Motography (Jan-Jun 1918)

S. ROYAL TUPPER General Manager NEW TORK OFFICE: 1022 LONGACRE BUILDING, Forty-second Street and Broadway Telephone Bryant 7030 CHARLES W. BRENNAN, Advertising Manager LOS AN6ELES OFFICE: 641 1 H0LLYW000 BLVD. , MABEL CONDON, Western Representative NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS Changes of advertising copy should reach the office of publication not less than fifteen days In advance of date of issue. Regular date of issue every Saturday. New advertisements will be accepted up to within ten days of date of issue, but proof of such advertisements can not be shown in advance of publication. THE MOTION PICTURE TRADE JOURNAL PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY ELECTRICITY MAGAZINE CORPORATION E. R. MOCK, President and Treasurer PAUL H. WOODRUFF, Editor in Chief, E. M. C. Publications MONADNOCK BUILDING CHICAGO, ILL. Branch Telephone Exchange: Harrison 3014 Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second Class Mail Matter. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Per Year $3.00 Canada Foreign Single copy Per year $4.00 Per year 5.00 .15 NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS Remittances — Remittances should be made by check. New York draft or money order in favor of Motography. Foreign subscriptions may be remitted direct by International Postal Money Order. Change of address— The old address should he given as well as the new, and notice should be received two weeks in advance of the desired change. This publication is free and independent of all business or house connections or control. No manufacturer or supply dealer, or their stockholders or representatives, have any financial interest in Motography or any voice in its management or policy. Volume XIX CHICAGO, MARCH 2, 1918 Number 9 Some Free Advice on Picture Making GIVING advice is so easy, and withal so gratifying to the giver, that it has become one of the stock properties of humor. Yet we would not discourage it if we could, for out of many and miscellaneous suggestions for the betterment of our business or the cure of our colds there frequently come a few ideas of real value. And so there may be a thought or two in the views expressed to the National Board of Review the other day by members of a picture audience "representative," the board says, "of New York." The report quotes six of the opinions contributed to its invitation, three of which it identifies as coming from a professor of English, a journalist (whatever exact meaning that term may have) and a successful scenario writer. Our associate remarks that the "representative" audience seems to have been composed of highbrows; but possibly he was unduly impressed by the presence of the professor. A symposium of the comment recorded gives about this list of recommendations: Simplicity in acting, higher scenario ideals, clean tone. Heart appeal, closer observation of human nature, less emotion and comedy vulgarity, less punch and more sincerity. More careful subtitles, more simplicity and truth in stage settings. Make pictorial as well as dramatic ART the fundamental controlling factor, avoid the risque, escape from the rapidly growing list of directors' conventionalities and hackneyed devices. And again — simplicity, human interest. Of course, there is not a really new thing in the list — unless it is the adjuration to avoid those set tricks of directing which are accumulating as fast as set phrases of expression gather around a careless writer's pen. That is a subject which promises to be interesting for future discussion, when someone shall have collected enough data for a story. But the other suggestions, including the one about subtitles and settings, are good if they are old; perhaps all the better for that reason. Simplicity particularly is the best of guides, and paradoxically the hardest to follow because ambition always tends away from it. Yet we could mention one director who, with all his mastery of stupendous spectacles, has never lost simplicity. You all know whom we mean. The "successful scenario writer" mentioned in the board's report, whom we have not yet quoted, devoted his five minutes to a criticism of slap-stick comedy — introducing it with the statement that the magazine story has steadily declined in popular favor, and that therefore the film should watch its step. We once wrote an argument in favor of slap-stick comedy, and we are not yet inclined to change our attitude. Moreover, we regard Chaplinism as an institution which would be sorely missed if its type should disappear. "Give us," says the successful scenario writer, "more mental action and less physical action. So many producers rely almost wholly on physical action as to throw the picture into the dime novel class. Mental action is the real essential of a good play."