Reel Life (Mar-Sep 1915)

PRESIDENT FREULER'S MESSAGE To E YOU are selling your screen at every show. Yet in probably 90 per cent, of your houses, especially the smaller theaters, the screen is entirely neglected. It is the common practice for the exhibitor to install a screen when he equips his house and then never think about it again. You must look after your screen just as carefully as the merchant with a fashionable shop on Fifth Avenue looks after his show window. If your screen is wrong, your whole show is wrong. It is vital. It is the very heart and soul of your business. Watch it. Frequent inspection of the screen must be made. It should be dusted occasionally, and at intervals when the condition shows it needs attention, it should be recoated. Screens with metallic bases tarnish, and they all grow dusty. It is a gradual process. The screen gets a little more dingy and gray every day. The picture on that screen consequently gets a little duller all the time. The biggest star feature will not do your business any good if you are not showing that picture on a screen worthy of it. The successful manager is he who watches his show all the time. The best way to watch the show is to watch the screen. It is the sensitive center, the focus of attention. By watching the screen you will "sense" the feeling of the audience. You will know at once when the music is not in keeping with the picture. Faulty projection will hit you in the eye. With eyes on the screen you will "see" everything in the house. And remember that no house can run itself. The proprietor or the management must be represented in the house all the time. There are too many exhibitors who let the house run itself while they occupy some little office apart from the show, smoking and playing pinochle with a bunch of friends. The other day I went into a big motion picture theater and saw slap stick comedy on the screen while the pianist played "Ave Maria." That sort of thing could not happen if the manager was on the job. Success means constant attention, day after day. Not attention by fits and starts. Get on the job and stay there. And a word about the box office. Don't let it just run itself. The girl in the box office is too frequently seen crocheting or doing embroidery work. That is a poor way to advertise your business. — It means putting a show window out in front saying, "We haven't got much to do here." Keep up an air of business. The crowd don't want to go to a dead house. The at [ Three ] hibitors mosphere of success must be kept up. Keep everybody and yourself busy. I get around among the motion picture theaters a good deal. My experience as an exhibitor tells me the story of the house by watching the screen. It can tell the manager the same thing. For instance, I often see a show where one picture is projected very badly, it is jumpy and out of focus and generally rotten. Then along comes the next picture clear and steady. I know at once that the house is using two machines, and that one of them is out of repair. It costs mighty little to keep a projection machine in order, and it ought to be the manager's business to see that his machines are in as perfect condition all that time as the day they passed the factory test. You can tell by watching the screen. A common fault is the projection of the picture off "register." The other day I saw a picture thrown on a screen with a black border so far to the left that the titles were not readable. The people in the audience thought it was a rotten film. They knocked right heartily. The manager with his eyes on the screen would have caught that at once and signalled the coop. In fact, it is a good thing to have a system arranged so that any usher can signal the operator if the picture is off. Watch the screen. Then some houses try to save on current. They save about $2 a month on meter bills and lose mavbe fifty times that in business. Get a good light. Don't save money on electricity and ruin vour show. Watch the screen, it will tell you about the light, too. Don't throw too large a picture. You lose detail and definition and all the artistic quality of the picture. Remember that the film picture is a tiny thing, and that you are magnifying it enormously. Don't try to stretch it too far. It may require a new lense to make the change. Get it. Watch the screen. It will tell you. And while you are watchine the screen, also pay some attention to the methods of the successful exhibitors in your town. Watch his screen a while. A lot of men guilty of slipshod management go around wondering: why business is rotten, kicking about competition and feeling sorry for themselves. Don't s:o around trying to kill your competitor's business. Build your own. While you are building your business you are creating business. Don't hesitate to adopt methods that are desirable, but be original and individual. Watch your screen.