American television directory (1946)

IS TODAY’S TELEVISION HERE TO STAY? Television’s film vs. live talent controversy continues to rage. Mr. Cooper is a forthright spokesman for the film advocates and the achievements of cinematics. By WYLLIS COOPER _ Program Manager, Compton Advertising Company T here have been millions of words written and millions more spoken on television. But up until now this pri¬ mary point has too seldom emerged: Television Is Simply a Talking Motion Picture It is a talking motion picture avail¬ able to the audience in its own home on the purchase of a receiver. Any wellmade television receiver of even the present vintage is capable of delivering, if well-tuned, a fairly accurate dupli¬ cate of the picture in the studio. If the picture in the studio is bad, the picture on the home set is bad. If the studio picture is good, then the picture on the home screen is good. From this comes what we consider the first law of television. This is ex¬ tremely important, and should be kept constantly in mind — because the whole television programming problem is based on this law. This is the first law of television: “Picture reproduction on a home receiver is practically identical with the picture on the transmit¬ ter video-screen. Audience interest, therefore, will vary directly with the cinematic, dramatic, and pic¬ torial quality of the original.” That means that as the picture on the home receiver deteriorates from the accepted standard of theater motion pictures, in exactly the same ratio audi¬ ence interest will diminish. The con¬ verse is also true; as the picture approaches the ideal, audience interest will increase in the same ratio. Engineering Outpaces Programming Any discussion of engineering and transmission problems by advertisers and program people is for the most part idle. The function of transmission is exactly analogous to the function of projection in a motion picture theater. Certainly, there will be better transmission equip¬ ment. Whatever has happened in the engineering laboratories as a result of war research can be considered as an improvement in projection equipment, and, of course, in receiving equipment. We can safely leave all the improve¬ ment of the technical aspect to the engi¬ neers, who know what they are doing. Any layman who tries to visualize what the future of television will be is wast¬ ing his own time. Our concern is with programs and with what appears on the home screen; and even the technical equipment of today is adequate. The conventions of the motion picture have been established as a part of our national and personal consciousness for a period longer than the life span of a middle-aged man. Practically every per¬ son forty years old or less has absorbed these conventions as a part of his con¬ sciousness. He is conditioned to them exactly as he is conditioned to the con¬ vention of red and green lights. Nobody stops to think about why they are red and green. We simply know, have been taught, or have absorbed, since our earliest childhood the facts that red means stop and green means go. Any attempts to change a civilized conven¬ tion of that type will result in utter confusion, and almost certain defeat for the changers. Therefore, it behooves us to adhere strictly to the conventions of the motion picture and not try to create, out of the depths of our ignorance, any new ones as we go along. It is true that there is a novelty aspect of television: people will look at a television picture for a while regard¬ less of how bad it is, because it is new. But that novelty quickly wears off. If the picture doesn’t come up to the standards with which they are familiar, they will quickly desert it for the “stan¬ dard” form of talking picture — the theater motion picture. That brings us to this statement which, while it may be explosive, seems to us to be irrefutable: By the present “live” methods of television programming, it is ab¬ solutely and utterly impossible to meet motion picture standards. There are many reasons for this : The “live” television studio is too confining. Every person concerned with the broad¬ cast must know the broadcast complete¬ ly, from A to Z, every minute it is going on. There are many other consid¬ erations — but the most important of these is the consideration of editing. Editing is merely the orderly ar¬ rangement of elements of a story to give it the best possible interpretation. The two types of editing in motion pictures, apart from the ordinary cutting for sequence and emphasis, are editing in time and editing in space. Editing for Emphasis We shall take a motion picture com¬ posed of three short shots. One of them is a man standing up. One of them is a man sitting down on the floor. In each picture the man has a completely “dead¬ pan” expression. The third is a close shot of a hand taking a revolver out of a pocket. Now, by editing or rearrang¬ ing, we can tell at least two completely different stories. If we show the picture of the man on the floor first, then the picture of the man standing up, then the shot of drawing the gun, our sym¬ pathy is with the man on the floor. The little three-shot sequence becomes a story of a helpless man defying an op¬ pressor in the fact of certain death! Turn the sequence around — show the standing man first, then the gun, then the man on the floor, and we have a totally different story: it becomes the tale of a man meting out righteous punishment to a culprit. And — mind you — the expression on both the men’s faces is always the same — completely noncommittal. Editing in Time and Space The Russian film “Potemkin” is one of the great motion pictures of all times. There is a sequence in that pic¬ ture where the guns of the cruiser ( Continued on page 116) 15