The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

126 CINE TECHNICIAN August 1955 FILM AND T.V. ROUND-UP IT'S YOUR OWN FAULT. If you are working on films for TV and you are not getting feature rates or you are under-crewed, it's your own fault. All you have to do, is DIAL GERRARD 8506 and ask for MIDDY or one of the three B's, BESSIE, BERT or BUNNY, and you can bet your bottom rate that before you can say ITA, BBC, TVC, CBS or the intials of the company you are working for, everything will be put on a proper basis. So don't forget, you are carrying the ball. PEN PICTURE. This month's pen picture was supposed to be of Arthur Graham, who holds Membership number ONE. But dear Arthur pulled a fast one on us, he went away on holiday and was due back the same day we went to press. So let's hope he's fit and well and will be able to give us his story with plenty of vim and vigour. • COMMERCIAL TV STARTS WITH A BANQUET. There will be a banquet at the Guildhall to inaugurate commercial television, which is due to start in Britain on 22nd September. The Lord Mayor of London will preside. VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 1955. Britain is really going to be present at the Venice Film Festival this year, John Davis, Robert Clark and Sir Henry French will lead the British delegation, with Michael Anderson, Mario Zampi, William Fairchild, Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliatt representing Edited By Morton Leiris the Directors and Producers. They are entering two films, which is the maximum allowed under the rules. The films are Doctor at Sea and John and Julie; both are in colour. We wish them lots of luck. • *' ROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS." Michael Todd has caused quite an impact on the Press over here, he is featured in nearly every national paper. His Todd-AO system sounds interesting; they say the sound quality in his first film Oklahoma is the finest ever married to the motion picture. We will be looking and listening. • CRAZY GANG CO. Jack Hylton has signed with Associated-Rediffusion to act as adviser on Light Entertainment to the company. He is also forming a company to produce his own TV Star and Feature programmes — which will be exclusively available to AR-TV. He's going to need a unit. • U.S. TV BUYS MORE BRITISH. Sir Alexander Korda has sold four films to WCBS TV, New York. They are Holly and the Ivy, Fighting Pimpernel, Mr. Denning Drives North and Home at Seven. WCBS TV have also bought the rights of four more British films, Where there's a Will, Windfall, Undercover and Ships with Wings. This should be appreciated by our worried Mr. Butler. NATIONAL RADIO SHOW, EARLS COURT. This year's show should be interesting. It should give us an opportunity to have a look at the new sets in time for commercial TV, or to inquire the best method of converting our old sets from the makers themselves. The J. Arthur Rank Screen Services are to put on four TV shows a day which will be piped round to all the sets at the show. This will give a good chance for comparison. B.B.C. v. I.T.A. The B.B.C. are making preliminary preparations for the launching of a second service, which indicates that they intend to put up a stiff fight against the I.T.A. As we all know, competition is our life's blood. FEATURE RATES AT THE B.B.C. The B.B.C. reveal that jobs offered to their staff by commercial TV were on such a scale that " the effective continuance of the B.B.C.'s operations seemed to be jeopardised in the immediate future." They had to offer special contracts outside the scope of normal policy to the staff immediately concerned. If the B.B.C. want feature quality technicians, they will have to pay Feature Rates. And a good job will be done all round. QUESTION BOX. We have been asked to start a question box in this column, so if you send in your inquiries we shall do our best to print them with the answers. GOSSIP ROUND THE GLOBE WARMED by the change in international relations which has followed Geneva the American film industry appears to be getting ready to sell American films to Russia. It is apparently not going to be trade in one direction only. VARIETY, New York, says that Moscow, now in a co-operative mood, is actually pushing the kind of cultural exchange between East and West which Americans have long felt could and would be the most effec tive medium of understanding and contact between the two worlds. SIX WIX PIX NIX STIX. " If you take a worker out of London to live in a small expanded town, you will find him seriously disturbed if he has to see the big picture six weeks after his aunt has seen it in Bethnal Green." — Speaker at Housing Centre annual Conference, Daily Film Renter. ADVANCED DELIVERY DATES: " There are experienced editors who won't work under the production methods of the TV industry. Of those who will, some can't stand the pace. One, with 26 years of top experience at one of the major movie studios, was dismissed from his TV job because it took him five days to edit a picture which was scheduled for completion in 2-3 days. Since then the pace has so increased that a comparable picture is edited in 9 to 15 hours. And the pace will soon be faster than that -' Louis Harris in Films in B< in W, New York.