Motography (Apr-Dec 1911)

November, 1911. MOTOGRAPHY 239 drank a glass or two of beer partly because he "just had to have something to do." Perhaps the moving picture shows finds its greatest assurance for the future in its inherent democracy. It is the most democratic form of entertainment ever known. A newspaper man, standing in front of a 5-cent theater in Pennsylvania avenue, Washington, once saw a justice of the supreme court of the United States, a United States senator, an Italian street laborer, a Chinese laundryman and a "treet car conductor go into the show in the order named. The newspaper man followed. This particular supreme court justice formed the moving picture habit because he was importuned by his five-year-old granddaughter to take her to see the pictures. He did it once and became a "regular." The Pennsylvania avenue incident is duplicated, in essentials, daily in thousands of moving picture shows throughout the United States. Motion pictures appeal alike to young and old, to the cultured and the crude, to the educated and the ignorant; in short, to all sorts and conditions of men. If those who are responsible for the course taken L the commercial control of the business will but recognize their obligation to society as well as their opportunity to make money, they will so order the character of the films placed on the market as to increase their patronage, and at the same time disarm their enemies. The future of the moving picture business depends on the wisdom of the moving picture men. Thus far the future of the moving picture has been considered only in its relation to its amusement and business features. What will be the use of moving pictures as instruments of instruction and as historical records can not be surmised. Already the great museums of the world are storing away in their vaults for the use of future generations reels of films showing in moving pictures the great events :>f our time. It has been proposed that in the public schools of the city of New York every lesson in geography be accompanied by moving picture illustrations to fix in the mind of the pupil the actual characteristics of the country about which he is studying. It was argued in support of this plan that the use of moving pictures in school would at once and forever put an end to that classic amusement of boyhood known as "playing hooky." These are but suggestions. The moving picture is only fifteen years old, and if it shall accomplish half as much in the next fifteen years as it has in the past, it will go far beyond the imagination of the world of 1911. The moving picture audience is not unlike the legitimate theater audience. There are tens of thousands of people who have never been upon the stage, even for a look. It is safe to presume that fifty percent of all picture theater goers never saw a film. Their concern begins and ends with the day's program. They know nothing about the making, the renting or the exhibiting of films and they care less. With them, like with the regular productions, the play's the thing. They want entertainment first, last and all the time. But there are people who like to know that a film is a continuous strip of celluloid an inch and a quarter wide and a thousand feet long, upon which appear 16,000 pictures. The edges of this film ribbon are perforated, this being necessary to engage sprockets in the mechanism required for successful projection. The pictures themselves are three-fourths inch by one inch in size. There are 16,000 pictures in the average commercial reel and they appear upon the screen at the rate of 800 per minute. Thus a reel provides twenty minutes' program, when Sally sings her song or Bill blows his bazoo. And then we have another reel. rolling the l's over a smooth and well-lubricated tongue. F-i-l-m spells fillum from Sam Shiller to J. D. Williams; from H. Davis of Watertown to the General Film Company; from the Comet crowd to Pathe Freres. It is the handicap of the journalists; the terror of the public ; the tragedy of the business. Why is a fillum? Every game has its mark. The distinction between the insider and the outsider narrows down to a fine point. Film fans pronounce it film. F-i-l-m spells film, so why not. But the insider says fillum, Uncle Sam to Exhibit Uncle Sam is going into the moving picture show business. With the authority of President Taft, a contract has been entered into by the government officials and a Chicago firm for the purpose of reproducing in moving pictures all of the various activities of the nation. The pictures will be shown in hundreds of moving picture houses. Marines at work on battleships, gunners firing at the hulk of an old battleship, cavalry drills, mine and rescue work, plant and animal industry, road building, and every single activity of the government will be shown on the films. The problem of educating the public to the work being done by its own government was carefully considered by the president and members of his cabinet before the contract was entered into. Each cabinet officer was then authorized to make his own arrangement with the film concerns, having the right to arrange for such pictures as he wished to have taken and reject those he does not care for. In the United States office of public roads for instance, the director, Logan Walter Page, arranged to have pictures taken showing the effects of good and bad roads. In the case of the latter, the films show the farmer trying to carry loads of produce over a bad road; how he became sick; how the doctor is unable to reach him, and how, because of the mud ruts, the undertaker finds it exceedingly difficult to get him to his grave. Another film will show another farmer carrying his produce — twice . as much — over a model road constructed under the supervision of the government and the general improvement of the surrounding country. The department of agriculture will be able to show, in entertaining as well as instructive style, the effects of pure food and impure food ; the secretary of war will be able to show the advantages of army life, and the secretary of the navy the advantages of life on the bounding waves, while the interior department will be showing how forest fires are fought and entombed miners are rescued. The government will be killing two birds with one stone, improving the tone of the moving pictures and eliminating those that have a bad effect, while educating the public to the work being done by its government. The time is not far distant, apparently, when the first nighter at the "movables" instead of jubilating over the way the tramp captured the Indians, will be remarking learnedly : "I never knew why the sailors wore their trousers wide at the bottom, but I saw by the films last night that it is to enable them to roll up the ends when they want to swab the deck." And his girl will remark : "Oh, and they are showing how the government teaches cooking. I learned how to bake stuffed tomatoes at the 'movies' last night." When the moving picture educational campaign is announced it will sound interesting and intellectual.