Hollywood is generally known as America's dream factory. The combination of a fantasy-inspiring term “dream” with factory renders well that Hollywood is like a coin with two antagonist flips.

Hollywood is at first a geographical area located in the north of Los Angeles, and comprised between the Californian posh districts of Beverly hills and Burbank. But it has become a major promised land for the world's businessmen of the movie industry and for all the would-be or professional actors.
Hollywood is famous worldwide for being the home of the major movie studios from America: MGM, Universal, 20th Century...

The biggest corporations that make a packet in the movie industry also have their headquarters in Hollywood.
The mainstream and most famous actors from the United States have all a residence there, to remain closed from the industry's center of decisions.

Hollywood is a lay-out of several characteristic features: The most famous avenue is Hollywood Boulevard: a series a paving stones shaped as stars, and named after some actors. The Walk of Fame is a portion of sidewalk made of squared stones. Each movie star who has been offered to “own” a stone, carved his name and his hands and feet prints in the cement and in the history of the cinema. The 9 letters in Hollywood are spelled out in a gigantic sign located up in the Hollywood Hills. This landmark, that was first used as an advertisement, can be seen from miles away.

The first movie ever shot in Hollywood was made in the early 20th century. It was “in old California”. Studios began to settle there little by little until becoming this huge complex of movie stages.

But Hollywood, it is also a symbol: a Hollywood movie is not only a movie directed or staged in the Hollywood studios. It is a movie based on the application of several codes that form the many characteristic features of the Hollywood fabric.
Hollywood is ironically branded as a factory, because many movies are chain produced and tend to look all the same.