To get a good look at the "studio factory" system Thomas Ince set up near Los Angeles, November 1912's "The Invaders" is a great example of the type of Westerns and other movies the innovative "Father of the Western" was producing. Francis Ford (John's bother) directed this stirring adventure, using real Native Americans to play the disgruntle Indians who rebel against the white man for abrogating their treaties.
John Ford, the director with the most Oscars, had an older brother, Francis, who appears as the Colonel in "The Invaders." Francis, who served in the Army during the Spanish-American War, gravitated towards film soon after and worked under Ince out West as a director/actor. He was involved in close to 400 films. Today's viewers may know him as the old man dying on his deathbed in John Ford's "The Quiet Man," only to wake up, get out of bed and run towards the epic fist fight occurring outdoors between John Wayne and Victor McLaglen.
Ford was part of a massive enterprise run by Thomas Ince, a former actor-turned-director who took the reigns of New York Picture Company's western operations, Bison Studios. Once Ince arrived in Los Angeles, he got his employers to agree to lease 18,000 acres between Santa Monica and Malibu where he could realize his dream of reinventing the way movies could be made. He immediately had numerous simple sets built, creating every imaginary backdrop to serve all types of film categories. He hired literally an entire army of wild west show actors with its livestock from Oklahoma as well as an entire Sioux tribe numbering 200.
With such overhead expenses, Ince realized Bison would have to pump out a number of films each month using an entirely new production system than what the movie industry had been operating since its inception. No more would the director have deliberate sole control of constructing an entire film. Ince placed a producer in charge to oversee one entire movie, from its beginning to completion. Unique was how a movie originated. A detailed script would be submitted by company writers for approval by the studio executives (mostly Ince). The script, a first in cinema, would describe each movement of its actors, what the title cards would state, and the types of sets required. The producer, with the director's advice, would cast the actors and oversee the process throughout its production. Finally, an editor specializing in slicing a film together would take over the duties that a director would normally do. Hence, this assembly-line method of constructing a movie would allow Ince's studio to release as many as three films a week, over 150 in 1913 alone.
This system would be adopted by major movie studios in the future, assuring an insatiable movie-going public a constant stream of new films for their local theaters.
John Ford, the director with the most Oscars, had an older brother, Francis, who appears as the Colonel in "The Invaders." Francis, who served in the Army during the Spanish-American War, gravitated towards film soon after and worked under Ince out West as a director/actor. He was involved in close to 400 films. Today's viewers may know him as the old man dying on his deathbed in John Ford's "The Quiet Man," only to wake up, get out of bed and run towards the epic fist fight occurring outdoors between John Wayne and Victor McLaglen.
Ford was part of a massive enterprise run by Thomas Ince, a former actor-turned-director who took the reigns of New York Picture Company's western operations, Bison Studios. Once Ince arrived in Los Angeles, he got his employers to agree to lease 18,000 acres between Santa Monica and Malibu where he could realize his dream of reinventing the way movies could be made. He immediately had numerous simple sets built, creating every imaginary backdrop to serve all types of film categories. He hired literally an entire army of wild west show actors with its livestock from Oklahoma as well as an entire Sioux tribe numbering 200.
With such overhead expenses, Ince realized Bison would have to pump out a number of films each month using an entirely new production system than what the movie industry had been operating since its inception. No more would the director have deliberate sole control of constructing an entire film. Ince placed a producer in charge to oversee one entire movie, from its beginning to completion. Unique was how a movie originated. A detailed script would be submitted by company writers for approval by the studio executives (mostly Ince). The script, a first in cinema, would describe each movement of its actors, what the title cards would state, and the types of sets required. The producer, with the director's advice, would cast the actors and oversee the process throughout its production. Finally, an editor specializing in slicing a film together would take over the duties that a director would normally do. Hence, this assembly-line method of constructing a movie would allow Ince's studio to release as many as three films a week, over 150 in 1913 alone.
This system would be adopted by major movie studios in the future, assuring an insatiable movie-going public a constant stream of new films for their local theaters.