The Delivery System Is the Message

From Lillian Gish’s autobiography, The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me:

In the tail end of the nineteenth century, a new phenomenon had captured the imagination of the American public. In places called “penny arcades,” which were usually rented stores, people could see “moving pictures”—strips of film on assorted subjects—by dropping a penny into a slot and peering into a machine called the Kinetoscope. A few years after the Kinetoscope made its appearance, it was superseded by the Mutoscope, a peep-show machine owned by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, one of the leading motion picture companies. By 1896 film images were being projected on screens, usually in vaudeville houses. These early movies, which were mostly photographed vaudeville acts, were greeted enthusiastically. But the novelty was short-lived. By 1900 movies were the last act on the programs in the vaudeville theaters in which they were shown.

Movies seemed to have no future until, in the first year of the century, vaudeville actors struck for higher wages. Theater owners had no choice but to show movies exclusively. Film equipment was purchased in large quantities—until the end of the strike. Projection manufacturers, who had responded to the demand while it lasted, suddenly found themselves overstocked; theater owners were willing to sell their machines cheaply. The penny arcade owners, who had long wanted to show films on screens but had been unable to compete with the theater owners, now had an opportunity to buy the equipment at bargain prices.

Not only arcade owners but small-time entrepeneurs everywhere found a new and quick source of income. They rented unused stores, fitted them with projection machines, a screen, and some chairs, and charged a nickel admission. Called “nickelodeons,” these new movie houses, cheap and accessible to everyone, enjoyed phenomenal success, and were established in small towns and large cities throughout the country.

I found quite a number of things interesting about this little snippet of history. First, notice how the delivery system and the creation of a mass market drove the format of motion pictures? The first movies were short: sometimes just a few frames, then longer. But looking through a peephole at the flickering pictures limited the length of a movie—it’s just too uncomfortable to peer into a mutoscope for longer than a few minutes. And each viewer needed his or her own mutoscope. By projecting the movie onto a screen and packing chairs into a darkened room an arcade owner could get a lot more return for a lower capital investment—just one motion picture projector, a screen, and some chairs. Since the movies themselves were rented by the week, that presented the possibility of a lot more revenue at a lower cost than had otherwise been possible.

However, when sitting in a chair rather than leaning over a mutoscope, the members of the audience could watch longer movies. The very first feature length motion picture was an Australian picture produced in 1906. With the technical, financial, and market building blocks in place, feature length films blossomed.

Supply and demand were essential factors in creating a mass market. It took a supply shock (the actors’ strike) to nudge tastes in a different direction along with a fall in the capital requirements (the glut of projection equipment resulting in price drops).

It illustrates some other things that have been recurrent themes here, too. The vaudeville theater owners had a very restrictive view of what business they were in. Rather than seeing themselves as mass entertainment emporiums their preference was to identify themselves as places for live entertainment (there were status issues involved in this decision, too). The key point here is that the vaudeville theater owners didn’t see the penny arcades as competition. How wrong they were!

Fast forward all of this to today. The systems for delivering entertainment to a mass audience are evolving very rapidly. First came Internet shorts, then serials and movies. Now the proliferation of smartphones and tablets provide even more media.

I don’t think the blockbusters that have been the mainstay of the Hollywood film industry for the last thirty some-odd years are well-adapted to these new entertainment delivery systems. The studios and production companies are geared up to promote their products so I don’t expect them to die out but I think there are openings for new adaptations of old forms to come to the forefront.

Note that box office receipts haven’t been great this year and the game industry’s grosses are higher than the movie industry’s with better margins.