Movie Makers (Jan-May 1928)

BLOCK BOOKING for HOME FILMS EVERYONE from the United States government, through producers, distributors and exhibitors, down to the elusive but assuredly numerous ultimate consumer has been interested in photoplay block-booking. The movie industry has reached an agreement on this moot point, which it hopes will give producers a fair revenue, exhibitors a freedom of choice and the public quality pictures of the kind they want. We learn that block-booking is good business for all three. Hence, it is not surprising to find that block-booking, to all intents and purposes, has recently been established as a method of distribution to the home projector field. This is a natural development, because the amateur industry has been looking for a distribution system for films that will clarify and stabilize this part of its service to home users. The outstanding feature of the year 1927, for the home movie industry, has been the wide increase of film print sales and rentals. It is evident that home projectors owners are liberal print users and that they want plenty of subjects beyond those they make themselves. Amateur Cinema League members and Amateur Movie Makers readers have demonstrated that a market, and a generous market, is at hand. Present indications, I believe, point to the growing popularity of film rental systems. While film rentals are still in their infancy, the time is approaching when every projector owner will want films from film libraries. It is now possible to secure the rental of regular releases featuring productions in from one to four hundred foot reels, and in combinations of these film lengths. A majority of these films are reductions from standard productions that have been used in the theatres of the country. Eventually we can look forward to special productions for the home field. Amateur movie makers and amateur home projectors are primarily interested in securing films of high quality and clean and wholesome plays or motion picture subjects that can be shown at home to their families and friends. Amateurs will support firms that offer films of this type. In order to make it possible to secure this type of picture, it naturally follows that the producers must find it profitable to release good reels; a ready market must be available for them. The rental fee must be moderate and within the reach of the great number of Forty-two By Joseph Dombroft projector owners, if these owners are to be consistent and steady users of the library offerings. It is just here that the block-booking plan enters the home field. In the recent conferences of the motion picture industry, producers contended that the cost of production is considerably lessened if bookings can be made over a yearly period and that assured distribution enables them to make the increased investment required for quality pictures. Exhibitors held that yearly bookings placed an unnecessary hardship upon them, unless thev had a ranee of choice in THE GOVERNOR'S LADY Mrs. A. Harry Moore, wife of the Governor of Nee Jersey, is a Cine Fan weekly bookings. These two divisions of the industry then agreed on a mutually acceptable formula that retains a modified block-booking as a trade practice of the motion picture industry. They decided that the modified block-booking serves producer, exhibitor and public better than proposed changes. If this principle is sound for the theatrical exhibition field, it can also stand for the home field. Based on this belief in block-booking as the solution of the too chaotic home library conditions of the past year, one of the libraries catering to the home projector owners has worked out a coupon system, whereby it is possible to rent 800 feet of 16 m.m. film for a minimum of $2. A subscriber to this library is assured of a new release every week and can, for a total yearly fee fixed in advance, (or shorter periods if he so desires) plan his entire year's program and film rental budget. This system is one that insures to the producer, or his agent, a definite and predictable vearly income. Within the security of these advance bookings, the producer can not only provide a good grade of standard releases but can also occa . sionally offer more costly films at the same low rental. The purchaser, once convinced of the general reliability of a block-booking producer, is relieved of the concern which he might have if he were guided by no other indication of library offerings than price. Such a block-booking system, to appeal to the home projector owner, must contain provision for substitution of a wide range of subjects for the weekly releases. This is possible if the distributor backs up his block offerings by a fairly large catalog of good films, not necessarily late releases, but films of sound general interest, well made, artistically and photographically. The coupon system is merely a convenient method of contracting for a block of films. However, it has the advantage of giving the purchaser a tangible delivery order for a whole vear. He carries off something definite in return for his advance payment. It offers a ready bookkeeping system, of advantage both to buyer and seller. This coupon and block-booking system is only one of the methods now in use for film distribution to the home projector market. Others are in operation that are serving the public effectively and excellently. This system, however, offers so many advantages in the way of stabilizing this whole business that it suggests a wider adoption by both the industry and the public. Every reputable producer and dealer wishes to maintain the public's confidence unimpaired not only in his {Continued on page 49 J