1.
Culver City, California
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Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California. The city was named after its founder, Harry Culver, as of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, over the years, it has annexed more than 40 pieces of adjoining land and now comprises about five square miles. Since the 1920s, Culver City has been a center for motion picture and later television production, from 1932 to 1985, it was the headquarters for the Hughes Aircraft Company. National Public Radio West and Sony Pictures Entertainment have headquarters in the city, the NFL Network studio is also based in Culver City. Archaeological evidence suggests a human presence in the area of present-day Culver City since at least 8,000 BC, the region was the homeland of the Tongva-Gabrieliño Native Americans, who held a presence in the region for over 8,000 years. The city was founded primarily on the lands of the former Rancho La Ballona, Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes, and Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera. In 1861, during the American Civil War, Camp Latham was established by the 1st California Infantry under Col. James H. Carleton and the 1st California Cavalry under Lt. Col. Benjamin F. Davis. Named for California Senator Milton S. Latham, the camp was the first staging area for the training of Union troops and their operations in Southern California. It was located on land of the Rancho La Ballona, on the South side of Ballona Creek, near what is now the intersection of Jefferson, the post was later moved to Camp Drum, which became the Drum Barracks. Harry Culver first attempted to establish Culver City in 1913, the city was incorporated on September 20,1917, the city was one of many all-white planned communities started in the Los Angeles area around this time. The first film studio in Culver City was built by Thomas Ince in 1918, in 1919, silent film comedy producer Hal Roach built his studios there, and Metro Goldwyn Mayer in the 20s. During Prohibition, speakeasies and nightclubs such as the Cotton Club lined Washington Boulevard, Culver Center, one of Southern Californias first shopping malls, was completed in 1950 on Venice Boulevard near the Overland Avenue intersection. Today, it has retail stores, a supermarket, a Rite Aid department store, Best Buy. Hughes Aircraft opened its Culver City plant in July 1941, there the company built the H-4 Hercules transport. Hughes was also a subcontractor in World War II. It developed and patented a flexible feed chute for faster loading of machine guns on B-17 bombers, Hughes produced more ammunition belts than any other American manufacturer, and built 5,576 wings and 6,370 rear fuselage sections for Vultee BT-13 trainers. Hughes grew after the war, and in 1953 Howard Hughes donated all of his stock in the company to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, after he died in 1976, the institute sold the company, which made it the second-best-endowed medical research foundation in the world
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Columbia Pictures
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The studio was founded in 1918 as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales by brothers Jack and Harry Cohn and Jacks best friend Joe Brandt, released its first feature film in August 1922. It adopted the Columbia Pictures name in 1924, and went public two years later and its name is derived from Columbia, a national personification of the United States, which is used as the studios logo. In its early years, it was a player in Hollywood. With Capra and others, Columbia became one of the homes of the screwball comedy. In the 1930s, Columbias major contract stars were Jean Arthur, in the 1940s, Rita Hayworth became the studios premier star and propelled their fortunes into the late 1950s. Rosalind Russell, Glenn Ford, and William Holden also became major stars at the studio, in 1982, the studio was purchased by The Coca-Cola Company, and launched TriStar Pictures as a joint venture with HBO and CBS. Five years later, Coca-Cola spun off Columbia, which was sold to Tri-Star, after a brief period of independence with Coca-Cola maintaining a financial interest, the combined studio was acquired by Sony in 1989. It is one of the film studios in the world. It was one of the so-called Little Three among the eight major film studios of Hollywoods Golden Age, Brandt was president of CBC Film Sales, handling sales, marketing and distribution from New York along with Jack Cohn, while Harry Cohn ran production in Hollywood. The studios early productions were short subjects, Screen Snapshots, the Hall Room Boys. The start-up CBC leased space in a Poverty Row studio on Hollywoods famously low-rent Gower Street, among Hollywoods elite, the studios small-time reputation led some to joke that CBC stood for Corned Beef and Cabbage. Brandt eventually tired of dealing with the Cohn brothers, and sold his stake to Harry Cohn. In an effort to improve its image, the Cohn brothers renamed the company Columbia Pictures Corporation on January 10,1924, Cohn remained head of production as well, thus concentrating enormous power in his hands. He would run Columbia for the next 34 years, the second-longest tenure of any studio chief, even in an industry rife with nepotism, Columbia was particularly notorious for having a number of Harry and Jacks relatives in high positions. Humorist Robert Benchley called it the Pine Tree Studio, because it has so many Cohns, Columbias product line consisted mostly of moderately budgeted features and short subjects including comedies, sports films, various serials, and cartoons. Columbia gradually moved into the production of higher-budget fare, eventually joining the tier of Hollywood studios along with United Artists. Like United Artists and Universal, Columbia was an integrated company. It controlled production and distribution, it did not own any theaters, helping Columbias climb was the arrival of an ambitious director, Frank Capra
4.
TriStar Pictures
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TriStar Pictures is an American film production/distribution studio of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, owned by the Sony subsidiary Sony Pictures Entertainment. On May 16,1983, it was given the name Tri-Star Pictures and it was the first new major Hollywood studio to be established since RKO Pictures was founded in 1928. The studios first produced film in 1984 was The Natural starring Robert Redford, during this venture, many of Tri-Stars releases were released on VHS by either RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video, CBS/Fox Video, or HBO Video. In addition, HBO would gain exclusive distribution rights to these films. CBS dropped out of the venture in 1985, though still distributed some of TriStars films on home video until at least 1992. In 1986, HBO dropped out of the Tri-Star venture as well, the same year, Tri-Star entered into the television business as Tri-Star Television. It was formed when the studio joined forces with Stephen J. Cannell Productions and Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions, both studios continued to produce and distribute films under their separate names. On April 13,1988, CPE spun off Tri-Star Pictures, in 1989, all of Cokes entertainment holdings were acquired by Sony Corporation of Japan, who merged Columbia and Tri-Star, but continued to use the separate labels. On July 11,1990, Tri-Star Pictures dissolved and sold its venture in TeleVentures to Stephen J. Cannell Productions, most of the series and the Tri-Star film packages that were distributed by TeleVentures were transferred to Columbia Pictures Television Distribution. The Tri-Star film packages were transferred to Columbia Pictures Television Distribution, both studios continued to operate separately until TriStar folded in 1999 and CPT in 2001. In addition to its own slate, TriStar was the distributor for many films produced by Carolco Pictures. TriStar also theatrically distributed some FilmDistrict movies, TriStar was relaunched on May 13,2004 as a marketing and acquisitions unit that had a particular emphasis on genre films. Screen Gems executive vice president Valerie Van Galder was tapped to run the studio after being dormant. However, the release of its 2013 film Elysium represents the labels first big-budget release since The Mask of Zorro in 1998, the same year, former 20th Century Fox co-chairman Tom Rothman joined Sony Pictures and created TriStar Productions as a joint venture with existing Sony Pictures executives. The new TriStar will develop, finance and produce up to four films per year, as well as programming and acquisitions. Sonys TriStar Pictures unit will be retained for other product, including titles from Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions, TriStars logo of Pegasus, introduced in 1984, has become something of a cultural icon. The idea came about because of executive Victor Kaufman and his familys interest in riding horses, the original logo was created with the assistance of Sydney Pollack, who was an adviser at Tri-Star. The horse in that logo was the one used in Pollacks film The Electric Horseman
5.
Screen Gems
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The label currently specializes in genre films, namely horror. The name was used in 1933, when Columbia Pictures acquired a stake in Charles Mintzs animation studio. The name was derived from an early Columbia Pictures slogan, Gems of the Screen, itself a takeoff on the song Columbia, for an entire decade, Charles Mintz distributed his Krazy Kat, Scrappy, and Color Rhapsody animated film shorts through Columbia Pictures. When Mintz became indebted to Columbia in 1939, he ended up selling his studio to them, Mintzs production manager became the studio head, but was shortly replaced by Mintzs brother-in-law, George Winkler. Columbia then decided to house by ousting the bulk of the staff. After Tashlins short stay came Dave Fleischer, formerly of the Fleischer Studios, animators, directors, and writers at the series included people such as Art Davis, Sid Marcus, Bob Wickersham, and during its latter period, Bob Clampett. Like most studios, the Screen Gems studio had several established characters on their roster and these included Flippity and Flop, Willoughby Wren, and Tito and His Burrito. However, the most successful characters the studio had were The Fox and the Crow, a duo of a refined Fox. Screen Gems was, in an attempt to keep costs low, the final black-and-white Screen Gems shorts appeared in 1946, over three years after the second-longest holdouts. During that same year, the studio shut its doors for good, the Screen Gems cartoons were only moderately successful in comparison to those of Disney, Warner Bros. and MGM. Pioneer was later reorganized as Screen Gems, the studio started its new business in New York on April 15,1949. By 1951, Screen Gems became a television studio by producing and syndicating several popular shows. By 1952, the studio had produced a series of about 100 film-record coordinated releases for television under the brand TV Disk Jockey Toons in which the films synchronize perfectly with the records. On December 10,1956, Screen Gems expanded into television syndication by acquiring Hygo Television Films and its affiliated company United Television Films, Hygo Television Films was founded in 1951 by Jerome Hyams, who also acquired United Television Films in 1955 that was founded by Archie Mayers. Earlier on August 2,1957, they acquired syndication rights to Shock. A package of Universal horror films, which was successful in reviving that genre. The name Screen Gems, at the time, was used to hide the fact that the studio was entering television production and distribution. Many film studios saw television as a threat to their business, however, Columbia was one of a few studios who branched out to television under a pseudonym to conceal the true ownership of the television arm
6.
Sony Pictures
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Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American entertainment company that produces, acquires and distributes filmed entertainment through multiple platforms. It operates as a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc. which is the parent company for both the music and motion picture businesses of Sony Corporation, based in Culver City, California, it encompasses Sonys motion picture, television production and distribution units. Its group sales in the fiscal year 2015 has been reported to be of $8.3 billion, Sony Pictures film franchises include Spider-Man, Men in Black, Underworld, Resident Evil, and Robert Langdon. Sony Pictures is one of Hollywoods major film studios and a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, on September 1,1987, The Coca-Cola Company announced plans to spin-off its assets of Columbia Pictures, which it had owned since 1982. Under this arrangement, Coca-Cola would sell its entertainment assets to TriStar Pictures, Tri-Star would be renamed to Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. with Coca-Cola owning 49%, its shareholders owning 31%, and Tri-Stars shareholders owning 20%. A new company was formed in early 1988 with the Tri-Star name to take over the studios operations, on September 28,1989, Sony obtained an option to purchase all of The Coca-Cola Companys stock in CPE for $27 per share. This was all led by Norio Ohga, who was the president, the hiring of Guber and Peters by Sony to run Columbia was conflicted by a previous contract the producers had signed at Warner Bros. Time Warners chairman, Steve Ross, threatened Sony with a lawsuit for breach of contract, the lawsuit would be subsequently dropped when Sony sold half-interest in Columbia House and cable distribution rights to Columbias feature films, TV movies, and miniseries to Warner Bros. Said agreement also saw Columbia sell its 35% interest in the Burbank Studios, on November 8,1989, Sony completed the acquisition by a short-form merger of its wholly owned subsidiary Sony Columbia Acquisition Corporation into CPE under Delaware law. Sony also completed a tender offer for shares of stock of the Guber-Peters Entertainment Company on November 6,1989. The acquisition cost Sony $4.9 billion and was backed by five major Japanese banks Mitsui, Tokyo, Fuji, Mitsubishi, the company was renamed Sony Pictures Entertainment on August 7,1991. On June 4,2008, SPEs wholly owned group 2JS Productions B. V. acquired Dutch production company 2waytraffic N. V. famous for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. and You Are What You Eat for £114.3 million. In 2011, the Sony Pictures computer network was breached and approximately one million user accounts associated with the SonyPictures. com website were leaked. On November 21,2013, SPE and Sony Entertainments CEO Michael Lynton announced that SPE will shift emphasis from movies to television by cutting its 2014 film slate, on January 22,2014, SPE folded its technology unit into its various cores of its businesses. On February 6,2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment, through their legal name Columbia TriStar Warner Filmes de Portugal Ltda. announced that they close their offices in Portugal on March 31. On November 20,2015, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment announced that they will release Ultra HD Blu-ray releases, the first set will be in early 2016 and will include film and television content. In November 2014, the Sony Pictures computer network was compromised by a group of hackers named Guardians of Peace, disabling many computers. Later the same week, five of Sony Pictures movies were leaked, including some not yet released, as well as confidential data about 47,000 current and former Sony employees
7.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of feature films and television programs. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California and it is one of the worlds oldest film studios. In 1971, it was announced that MGM would merge with 20th Century Fox, over the next thirty-nine years, the studio was bought and sold at various points in its history until, on November 3,2010, MGM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. MGM Resorts International, a Las Vegas-based hotel and casino company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MGM, is not currently affiliated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1966, MGM was sold to Canadian investor Edgar Bronfman Sr. whose son Edgar Jr. would later buy Universal Studios, the studio continued to produce five to six films a year that were released through other studios, mostly United Artists. Kerkorian did, however, commit to increased production and a film library when he bought United Artists in 1981. MGM ramped up production, as well as keeping production going at UA. It also incurred significant amounts of debt to increase production, the studio took on additional debt as a series of owners took charge in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1986, Ted Turner bought MGM, but a few later, sold the company back to Kerkorian to recoup massive debt. The series of deals left MGM even more heavily in debt, MGM was bought by Pathé Communications in 1990, but Parretti lost control of Pathé and defaulted on the loans used to purchase the studio. The French banking conglomerate Crédit Lyonnais, the major creditor. Even more deeply in debt, MGM was purchased by a joint venture between Kerkorian, producer Frank Mancuso, and Australias Seven Network in 1996, the debt load from these and subsequent business deals negatively affected MGMs ability to survive as an independent motion picture studio. In 1924, movie theater magnate Marcus Loew had a problem and he had bought Metro Pictures Corporation in 1919 for a steady supply of films for his large Loews Theatres chain. With Loews lackluster assortment of Metro films, Loew purchased Goldwyn Pictures in 1924 to improve the quality, however, these purchases created a need for someone to oversee his new Hollywood operations, since longtime assistant Nicholas Schenck was needed in New York headquarters to oversee the 150 theaters. Mayer, Loew addressed the situation by buying Louis B. Mayer Pictures on April 17,1924, Mayer became head of the renamed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with Irving Thalberg as head of production. MGM produced more than 100 feature films in its first two years, in 1925, MGM released the extravagant and successful Ben-Hur, taking a $4.7 million profit that year, its first full year. Marcus Loew died in 1927, and control of Loews passed to Nicholas Schenck, in 1929, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation bought the Loew familys holdings with Schencks assent. Mayer and Thalberg disagreed with the decision, Mayer was active in the California Republican Party and used his political connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay final approval of the deal on antitrust grounds
8.
Triangle Film Corporation
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Triangle Film Corporation was a major American motion-picture studio, founded in July 1915 in Culver City, California. The studio was founded in July 1915 by Harry and Roy Aitken, Harry was also D. W. Griffiths partner at Reliance-Majestic Studios, both parted with the Mutual Film Corporation in the wake of The Birth of a Nations unexpected success that year. Triangle was envisioned as a studio based on the producing abilities of filmmakers D. W. Griffith, Thomas Ince. On November 23,1915, the Triangle Film Corporation opened a state-of-the-art motion picture theater in Massillon, the Lincoln Theater is still an operational movie theater owned and operated by the Massillon Lions Club. The theater has been restored and is host to a film festival dedicated to the films of Dorothy. Eventually, the studio suffered from bloat, by 1917, producer Adolph Zukor had taken control of all of the studios assets. In June 1917, Thomas H. Ince and Mack Sennett left the company, Triangle continued to produce films until 1919 when it ceased operations. Films using the Triangle name were released to the general public until 1923. With the exception of Oh, Mabel Behave, all of Triangles films were released between 1915 and 1919, most films were made on the West Coast, but some of Triangles production took place in Fort Lee, New Jersey. La Triangle - Cinéma, Archives, research and history at the Cinémathèque française Strategic failure of the Triangle - Marc Vernet
9.
Thomas H. Ince
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Thomas Harper Ince was an American silent film producer, director, screenwriter, and actor. Ince was known as the Father of the Western and was responsible for making over 800 films and he revolutionized the motion picture industry by creating the first major Hollywood studio facility and invented movie production by introducing the assembly line system of filmmaking. He was the first mogul to build his own film studio dubbed Inceville in Palisades Highlands, Ince was also instrumental in developing the role of the producer in motion pictures. Two of his films, The Italian, for which he wrote the screenplay, and Civilization and he later partnered with D. W. Griffith and Mack Sennett to form the Triangle Motion Picture Company whose studios are the present-day site of Sony Pictures. He then built a new studio about a mile from Triangle which is now the site of Culver Studios. Thomas Harper Ince was born on November 16,1880 in Newport, Rhode Island and his father was born in Wigan, Lancashire, England, in 1841, and was the youngest of nine boys who enlisted in the British Navy as a powder monkey. He later disembarked at San Francisco, and found work as a reporter, around 1887, when Ince was about seven, the family moved to Manhattan to pursue theater work. Inces father worked as both an actor and musical agent and his mother, Ince himself, sister Bertha and brothers, John, Ince made his Broadway debut at 15 in a small role of a revival 1893 play, Shore Acres by James A. Herne. He appeared with several companies as a child and was later an office boy for theatrical manager Daniel Frohman. Later he would form an unsuccessful Vaudeville company known as Thomas H. Ince and His Comedians in Atlantic Highlands, in 1907, Ince met actress Elinor Kershaw and they were married on October 19 of that year. They had three children, William T, richard Kershaw and Thomas H. Jr. Inces directing career began in 1910 through a chance encounter in New York City with an employee from his old acting troupe, William S. Hart. Ince found his first film work as an actor for the Biograph Company, directed by his future partner, Griffith was impressed enough with Ince to hire him as a Production coordinator at Biograph. This led to work coordinating productions at Carl Laemmles Independent Motion Pictures Co. And, although he tackled many different subjects, he was drawn to Westerns. Clashes between the trust and independent films became exacerbated, so Ince moved to California to escape these pressures and he hoped to achieve the effects accomplished with minimal facilities like Griffith, which he believed, could only be accomplished in Hollywood. After only a year with IMP, Ince quit, the offer came as a distinct shock, but I kept cool and concealed my excitement. I tried to convey the impression that he would have to raise the ante a trifle if he wanted me and that also worked, and I signed a contract for three months at $150 a week. Very soon after that, with Mrs. Ince, my cameraman, property man and Ethel Grandin, my leading woman, together with his young wife and a small entourage, Ince moved to Bison Studios to begin work immediately
