Motion Picture Herald (Oct-Dec 1931)

48 Better Theatres Section October 24, 1931 Compressed and projected pictures hy the Cine-Panor method. instantly. The man in charge may, therefore, at will, either project a picture taken normally, or a wide field picture made with the Cine-Panor. The same lens serves to take and project the wide field picture. A CHEERY BUSINESS SIGN MANY YEARS AGO I told this industry (in the old Moving Picture World), that so long as the motion picture industry kept its entertainment both good and clean, it had little need to worry about hard times, for the reason that in times of financial depression the people, needing amusement and entertainment more than ever, turned naturally to the cheaper forms of entertainment. Lately the calamity shouters have outnumbered the shouters at a negro camp meeting. "Ruin," "going-to-the-canines," and like expressions, have been so common that I had been wondering if I might not perhaps reap wealth by having some neat signs printed bearing those expressions, the said card to be equipped with a neat ribbon so that it might be hung from the neck, thus saving a lot of energy expended in talk. And now comes the International Projector Corporation with another tale. That corporation has a huge factory. It fills almost twelve floors of a building one full block long. Such a plant is able to turn out a lot of finished goods in 24 hours, to say nothing of a year. Yet that factory has just been compelled to extend the working time of its entire factory staff to 54 hours a week, instead of 48 as heretofore, and in addition, is going immediately to put on a night shift. A MATTER OF GOOD MANAGEMENT NOT AT ALL infrequently this department receives letters from able conscientious projectionists who feel discouraged for the reason that, while the theatre management demands co-operation from them in every possible way, it is un willing to give co-operation in return. The effect of such a situation is decidedly bad. It reacts to set up a feeling of indifference on the part of the man who feels that the management is unappreciative. Such a feeling will inevitably manifest itself either in careless work, or in work which is not up to the highest standard. Men in any line of work, if treated fairly and given a bit of appreciative encouragement, will try to give the best possible service in return. That is, they will if they are real men. Even those who are lacking in manhood will certainly do better work when encouraged and treated fairly than they will when discouraged by unfairness on the part of the man over them. On the other hand, if the theatre manager be unfair, demanding full co-operation from the projectionist, but refusing to give any in return, don't you yourself believe the effect must and will be bad? Don't you believe men treated thus will not make much effort to give the best possible results, and to produce results as efficiently and economically as possible? It would seem to me that, so far as is possible, directors of projection for theatre chains ought to have authority to deal with managers who refuse to give proper cooperation to the projectionist. I well know that directors of projection have troubles of their own, and plenty of them. It is only relatively recently that the heads of theatre chains have been willing to invest their director of projection with any real authority. Gradually, I believe, the tendency will be to add to that authority, which still is much too limited. However, remembering that the entertainment value of every production will, in the very nature of things, be less than it might be if projection be done in anything less than a perfect manner, in both picture and sound, it would seem that heads of theatre chains might well consider the matter of enabling their directors of projection, if necessary, to force theatre managers to give proper co-operation to the projection staff. It is fully realized that this is a very difficult matter to handle. It will not do to oppose the views and methods of theatre managers too much, but after all it is not unreasonable to expect a manager to cooperate with the projection staff. UNWISE PROCEDURE I HOLD it to be no privilege of mine to tell Europe what it ought to do with reference to projection affairs. I do, however, hold it to be my right to offer respectful criticism of projection procedure. Many of our citizens, some of them highly efficient, practical motion picturesound projectionists, and others well versed in projection affairs, have visited Europe during the past decade. Invariably, insofar as concerned France, Germany and some other countries, their criticism of projection has been very sharp. In fact, projection in France has been criticised about as sharply as is possible, with Germany a close second. England has got off better, but the general opinion has been that results even there are decidedly below the level of the United States and Canada. This brings me to the point of discussing the reasons for this state of affairs. Taking England, for example: That country has available, and in most instances is using, equipment in every way equal to our own, though in most cases not so elaborate. However, there is one highly important feature in projection affairs which English exhibitors and her trade papers do not take into consideration. In fact, they entirely ignore it. I refer in this case to the almost entire failure to turn the spotlight to any degree toward projection. For more than a a year I wrote on projection affairs for one of the leading British trade papers. 1 found the management of the paper quite averse to the publication of anything except technical matter intended to be purely educational to projectionists. I am not intending in this to criticize the paper in any way. I am merely setting forth a fact.