Film studio - wikipedia Film studio See also : Recording studio, Studio, and Television studio This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. ( Learn how and when to remove these template messages ) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( October 2015 ) The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. You may improve this article, discuss the issue on the talk page, or create a new article, as appropriate. ( June 2015 ) Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad is the largest film studio in the world A film studio ( also known as movie studio or simply studio ) is a major entertainment company or motion picture company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to make films, which is handled by the production company. The majority of firms in the entertainment industry have never owned 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 motion picture companies ; they are companies who sell only studio space. The largest film studio in the world is Ramoji Film City, in Hyderabad, India. Contents 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 The Babelsberg Studio near Berlin was the first large - scale film studio in the world and the forerunner to Hollywood. It still produces movies every 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 to perform for the camera. He distributed these movies at vaudeville theaters, penny 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 and 1917, successfully distributing them around the world. The first film serial ever, The Million Dollar Mystery, was released by the Thanhouser company in 1914. In the early 1900s, companies started moving to Los Angeles, California. Although electric lights were by then widely available, none were yet powerful enough to adequately expose film ; the best source of illumination for motion picture production was natural sunlight. Some movies were shot on the roofs of buildings in Downtown Los Angeles. Early movie producers also relocated to Southern California to escape Edison 's Motion Picture Patents Company, which controlled almost all 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 settled in Hollywood. Other production companies eventually settled in the Los Angeles area in places such as Culver City, Burbank, and what would soon become known as Studio City in the San Fernando Valley. The `` majors '' 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 into wealthy motion picture industry conglomerates that owned their own studios, distribution divisions, and theaters, and contracted with performers and other filmmaking personnel, led to the sometimes confusing equation of `` studio '' with `` production 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 such as Variety, and their management structures and practices collectively came to be known as the `` studio system. '' The Little 3 Although they owned few or no theaters to guarantee sales of their films, Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and United Artists also fell under these rubrics, making a total of eight generally recognized `` major studios ''. United Artists, although its controlling partners owned not one but two production studios during the Golden Age, had an often - tenuous hold on the title of `` major '' and operated mainly as a backer and distributor of independently produced films. The minors Smaller studios operated simultaneously with `` the majors. '' These included operations such as Republic Pictures, active from 1935, which produced films that occasionally matched the scale and ambition of the larger studio, and Monogram Pictures, which specialized in series and genre releases. Together with smaller outfits 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 The Big Five 's ownership of movie theaters was eventually opposed by eight independent producers, including Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick, Walt Disney, Hal Roach, and Walter Wanger. In 1948, the federal government won a case against Paramount in the Supreme Court, which ruled that the vertically integrated structure of the movie industry constituted an illegal monopoly. This decision, reached after twelve years of litigation, hastened the end of the studio system and Hollywood 's `` Golden Age ''. Typical major film studio components 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 physically secure compound with a high wall, which protects filmmaking operations from unwanted interference from paparazzi and crazed fans of leading movie stars. Movement in and out of the studio is normally limited to specific gates ( often capped with grand decorative arches ), where visitors must stop at a boom barrier and explain the purpose of their visit to a security guard. Studio premises generally feature multiple sound stages along with an outside backlot, as well as offices for studio executives and production companies. There is normally a studio `` commissary '', which is the traditional term in the film industry for what other industries call a company cafeteria. Early nitrate film was notoriously flammable, and sets were and are still very flammable, which is why film studios built in the early - to - mid 20th century have water towers to facilitate firefighting. Film to television 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 hoped -- movie studios were increasingly being used to produce programming for the burgeoning medium. Some midsize film companies, such as Republic Pictures, eventually sold their studios to TV production concerns, which were eventually bought by larger studios, such as the American Broadcasting Company which was purchased by The Walt Disney Company in 1996. Today With the growing diversification of studios into such fields as video games, television, 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 creative 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. With 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 famous 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 studios 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 backlot where films such as Psycho and Back to the Future were once shot. Independent film and the studios 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 cameras, many young filmmakers began to make films outside the `` studio system ''. Filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch, Robert Rodriguez, Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, 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 distributed by `` mini-studios '' like Miramax, the `` majors '' created their own in - house mini-studios meant to focus on edgier `` independent '' content. Focus Features was created by Universal Pictures and Fox Searchlight was created by 20th Century Fox for this purpose. Notable film studios This section contains embedded lists that may be poorly defined, unverified or indiscriminate. Please help to clean it up to meet Wikipedia 's quality standards. Where appropriate, incorporate items into the main body of the article. ( June 2017 ) 1492 Pictures ( USA ) A24 ( USA ) Amblin Entertainment ( USA ) DreamWorks ( USA ) Annapurna Studios ( Hyderabad, India ) Ardmore Studios ( Ireland ) 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 ) Black Bear Pictures ( USA ) Bleecker Street ( USA ) The Bridge Studios ( British Columbia, Canada ) Broad Green Pictures ( USA ) CBS Films ( USA ) Christie Film Company ( USA ) Ciby 2000 ( Canada, Norway, UK ) Cinecittà ( Italy ) Cinema City International ( Hong Kong ) Constantin Film ( Germany ) Crystal Sky Pictures ( USA ) Dovzhenko Film Studios ( Ukraine ) Edison Studios ( USA ) Edison 's Black Maria ( USA ) Elstree Studios ( UK ) Entertainment One ( Canada ) Eros Entertainment ( India ) Filmation ( USA ) Fireworks Entertainment ( USA & Cuba ) Five & Two Pictures ( USA ) Freestyle Releasing ( USA ) Full Moon Features ( USA ) Moonbeam Entertainment ( USA ) Gaumont Film Company ( France ) Gener8Xion Entertainment ( USA ) Genius Products ( USA, Australia & UK ) GoodTimes Entertainment ( USA ) Globo Filmes ( Brazil ) Gorky Film Studio ( Russia ) Grassroots Films ( USA ) Hengdian World Studios ( China ) ITC Entertainment ( UK ) Rank Organisation ( UK ) Jerry Bruckheimer Films ( USA ) Kadokawa Pictures ( Japan ) Daiei Film ( Japan ) Kanteerava Studios ( Bangalore, ( India ) KDK Factory ( USA ) Korda Studios ( Hungary ) Legendary Pictures ( USA ) Lenfilm ( Russia ) Lionsgate ( USA, Canada ) Anchor Bay Entertainment ( USA ) Artisan Entertainment ( USA ) Mandalay Pictures ( USA ) Mandate Pictures ( USA ) Overture Films ( USA ) Roadside Attractions ( USA ) Summit Entertainment ( USA ) Lubin Studios ( USA ) LVN Pictures ( Philippines ) Marwah Films & Video Studios ( New Delhi, India ) Media Asia Entertainment Group ( Hong Kong ) Metro - Goldwyn - Mayer ( USA ) Cannon Films ( USA ) Goldwyn Pictures ( USA ) Orion Pictures ( USA ) Hemdale Film Corporation ( USA ) Solax Studios ( USA ) Tiffany Pictures ( USA ) United Artists ( USA ) Miramax Films ( USA, formely part of Walt Disney Pictures ) Dimension Films ( USA ) The Weinstein Company ( USA ) Moldova - Film ( Moldova ) Mosfilm ( Soviet Union ( now Russia ) ) National Film Board of Canada ( Canada ) Nerigan Entertainment ( New Zealand & Russia ) Nikkatsu ( Japan ) Nordisk Film ( Denmark ) Nu Boyana Film ( Bulgaria ) Open Road Films ( USA ) Orange Sky Golden Harvest ( Hong Kong ) Pacific Data Images ( USA ) Padmalaya Studios ( Hyderabad, India ) Pantelion Films ( USA ) Paramount Pictures ( USA ) Famous Players Film Company ( USA ) Keystone Studios ( USA ) Republic Pictures ( USA ) Triangle Film Corporation ( USA ) Pathé ( France ) Pinewood Studios ( UK ) Shepperton Studios ( UK ) Possibility Pictures ( USA ) Praise Pictures ( USA ) Premium Picture Productions ( USA ) Pure Flix Entertainment ( USA ) Ramanaidu Studios ( Hyderabad, India ) Ramoji Film City ( Hyderabad, India ) Relativity Media ( USA ) Reliance Entertainment ( USA & India ) Revolution Studios ( USA ) River Road Entertainment ( USA ) RKO Pictures ( USA ) Rok Studios ( Nigeria ) Russian World Studios ( Russia ) Sanrio ( Japan & USA ) Se - ma - for ( Poland ) Selig Polyscope Company ( USA ) Shanghai Film Group Corporation ( China ) Shaw Brothers Studio ( Hong Kong, China ) Sherwood Pictures ( USA ) Shochiku ( Japan ) Sidney Kimmel Entertainment ( USA ) Silver Pictures ( USA ) Somali Film Agency ( Somalia ) Sonar Entertainment ( USA ) Sony Pictures Entertainment ( USA & Japan ) Columbia Pictures ( USA ) Screen Gems ( USA ) TriStar Pictures ( USA ) Soyuzmultfilm ( Russia ) Spiderwood Studios ( USA ) Spyglass Entertainment ( USA ) Stark Productions ( Canada ) Studio Ghibli ( Japan ) StudioCanal ( France ) Carolco ( USA ) STX Entertainment ( USA ) AB Svensk Filmindustri ( Sweden ) Sverdlovsk Film Studio ( Russia ) The Montecito Picture Company ( USA ) Three Mills Studios ( UK ) Tinapa Studios ( Nigeria ) Toei ( Japan ) Toho ( Japan ) Tohokushinsha Film ( Japan ) Troma Entertainment ( USA ) Troublemaker Studios ( USA ) Twickenham Film Studios ( UK ) Universal Studios ( USA ) Focus Features ( USA ) Illumination Entertainment ( USA ) Nestor Studios ( USA ) Victor Studios ( USA ) Working Title Films ( USA ) Viva Films ( Philippines ) Sampaguita Pictures ( Philippines ) Village Roadshow ( USA & Australia ) Village Roadshow Pictures ( Australia ) Walden Media ( USA ) Walt Disney Pictures ( USA ) 20th Century Fox ( USA ) Blue Sky Studios ( USA ) Caravan Pictures ( USA, merged with Spyglass Entertainment ) Fox Atomic ( USA ) Fox Searchlight Pictures ( USA ) Fox Star Studios ( India ) Hollywood Pictures ( USA ) Lucasfilm ( USA ) Marvel Studios ( USA ) New World Pictures ( USA ) Pixar ( USA ) Regency Enterprises ( USA ) Touchstone Pictures ( USA ) Warner Bros. ( USA ) Castle Rock Entertainment ( USA & Canada ) Essanay Studios ( USA ) First National Pictures ( USA ) MediaPro Pictures ( Romania ) Metropolitan Pictures ( Romania ) New Line Cinema ( USA ) FBO ( USA ) Mutual Film ( USA ) Thanhouser Company ( USA ) Vitagraph Studios ( USA ) Kalem Company ( USA ) Méliès Films ( France ) Wimbledon Studios ( UK ) WingNut Films ( New Zealand & USA ) World Wide Pictures ( USA ) Vishesh Films ( India ) Yash Raj Films ( India ) See also Film portal Film Film producer Film release History of film Major film studio Outline of film Prestige picture Production company References Jump up ^ `` Guineness world record ''. Jump up ^ `` Guineness world record ''. Jump up ^ `` China to build world 's most expensive film studio ''. External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Film studios. Who built the first film studio in the United States ? Columbia Pictures Production Crew Contract 1945 A Film Studio for the Age of Virtual Reality. `` A Montreal - based film studio is making movies that you 'll watch with a virtual - reality headset, pointing the way to a whole new form of entertainment. '' Rachel Metz, MIT Technology Review Filmmaking Development Film treatment Producer scriptment Step outline Screenplay process spec script film adaptation Hook Option Film budgeting Film finance pitch Green - light Pre-production Script breakdown process Shooting script Storyboard Casting Scenography Rehearsal Production board Day Out of Days Production schedule Shooting schedule one - liner Production Film crew Cinematic techniques Principal photography Cinematography Videography Daily call sheet Dailies ( rushes ) Daily reports Film inventory Production Daily Production Progress Sound Cost Editor log Post-production Film editing Re-recording Sync sound Soundtrack Music Special effects sound visual Negative cost Distribution Film distributor list Film release wide limited delayed Roadshow Related Box office Guerrilla filmmaking Development hell Film Filmography Film industry Film rights Turnaround Film studios in the United States and Canada Majors 20th Century Fox Columbia Pictures Paramount Pictures Universal Pictures Walt Disney Studios Warner Bros. Mini-majors Amblin Partners CBS Films Lionsgate Metro - Goldwyn - Mayer Open Road Films STX Entertainment The Weinstein Company Independent studios 3D Entertainment A24 Alcon Entertainment Amazon Studios Anchor Bay Films Beacon Pictures Broad Green Pictures Dark Horse Entertainment Drafthouse Films Entertainment One Entertainment Studios Hasbro Studios Icon Productions IFC Films Image Entertainment Imagine Entertainment IMAX Pictures Lakeshore Entertainment Magnolia Pictures Mandalay Pictures MarVista Entertainment Miramax Montecito Picture Company Morgan Creek Productions Picturehouse Regency Enterprises Relativity Media RKO Pictures Roadside Attractions Saban Films Samuel Goldwyn Films Troma Entertainment Ubisoft Motion Pictures Vertical Entertainment Village Roadshow Pictures Walden Media WWE Studios Independent financers Annapurna Pictures Cross Creek Pictures Escape Artists FilmNation Entertainment Legendary Entertainment LStar Capital New Regency Productions Participant Media RatPac Entertainment Red Granite Pictures Revolution Studios Skydance Media Temple Hill Entertainment TSG Entertainment Worldview Entertainment Producer - owned independents 1492 Pictures American Zoetrope Apatow Productions Appian Way Productions Bad Hat Harry Productions Bad Robot Productions Blinding Edge Pictures Blumhouse Productions Bryanston Pictures Centropolis Entertainment Cheyenne Enterprises Davis Entertainment Di Bonaventura Pictures Fuzzy Door Productions Gary Sanchez Productions Genre Films Ghost House Pictures GK Films Happy Madison Productions ImageMovers Jim Henson Pictures Kerner Entertainment Kennedy / Marshall Company Lightstorm Entertainment Mutual Film Original Film Pearl Street Films Plan B Entertainment Platinum Dunes Playtone Silver Pictures / Dark Castle Smokehouse Pictures TriBeCa Productions Twisted Pictures Vertigo Entertainment Portal : Film Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Film_studio&oldid=815542518 '' Categories : Film studios Hidden categories : Articles needing additional references from October 2015 All articles needing additional references Articles with limited geographic scope from June 2015 USA - centric Articles with multiple maintenance issues Articles needing cleanup from June 2017 All pages needing cleanup Wikipedia list cleanup from June 2017 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Deutsch Ελληνικά Español Euskara Français Frysk 한국어 Հայերեն Bahasa Indonesia Íslenska Italiano עברית Қазақша Кыргызча Magyar Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk Oʻzbekcha / ўзбекча Polski Română Русский Shqip Simple English Suomi Svenska Тоҷикӣ Türkçe Українська Tiếng Việt 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 15 December 2017, at 13 : 44. 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Question: who built the first film studio in hollywood
Answer: Nestor Studios, opened in 1911 by Al Christie for David Horsley