Hollywood Films

»	Hollywood Films

Hollywood films started in early 1910, director D. W. Griffith was sent by the Biograph Company to the west coast with his troupe, consisting of actors Blanche Sweet, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore and others. They started filming on a vacant lot in downtown Los Angeles. The Company decided to explore new territories and traveled 5 miles north to the little village Hollywood, which was friendly and enjoyed the movie company filming there. Griffith then filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood called In Old California, a Biograph melodrama about Latino-Mexican occupied California in the 1800s. The movie company stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York. After hearing about this wonderful place, in 1913 many movie-makers headed west. The first feature film made in Hollywood, in 1914, was called `The Squaw Man`, directed by Cecil B. DeMille. All the films made in Los Angeles from 1908 to 1913 were short subjects. With this film, the Hollywood movie industry was `born`.

Through the First World War, it became the movie capital of the world. The oldest company still existing in Hollywood today was founded by William Horsley of Gower Gulch-based Nestor and Centaur films, who went on to create the Hollywood Film Laboratory, which is now called the Hollywood Digital Laboratory.