Business screen magazine (1946)

SPOILED SOUP Or Too Many Cooks Wreck the Film Ir WAS THAT THRrLI ING MOMKNT for a producer of sponsored films, the first screening for the client of the completed motion picture. The "client" w;is jictually fifteen men. all members of the sponsoring organization, each ready to gise his approval to the finished film. But when the projection was completed, and the lights came on. what Ihcy gave was not approval. There was no criticism of the film's quality; the prixluclion values were excellent. But the point was raised that we were aimmg this movie at the wrong set of people. Instead of the agreed-upon general audiences — the general public throughout the country — it was suggested that this project should really be directed at a few influential individuals in key situations m the particular industry. Which would mean, ot course, an entirely different film. Now, it may (Kcur to you that this little item, deciding just whom we were making the film for. should have been settled somewhere ali>ng the line before the movie was completed. It so. you'd be right; determining the target audience, surely one of the most impcirtani decisions to be made in the prcKluclion of any film, is i>ne of the lir\i things to be decided. But here we were in our smokclilled screening nwm. after having spent almost forty thousand dollars of 18 By JOHN SAVAGE the client's money, learning, according to a number of key people in the sponsoring organization, thai we had been heading roughly a hundred and eighty degrees in the wrong direction for the past year and a half. As writer-producer. I've made several hundred films, if you count the long ones with the short ones, over the past fifteen years. I believe I've experienced almost all the joys and frustrations that this business has to offer. The joys are many. The thrill ol winning a lop award in an important festival where your moderatebudget film was entered against the best that the most expensive production houses had to offer. The delight of producing a film for a client that not onK pleases him personally, but that meets the specific need he had for a film with a high degree of effectiveness. But all the while \ou're working on almost any sponsored motion picture, there's that little time-bomb ticking away in the background, the timebomb that repeats and repeats in \oiir ear: wail till the\ bring in those other t<M)ks Cook's Law I >>i llicre seems li> Iv .1 gener.il assumption on the part of many film sponsors we can call it ('»H>k's I aw: If the opinion of one knowledgeable person is goinl. the opinion of Iwenlv ivople will Ix twenty times as ginnl. It has now been firmly csiablis) and it should be engraved on e\ film can and reel, that this is ct pictely untrue. Articles have been written ah this before, but it's worth putting writing again. If vour organizatim planning to sponsor a film, the v to do it is appoint oiw of your pei as the lilni num. He will be the liai* with the film priKlucL-r; the prodi will report to him. and onlv to him What the Hell Do They Want? Il IS not iriiporl.itil ih.il this r know film. That is the priniucer's It ;v important, however, that he ki what the hell the company or o\^. zation wants this film for, what 1 want it to do. The basic decision the target audience and the ov objectives — must be made first, they must be agreed upon by people in the sponsoring organizat The producer can then bring in suggestions to his client contact, can approve or disapprove, or can come up with intelligent cha ba.sed on his sure knowledge of J the company wants out of this proj And he keeps others in the organ tion up to date on the wa\ the f is going. .Since what we are discus' here is the ideal setup, we mighi well go the whole way and add 11 ideally, the others do little si guessing, knowing that the film p ect is being handled correctly. Thj are other cooks, in other words, ihev're not out to sfH>il the s<.»up. Compare this method of film sp sorship with the situation m whic found myself in my opening strfj It was a classic example of how to sponsor a motion picture. A \ear and a half before the af( mentioned fatal screening. I had bcj work on the project. Although nolh was spelled out with abs*.)lute clar coniiniied on pagf '> John Savage is president of Crest P auctions. Ridgefield, Conn BUSINESS SCREIi