Hollywood! Stage 5 Comprehension PDF

STAGE 5 Unit focus: The Movies! Text focus: Information Text Hollywood! Glamour, money, power and magic. They are perhaps the four words that you picture when you hear the wo...

STAGE 5 Unit focus: The Movies! Text focus: Information Text Hollywood! Glamour, money, power and magic. They are perhaps the four words that you picture when you hear the word Hollywood. And yet America’s “Tinseltown” hasn’t always been the dream factory that it is known as today. Nowadays, some of the most powerful actors and film studios call Hollywood home or at least work, but in the beginning, it was a struggle to get anybody to go there at all. The story of Hollywood begins in 1883. All that stood where vast shooting lots and gli ering boardwalks now stand was a small hut and li le else. Into the frame strode an unlikely hero, a man named Harvey Wilcox. He was a politician and, more importantly, a property developer. Together with his wife Daeida, he bought a large area of land just outside where Hollywood now stands. His idea was to try his hand at farming herds of animals. Harvey was originally from Kansas, so he may have had some experience working with livestock. However, his idea flopped. He decided to cut his losses and asked the Los Angeles government for permission to divide the land up and build houses on it. Permission was granted, and he began work on a road called Prospect Avenue. By 1902, the area was a functional town. It had a post office, hotels, markets and plenty of houses. To make the most of the land, another property developer stepped in - H.J. Whitely. He paid for electricity to be connected to the town and built another hotel and a bank. The first film company came to Hollywood in 1908. The Count of Monte Cristo was filmed mainly in Chicago, but the final bits were shot in Hollywood. By 1910, companies were shooting entire films there. The first was In Old California. It wasn’t until 1911 that the first movie studio actually moved its offices to Hollywood, all resources ©2021 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com but by 1915 there were many more. The reason for them all moving out to Hollywood had a lot to do with a scientist back in the East. Thomas Edison is famous for his many inventions, many of which were essential to the movie industry. Unfortunately, he was also an extremely greedy man and wanted to charge a fortune for anybody to use his technology. The laws that stopped people emulating his designs didn’t apply in Hollywood, and so film companies could do as they pleased without Edison being able to sue. The fact that Hollywood had predictably sunny weather was also a bonus - filmmakers would have to stop filming if it grew too cloudy or the light changed too much between scenes. One of the most instantly recognisable things about Hollywood is the large, RETRIEVAL FOCUS 1. What is Hollywood’s nickname? 2. What was the name of Harvey Wilcox’s wife? 3. What was the name of the first film to be shot entirely in Hollywood? 4. When was the first film finished in Hollywood? 5. Who paid for a bank in Hollywood? VIPERS QUESTIONS S What did Wilcox do after he realised his farm wasn’t working out? S Why did so many studios move to Hollywood? V Find and copy a word that means something was “working as it should do”. V Find and copy a word from the text that is a synonym for “copying”. I Why do you think the Hollywood sign might have been restored in 1970? all resources ©2021 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com