Production questions

1) How has the status and power of stars changed over cinematic history?
The bigger stars are the more power they force upon the producers or directors, they sometimes have as much say or even more than anyone else.

2)Take any film you have seen recently and find out who produced it. Then try to find out more about this person. What was their role on this particular production? What have they and others got to say about their involvement and contribution? What projects have s/he been involved in previously, were these ventures successful?
The film i have chosen is Avatar produced by James Cameron he and Jon Landau were the producers. He also directed and wrote Avatar and played a huge part of the development of the film. When he produced Avatar he said when he originally wrote the film the technology wasnt there to create it so he had to forget about the story and come back to it when he could. He had waited 12 years and couldnt believe it was finially happening. He has also produced many sucessful films such as The Terminator, Titanic and Aliens.

3)Why are certain kinds of films guarenteed to make large profits and others high risk?
Usually safe bets would be films such as teen movies and sequals as even though they are usually always the same they will be sucessful.

4) Which genres are currently popular/unpopular and why?
the genres which are popular at the current time are sci fi/fantasy/vampire films such as Twilight, Watchmen, Terminator ect.

5) Why was Hollywood under the studio system so successful?

6) What had been lost and gained as a result if the replacement of the studio system by the producer/agent/deal system?

7) How and why has hollywood again become vertically integrated?

8) What are the consequences of vertical integration?Please respond to these questions fully - the links on the blog should help your research.