As Jack Nugent of Now You See It puts it in his video essay, The Rise (and Fall?) of Hollywood, "To analyze movies, It's important to understand the context of the production of the movie." Behind the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, there is a secret history that affects every filmmaker, indie or otherwise, and since you can't know where you're headed unless you know where you're coming from, let's check it out, what say?
Until 1911, motion pictures were not made in California, but, of all places, Fort Lee, New Jersey (the term "cliffhanger" comes from movies like The Perils of Pauline series, shot on the Palisades). It's widely known that the industry's westward migration was a product of Hollywood's year-round good weather and proximity to diverse locations, but what's less talked about is how early, pioneering filmmakers were fleeing Thomas Edison, who, because of his patents, controlled every aspect of movie production (he also had a goon squad).