Cinema of the United States that was friendly and enjoyed the movie company filming there. Griffith then filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood, "In Old California", a Biograph melodrama about California in the 19th century, when it belonged to Mexico. Griffith stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York. After hearing about Griffith's success in Hollywood, in 1913, many movie-makers headed west to avoid the fees imposed by Thomas Edison, who owned patents on the movie-making process. Nestor Studios of Bayonne, New Jersey, built the first studio in Hollywood in 1911. Nestor Studios, owned by David and William
D. W. Griffith of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and among the most important figures in the history of film. He popularized the use of the close-up shot. Griffith was born on a farm in Oldham County, Kentucky, the son of Mary Perkins ("née" Oglesby) and Jacob Wark "Roaring Jake" Griffith a Confederate Army colonel in the American Civil War who was elected as a Kentucky state legislator. Griffith was raised a Methodist, and he attended a one-room schoolhouse where he was taught by his older sister Mattie. His father died when he was ten, and the