Moving Picture Age (Jan-Dec 1920)

February, 1920 MOVING PICTURE AGE 27 SCENARIO — PRODUCTION — DISTRIBUTION ^^, IE OIHER FEliOW'S IDa ' SATISFACTORY screening, being the test of any industrial production, as it is of any dramatic production, offers a goal to the advertiser which he cannot meet by any short cuts, nor can he always manipulate his material in a way that the screening result may reflect the painstaking effort that mav have been put into the scenario, camera work or laboratory work. As a matter of fact, the film producer up to a certain point works in the dark, as it were. He can prepare a series of advertisements, discuss and mull over the copy, remake or retouch the sketches, plate his cuts and then, at small expense, make final revisions. Not so with films. Production is one of the big items in a screen campaign. What is called "production" is a small item in a magazine advertising campaign. There are serious limitations in making revisions of a picture — limitations which are often insurmountable. For instance. Not long ago a middle western plant devoted to the production of industrial machinery produced a 2,000-foot picture, 800 feet of which were devoted to the operations of the model machine shop. It cost this concern something like $4,500 to disrupt the activities of the shop long enough to make the shots needed for this 800 feet of film. It was found, in the laboratory, that an unexpected degree of underexposure was a feature of the resultant negative. To shoot all these scenes over would once more bring to a standstill the operations of the plant — at an additional cost of $4,500. Things like this raise the footage cost considerably, and it isn't a thing that directly "tells" in the final screening. The unexpected must be prepared for in the production of high class industrial pictures and must be taken into the advertiser's calculations. Executives of industrial organizations with long experience in film production have learned to allow for these exigencies of the picture that moves. * * * To drive straight for the best result on the screen, the most common errors and miscalculations of the cinematographic art must be reckoned with. There is the chance of faulty continuity — inability of the scenario writer to adjust his sequences properly, though they may "read" well on paper. There is the possible failure of lighting, especially where factory interiors are concerned. There is the pitfall in the dark room. There is the pitfall in assembling when scenes may be too long drawn out or too brief to convey the thought desired. Experts in consultation are able to eliminate to a great degree the possibilities of these troubles, but they cannot place them beyond the point of possibility. The moving picture millennium has not yet arrived, especially in the industrial line. Lights are now available which may be transferred from room to room in a modern factory — even in a coal mine. But the fact remains that these lights do not reproduce the ideal of modern studio conditions and the buildings in which they are used, with rare exceptions, fail to give the director or cinematographer standard studio conditions of illumination. There is a huge searchlight arc on the market today — rather in use today — which will almost reproduce daylight in a coal mine. This huge' arc is being used for many purposes, even for dramatic studio work, but it is especially valuable to meet the varying and unusual conditions of light demanded by the average high class industrial picture. The trouble is that the producer of dramatic films brings his material to be photographed to the ideal conditions of the cinema art, whereas the industrial producer tries to bring the ideal cinema conditions to his material. The first works with everything in his favor; the second works with everything against him. It is a wonder, at times, that the industrial producer succeeds in getting the unusual results he does quite frequently get. In California the biggest studios are largely making use of daylight during the season of the year when weather permits. Artificial stage illumination is merely a substitute. "Sets" are put up and acting is performed before the camera under the sky in movable, open air studios. California sunshine makes possible the ideal effects ; if the weather is right the director and operator take full advantage of it. There are many buyers of industrial films who cannot understand why their photography and lighting isn't up to the standard set by Mary Pickford's dramas, not realizing that Mary Pickford produces her films under modern scientific conditions, while their own pictures are made in dark corners of machine shops or warehouses. Therefore, the steady increase in the use of films by large industrial plants is going to depend in a large measure upon the progress made in the mechanical and technical side of the picture industry. It is probable that in time to come — and not so very far off either — it will be possible to make a good film under almost any conditions. But that time is not here yet. It has been found practicable, when the expense is willingly met, to "stage" many scenes of an industrial picture in a studio (or an improvised one), even transferring heavy machinery from its place in workshops to the sunlight and hitching up a belt to make it work before the lens. This has been done by a tractor concern in the Northwest with excellent results. Even when an advertiser is enabled to examine a negative made for him in sections — before the first editing and joining together— he cannot judge of the picture's final effect when projected, complete on the screen. He may think he can. But he will find, nine times out of ten, that his advance visualization did not allow for the effect of certain scenes following each other or stretches which are obscure or disjoined or illogical in sequence. There are several leading industrial producers today who flatly refuse to let a client see any portion of a film until the whole is ready for initial projection. Sections are misleading; as said before in these columns, every scene in a movie depends in some manner upon the scene that went befort it and the scene that is to follow. To stop the projection machine in the middle of a picture gives you simply a view — probably without meaning, providing you entered the room just when the projector paused and you passed out before it resumed its action. You might as well have viewed a photograph at your desk. You lack the element of suspense present in some degree in every moving picture ; you miss the expectation aroused by looking forward after seeing events that have been shown before. A moving picture must be judged as a whole and complete to be judged fairly. You can't "shoot a gun off a little bit at a time" — neither can you estimate the worth of a 1,000-foot picture, filmed from a scenario, by seeing fifty feet of it. An example of faulty scenario writing may be given in connection with a picture designed to create a demand for fire extinguishers. One scenar'o prepared in advance "demonstrated" how convenient, how effective, how useful and how safe a certain extinguisher is. All about its insides, how it works, why it kills combustion was explained fully in elaborate and wordy titles. A janitor — the only touch of human interest — sat down and explained to a crony all about the workings of this fire fighter. * * :!: The accepted scenario pictured the experience of the head of a family saving the lives of his wife and children with the same fire extinguisher. There was nothing to tell the audience why the extinguisher extinguishes. Nobody cares anything about that but the man who invented it and the man who makes it. But the audience is interested in seeing it "deliver the goods" in a pinch and are held spellbound by the tense situation faced by the family head when the lives of his loved ones are in danger. Every man in the audience puts himself in that man's place; every woman feels like going right down and buying a Blank Extinguisher. E. J. Clary. The Leading Motion Picture Film Distributing Agency in Detroit Is The Detroit Metropolitan Company 23 ELIZABETH STREET, EAST Efficient Local Service Assured on Short Length Advertising Films TERMS ON REQUEST