciby 2000 (Canada, Norway, UK)
Cinema City International (Hong Kong)
Cinergi Pictures (USA)
Columbia Pictures (USA)
Constantin Film (Germany)
Crystal Sky Pictures (USA)
Daiei Film (Japan)
Dimension Films (USA)
Disneynature (France)
Dovzhenko Film Studios (Ukraine)

DreamWorks (USA)
Edison Studios (USA)
Edison's Black Maria (USA)
Elstree Studios (UK)
Eros Entertainment(India)
Famous Players Film Company (USA)
FBO (USA)
Fireworks Entertainment (USA & Cuba)
Five & Two Pictures (USA)
Focus Features (USA)
Fox Searchlight Pictures (USA)
Fox Star Studios (India)
Full Moon Features (USA)
Gaumont Film Company (France)
Gener8Xion Entertainment (USA)
Genius Products (USA, Australia & UK)
Globo Filmes (Brazil)
Goldwyn Pictures (USA)
GoodTimes Entertainment (USA)
Gorky Film Studio (Russia)
Grassroots Films (USA)
Hemdale Film Corporation (USA)
Hengdian World Studios (China)
Hollywood Pictures (USA)
Illumination Entertainment (USA)
ITC Entertainment (UK)
Jerry Bruckheimer Films (USA)
Kadokawa Pictures (Japan)
Kalem Company (USA)
Kanteerava Studios (Bangalore, (India)
KDK Factory (USA)
Keystone Studios (USA)
Korda Studios (Hungary)
Legendary Pictures (USA)
Lenfilm (Russia)
Lions Gate Entertainment (USA, Canada)
Lubin Studios (USA)
Lucasfilm (USA)
LVN Pictures (Philippines)
Marwah Films & Video Studios (New Delhi, India)
Media Asia Entertainment Group (Hong Kong)
MediaPro Pictures (Romania)
Mlis Films (France)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (USA)
Miramax Films (USA)
Moldova-Film (Moldova)
Moonbeam Entertainment (USA)
Mosfilm (Soviet Union [now Russia)
Mutual Film (USA)
National Film Board of Canada (Canada)
Nerigan Entertainment (New Zealand & Russia)
Nestor Studios (USA)
New Line Cinema (USA)
New World Pictures (USA)
Nikkatsu (Japan)
Nordisk Film (Denmark)
Nu Boyana Film (Bulgaria)
Open Road Films (USA)
Orange Sky Golden Harvest (Hong Kong)
Orion Pictures (USA)

Overture Films (USA)

Padmalaya Studios (Hyderabad, India)
Pantelion Films (USA)
Paramount Pictures (USA)
Path (France)
Pinewood Studios (UK)
Pixar Animation Studios (USA)
Possibility Pictures (USA)
Praise Pictures (USA)
Premium Picture Productions (USA)
Pure Flix Entertainment (USA)
Ramanaidu Studios (Hyderabad, India)
Ramoji Film City (Hyderabad, India)