Report from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Science and Technology Council

As of this writing, the world is in the midst of a pandemic, the likes of which have not been seen for over a century. The Spanish Flu outbreak beginning in 1918 was the motion picture industry’s first experience with widespread theater closings and production shutdowns. The industry began to recover in mid-1919, and along with that recovery came the formation of the studio system for motion picture production and vertical integration of production and theatrical exhibition.
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And not too long after that, the Golden Age of Hollywood began.