Oct 12, 2026 · 14 min · 7 segments
The *Fantasy/Animation* footnotes return after the summer break with Footnote #81 that maps the studio system as an organising principle and defining industrial structure of Classical Hollywood…
Chris HollidayHostAlexander SergeantHostYeah, okay, well, I think it depends on the eye of the beholder, so to speak, but I feel usually when the word studio system is used, at least in popular parlance it tends to refer to basically just a kind of understanding of filmmaking that comes from largely our understanding of the hollywood system that kind of suggests some kind of mass industrialized consumer focus globalized huge scale you know the equivalent of a factory version of of filmmaking right you know often in the pejorative right the studio system But actually the history, well, those things are true, but actually the history of Hollywood shows us that whatever the studio system is, it's never been very, it's never been whatever it is for very long.
It's often evolved and changed and altered, right? So I think when most film historians use the word studio system, they're referring actually to a quite small period of film history now, right, in the grand scheme of things, that's roughly around the sort of uh mid early to mid 20s through to about the what uh 50s roughly late 40s uh i guess you could argue it goes on to the 60s but like stuff somewhere around there about that um where which is often synonymous with this kind of the classical period of hollywood or the golden age of hollywood where Hollywood certainly was at its most financially resilient, was at its most ubiquitous in terms of people watching it, and had the biggest share of the market that it's ever had, thanks to a system of, or in part a system of production, which is often called the studio system.
yeah, so writers, David Bordwell, Kristen Thompson, that talk about classical Hollywood, this sort of style.
So the features of classical Hollywood, this kind of visual narrative style of American filmmaking that dominates the industry, as you say, from the 20s up until the 60s.
This is a Hollywood system that's built on genres of stars as repeating constants and studios too.
So these sort of five dominant when we talk of vertically integrated film studios.
Yeah, okay, well, I think it depends on the eye of the beholder, so to speak, but I feel usually when the word studio system is used, at least in popular parlance it tends to refer to basically just a kind of understanding of filmmaking that comes from largely our understanding of the hollywood system that kind of suggests some kind of mass industrialized consumer focus globalized huge scale you know the equivalent of a factory version of of filmmaking right you know often in the pejorative right the studio system But actually the history, well, those things are true, but actually the history of Hollywood shows us that whatever the studio system is, it's never been very, it's never been whatever it is for very long.
It's often evolved and changed and altered, right? So I think when most film historians use the word studio system, they're referring actually to a quite small period of film history now, right, in the grand scheme of things, that's roughly around the sort of uh mid early to mid 20s through to about the what uh 50s roughly late 40s uh i guess you could argue it goes on to the 60s but like stuff somewhere around there about that um where which is often synonymous with this kind of the classical period of hollywood or the golden age of hollywood where Hollywood certainly was at its most financially resilient, was at its most ubiquitous in terms of people watching it, and had the biggest share of the market that it's ever had, thanks to a system of, or in part a system of production, which is often called the studio system.
yeah, so writers, David Bordwell, Kristen Thompson, that talk about classical Hollywood, this sort of style.
So the features of classical Hollywood, this kind of visual narrative style of American filmmaking that dominates the industry, as you say, from the 20s up until the 60s.
This is a Hollywood system that's built on genres of stars as repeating constants and studios too.
So these sort of five dominant when we talk of vertically integrated film studios.
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