Chicago film industry
Actor and co-founder of Essanay Studios, Broncho Billy Anderson gave birth to the western genre.
However, due to the high demand for motion pictures during this time, a black market for films and equipment developed.
Blockbusters, such as Blues Brothers, Sixteen Candles, and The Dark Knight, have rejuvenated the Chicago film scene.
Essanay Studios was a Chicago pioneer film company established in 1907 by George K. Spoor and Broncho Billy Anderson.
Located on the north side on Argyle Street in Chicago, the firm grew to one of the largest film companies in the world before the rise of Hollywood.
Armed with a vision, Spoor created the Magniscope, which allowed films to be projected onto flat surfaces.
[2] Due to his love for westerns, Anderson convinced Spoor to establish Essanay branches in Boulder, Colorado and Fremont California.
Swanson would later star in many television and film productions including the smash hit Sunset Boulevard.
In 1918 George Kleine purchased the studio to form a merger between Vitagraph, Lubin, Selig, and Essanay known as V-L-S-E, Incorporated which would eventually be absorbed by Warner Brothers.
Currently, the remnants of the studio are part of St. Augustine's College which built a Charlie Chaplin memorial theater on site.
[5] The rise of the Chicago film industry in the early 1900s was a product of technological advancement marked by political strategy.
[2] However, aspiring filmmakers began designing and patenting similar projection machines around the Kinetoscope that allowed a film to be shown to a large audience.
[2] Film companies of this time period customarily both created movies and established a means of viewing.
According to the company, film outfits were showing motion pictures illegally because each of the improvised projectors violated the Kinetoscope patent.
Max Lewis, president of the Chicago Film Exchange, announced he would not comply with the $10 monthly licensing fee on projectors.
[1] Nickelodeons or five-cent theaters became extremely popular with the number of venues growing each year until the Great Depression.
Filmmakers shot their films outdoors due to the need for ample lighting with the primitive camera equipment.
The Motion Picture Patents Company, established to protect the major players in the industry, actually promoted the birth of independent ventures.
[1] High-profile film companies such as MGM, Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, Republic, Universal, RKO, and Paramount all held offices in Chicago.
Notable films from the 1980s include Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Color of Money, Risky Business, The Untouchables, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and When Harry Met Sally....
Feature film directors returned to the city including Dan Aykroyd and the Belushi family (Blues Brothers, About Last Night, and Blues Brothers 2000), John Hughes (Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club), and Andrew Davis (The Fugitive and Chain Reaction).
Cinespace Chicago Film Studios, is the “Hollywood of the Midwest,” and has brought a multitude of digital media employment and education opportunities to the community and region by revitalizing a depressed neighborhood, and contributing to the creation of more than 15,000 jobs.
Alex Pissios' leadership at Cinespace Chicago has been instrumental in infusing billions of dollars of revenue into the city and the state of Illinois.
