Motography (Apr-Dec 1911)

May, 1911. MOTOGRAPHY 71 System in Motion Picture Advertising By Watterson R. Rothacker General Manager Industrial Moving Picture Company, Chicago. SUCCESSFUL use of moving pictures in advertising demands method, regulation and system, otherwise the highest power in this wonderful force is not developed. The mere fact that animated photography has a recognized advertising value does not mean all that has to be done to make advertising moving pictures is to point the camera at a subject and turn the crank. The progressive advertiser whose judgment elects moving pictures to serve him should bear in mind the very important fact that while the camera makes record on film of moving things as they are and act, its mechanical precision is thoughtless, and unless it is directed advisedly the advertising arguments it pictorially presents fail in their purpose. For instance : An advertiser decides to use moving pictures to illustrate his factory operations and identify the name of his product. We take it for granted that he will do business with some reputable firm whose work is photographically up to the standard. If he jumps at the conclusion that mere moving pictures are sufficient unto themselves, or that it is to his advantage to give his contract to the company which quotes him the lowest price per foot, he will find that he has made a bad bargain unless a streak of improbable luck makes good for him. Here are some of the things he will be up against : If he entrusts his work to men who claim his business merely on the strength of their success in making moving pictures amusing and entertaining, he is likely to find his subject sacrificed to a dramatic effect, the advertising features obscured by irrelevant horse-play, side tracked to make room for comedy, or else strung out with no continuity of purpose or logical sequence. To get down to actual figures: If he thinks that $1 or $1.25 per foot for the negative film is too much and places his business at 50 or 75 cents per foot just because of the difference of price, he will pay for the experience of learning that the best is cheapest regardless ■ of the price, and that a live, interesting, result-getting story told on 500 feet of film at $1 per foot will cost him less and bring him more than the same subject dragged out over 1,000 or 2,000 feet. Sometimes this stretching the subject is caused by ignorance and an utter lack of advertising sense, but more often it has the same ulterior prompting as the plumber with Making Toilet Soap. the clock-watching habit who An Industrial with Publicity works by the llOLir and Stalls . on the job. #> 1 m ^ ' It M , '*r 'ft ■' * ^yaSMMMI 1 " f ^^ tyiiHMiiif 1' \-*?i The producer who arranges a subject for the camera man must concentrate his advertising arguments and put them in a concise yet comprehensive form. When this is done no film footage is wasted and the story has the snap, life and human interest necessary to hold >, f ~^j the attention of an audience. He must infuse entertainment into his subject but keep uppermost in his mind the fact that the advertiser is paying his good money to get an advertising benefit from the pictures. He must flavor with the ginger of action, use pepper if necessary, but regard at all times an orderly system which will tend to attract notice, invite interest and arouse the buying instinct of the people at whom the advertising is aimed. It is an established fact that moving pictures make lastimpressions, therefore it is wise to be careful that these impressions are to the advantage of the advertiser. There is a good side and a bad side to every subject. The expert moving picture advertising man will find the good side, and make use of ft, where a person who has not an advertising experience too often will find ' in the bad side, things which he knows will interest the public — but which he should lock in the skeleton closet, and devote his energies where they are required— namely, at the selling points of the proposition. The average man, after he has purchased moving pictures intended to advertise, will ask himself the question, ".Now what will I -do with them?" The thing for him to do is to have the answer incorporated in his contract so that he wouldn't have to grope in the dark. The layman seems to think that every moving picture theater manager in the country will welcome the opportunity to exhibit the films he condescends to loan. This is far from true, for the houses under the control of the Motion Picture Patents Company — and this organization has jurisdiction over fifty per cent of the pic Ji -A fr -»*■■ ... A Golf Picture. Advertising Value for Makers of Golf Supplies.