Business screen magazine (1938)

tisers great impetus in the use of cartoon animation for minute movie commercials. And from the standpoint of Ijoth the audience and the exhiliitor, the use of this technique is especially desirable. However, cartoon animation can not logically be called the answer to the question in every case. After all, buying and selling are fundamentally serious business. And. it is true, that when a product is thoroughly and interestingly demonstrable it is well to remember that accurate photographic records carry a much greater note of authenticity and helievability. However, the news values of some products are too deeply hidden from the camera's eye — in such cases consider the use of cartoon animation. This popular technique has also found favor to solve the advertising presentation problem when the sales story contains no news value. Here, entertaining cartoon animation with off stage verse or song can lighten the commercial wallop and make it acceptable. Care should be taken, however, to make certain enough sales punch is left in the playlet as the tendency in this type of scenario is to go strong on entertainment and not contain enough reasons why the audience should buy. 3. PLOT AND dialog: Somc advertisers, bearing in mind the success of dialog plot commercials on the air. have attempted to use this type of script for minute movies. The plot story is admittedly more dramatic and should logically have high retention value. But there are two drawbacks which must be overcome by excellence of production. First you have only one minute to one and a third minutes for the development, climax and sales story. Secondly, advertising jihigs, spoken directly by the actors, generally .sound artificial. "My dear — this new XYZ cleaning compound is wonderful because it contains a special active agent" — is stagey. It is not the natural way for people to talk and it has many times received ridicule from the theatre audience. This danger may be eliminated by using dialog and plot to set up a situation and then cut in with off stage commentation. In the final analysis, no rule can be set down ... no infallible reasoning can say this type of playlet is better than that. Careful consideration of the adaptability of the product to the screen plus an understanding of the objectives of the campaign . . . should be combined in each individual case with the peculiarities of the medium itself. From the mixture will come the form to follow. Then, sharpen the pencils, take out the stop watch, and let creative imagination go to town. * * * ♦ Unusual problems of production faced Audivision, Inc. executives who directed the Agrico (American Agricultural Chemical Company) film. The Soil. For one thing photographic crews "planed" to Florida. South Carolina. Maryland, Washington. Maine, upper New York State, Wisconsin and Minnesota to shoot the actual farm .scenes which make up the bulk of the picture. The extensive air traveling necessitated lightweight portable 16mm. camera production and not much regard for weather conditions. ^L NEW FILMS HIGHLIGHTING THE NEWS ON CURRENT PRODUCTION ACTIVITY o .NEW .\.ND IN production: American Airlines 20-minute sales picture (by Wilding) with an ailded educational short for possible theatre release. Three new Chevrolet safety films: Quiet, Please! which shows how automobile manufacturers do their utmost to keep noises out of the passenger compartment of the car; King Cotton, which demonstrates the importance of cotton products in the manufacture of automobiles, and With Care, which emphasizes the safe and courteous driving habits of the truck driver. Studebaker's new film, Ahead oj tlie Parade, is based on the new Studebaker Champion models and is getting widespread dealer cooperation. ♦ Roland Reed Productions, Culver City, recently completed the Shell Traffic .safety picture. Show Your Colors; also note the completion of a Technicolor production for the Bureau of Roads, United States Department of Agriculture. The picture covers the history of highways in the U. S. from 1539 to 1939 and is being shown in the Bureau's exhibit at the San Francisco Fair. ♦ Texaco's The Surprise Party screened for Business Screen recently in New York at our request, fulfilled all expectations. A topnotch sales training subject which has already won all kinds of acceptance among service station operators. The Surprise Party does its job simply, directly and emphatically as it turns the old success-story formula inside out to drive home the Texas Company's service station profit-building plan. Cast in Hollywood and well-typed. The Surprise Party was produced b.v Caravel Films ( NY) as the first of their West Coast program. ♦ Another Caravel production of a highly technical nature was Inside the Flame produced on the story of carbon black for limited distribution to the comparatively few but mighty prospects for this material. Inside the Flame is noteworthy for its excellent camera treatment and TEXACO'S SELLING STORY IS PUT ACROSS WITH PUNCH IN THE coiiipan.v's new sound motion picture The Surprise Party. for the very simple and understandable way in which it delivers the product story. ♦ Fuller & Smith & Ross, Inc., advertising agency, has signed with Audio Productions. Inc.. to produce a feature motion picture in Technicolor, The Middleton Family At The New York World's Fair for their clients, the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company. Production is being carried on at the Long Island Studios and on location at the New York World's Fair. The new picture will be the third to be produced for the motion picture department of Fuller & Smith & Ross, for Westinghouse, by Audio. Preparation of the shooting script will be supervised by G. R. Hunter, Vice-President of Fuller & Smith & Ross, with Reed Drummond, of the New York agency staff. The film is to be directed b.y Robert R. Snody, of Audio Productions. Technicolor-In-The-East will provide color for both standard and 16-millimeter release prints, as desired. George Gladden, color-director, and William Steiner, colorcameraman, will superintend the Technicolor photography. The Middleton Family have been featured in a series of color-pages in leading weekly magazines advertising the Westinghouse exhibit at the New York Fair. The family is described as "a family of folks you know — friends who live around the corner " and since doing the Fair is what everybody hopes to be doing this summer, the film is planned to take back this thrill to those unfortunate ones who won't be able to reach New York. The diverting adventures of Babs and Bud. their father and mother, and Grandma, will be shown in conjunction with a fascinating story of clectricit.v's marvels, against a background of the World's Fair and the Westinghouse Building. The film is to be ready for exhibition with the mid-summer World's Fair season. ♦ London. April, 1939. — The acceptability of advertising films is shown by the fact that tiiey have been exhibited in 4.300 of the 5,309 motion picture theatres in Great Britain and Ireland, Harold B. Saward of Saward, Baker & Co., Ltd.. said in a speech here at the Regent -Vdvertising Club. Mr. Saward said he thought there was much room for improvement in most advertising films. — The New York Times Number Seven 15