In Old California (1910 film) In Old California (1910 film) In Old California is a silent movie filmed in 1910. It was the first movie shot in Hollywood, California. It was directed by D. W. Griffith of the Biograph Company (then based in New York, New York). The film is a melodrama about the Mexican era of California. Director D.W. Griffith discovered the little village of Hollywood on his trips to California and decided to shoot there because of the beautiful scenery and friendly people. On May 6, 2004 a monument was erected at 1713 Vine Street, just north of Hollywood Boulevard. The monument was
D. W. Griffith industry, no profession, no art form owes so much to a single man." Griffith seems to have been the first to understand how certain film techniques could be used to create an expressive language; it gained popular recognition with the release of his "The Birth of a Nation" (1915). His early shorts—such as Biograph's "The Musketeers of Pig Alley" (1912), the first "gangster film"—show that Griffith's attention to camera placement and lighting heightened mood and tension. In making "Intolerance", the director opened up new possibilities for the medium, creating a form that seems to owe more to music than to