Migration talent into Hollywood
By: María José Escobar
In 1910 Hollywood marks the beginning of the film industry by moving to
Los Angeles, California. Since early days the foreign talent has been seen in
Hollywood, mostly Europeans, who were and still are very important for the
evolution of the industry. Back in those days a lot of cinema talent from
Austria, Germany and German Swiss arrived to USA, such as Carl Laemmle (German)
who founded Universal Studios, and Marcus Loew (Austrian) who was the co-founder
of the MGM studios; both were present almost from the beginning of the
Hollywood industry. Because of the instability in Germany with all the Adolf
Hitler power many of filming talent was forces to move out of the country, and
some other weren’t even forced but they decided to go to the United States for
more stability. Not only Europeans directors were a big part of Hollywood
(Roland Emmerich, Wolfgang Petersen, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder), but also
actors for example the greatest Charles Chaplin (London) and the Austrian
Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to Larry Langman the main European influences
on Hollywood were: The soviet montage by Sergei Eisenstein, the German
expressionism, and the French avant-garde. 
For the last three to four decades one of the biggest reasons why so
many talented people migrate into Hollywood is because economic reasons, the
“American dream” (“Sueño Americano”). Hollywood has been recognized by the amount
of money they paid to the movie crew (directors, actors/actresses, musicians,
editors, photographers, producers and even the extras). For this reason people
leave their domestic industries and migrate to Hollywood in search of better
job opportunities. On the other hand foreign talent is fundamental for
Hollywood image as a marketing strategy, so they can sell more of their
products to other countries, because if there is a Colombian actress in a
Hollywood movie, like Sofia Vergara, the box office in Colombia will increase
just because of her, and that seems to happens in almost all the countries. As
Leonardo DiCaprio said: “Once you cross
the door to Hollywood, you feel very fortunate to be a professional actor. It
is very much like winning the lottery, you feel very lucky.”
Also we can see how in the past decades is not only a migration to
Hollywood, but also how Hollywood talent collaborate or participate in foreign
productions. Melis Behlil said that foreign people direct around 10-20% of the
yearly new films released in the United States. She also said that Hollywood
needs and also wants talent from other countries and cultures for many reasons
like, the producing of the entertainment industries in high quality. We can
also see how Hollywood has started to produce and record their productions in
other countries, these also encourage and make them to hire local talent
(native people of the country they are shooting), and this makes the global
Hollywood cast even bigger. Nowadays Hollywood still has a lot of international
power in terms of name and also in the amount of money the move yearly.
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