Reel and Slide (Jan-Sep 1919)

REEL and SLIDE 17 "Screen Sense" and the Advertiser Animated Visualization Galls for Trained Judgment, Worthy of Expert's Attention How Certain Publicity Agents Have Developed the Idea in Supervising Pictures By E. J. Clary IT calls for no great amount of adroitness to recognize the versatile uses of the moving picture screen. And it is interesting to note that of the most valuable ideas contributed to screen advertising, a large percentage of them have come from men outside of the industry. Quite recently there has been considerable discussion concerning "combination" screen advertising. By this is meant, for instance, a tractor firm produces a picture. It is found necessary to show the stock feeding hour in the farmer's barnyard and Blank's Stock Food is given a bit of the limelight. Further on, the farmer drives to market in his car and the director takes pains to show the audience that it is a Blank Car. (If he can find a hill for the farmer to climb in his car so much the better for the maker of the car ; a demonstration of hill climbing ability is a natural and easily handled part of the "story.") It will be seen at once the almost limitless possibilities of this combination idea. Hardly anything commonly found in everyday America but what is an advertised product. Scarcely any article fails to offer opportunities for the screen advertiser. The chorus lady in the photodrama hurries into her street clothes to meet the millionaire's son and we are shown that she wears a Jones shoe, that Smith supplies her face powder, and that the rich man's son bought her flowers at the famous "Shop Around the Corner." The adroit director and scenarioist can work in these combinations so masterfully that the casual onlooker does not realize what is going on. The grand scheme is to show as little as possible; what is needed is restraint. Should Not Be Overdone There is danger ahead for the producer who would overdo this combination idea. It is just what we want to avoid in industrial pictures. The reason is because it is not done well enough by enough directors to get by; the bungler's jobs are going to be thrown in with the cleverer jobs and all must suffer collectively from the unwilling theater owner and the ever resentful public. Yet, those who are able to handle a picture of this kind sanely may find it profitable. Certainly it is economical. To charge the screen advertising bill up to the tractor man, the car builder and the stock food merchant makes it pretty cheap advertising for all of them. Something like "clubbing" on their screen appropriations, as it were. It is unlikely that this practice will attain any great degree of popularity under the present conditions of production. A great deal of free advertising has been secured from time to time in screen dramas for advertisers who happen to have a signboard in the way. In the early days directors paid little enough attention to this free publicity, as no set policy had been adopted by the industry as a whole. If a scene happened to be made on a street where a Quaker Oats billboard was included in the view, nobody cared very much ; certainly, with the wide world as his stage, the picture maker couldn't begin eliminating the most common features of our landscape, urban and suburban. He simply let it go. It is probable that in those early days the producers began to realize the free puffs they were giving our best known nationally advertised carpet sweepers, breakfast foods, footwear and corsets. The industry has learned, however, that what used to be given free can now be sold, and they are selling it at the rate often of three dollars per linear foot. It is only rarely that anything in the way of free advertising finds its way onto the screen now unless it is paid for and at a rate that would shock' the advertiser who got it free a dozen years ago. What One Motor Truck Man Got Howeyer, very few industrial concerns have learned to take advantage of screen publicity which is open to them at all times and which is very effective. Not long ago one of the largest manufacturers of auto trucks in the world delivered 100 finished army trucks to the United States Government. These trucks were turned over to army chauffeurs at the factory and were driven to seaboard for transportation to France. The advertising manager of this auto company notified the various representatives of the topical weeklies of the event and the result was that each reel pictured the trucks, bearing the maker's name, giving this firm a comprehensive free screen campaign that was even more effective than a paid one in some respects, since it automatically was pre-. sented before the maximum number of people in the minimum length of time. The event was real news ; as such it was welcomed by the photographers. It was impossible to eliminate the trade name on the trucks and the film people permitted it to go through. In nearly every line there is something worthy of the screen waiting for the camera man. The industrial concern with an advertising man who understands the value of screen publicity and how to get it effectively is in luck. The advertising department must, first of all, know their product and their plant, the operations that lend themselves to visualization and enough regarding the production end of the film business to work intelligently with the producer. This knowledge should not be confined to the field of industrial production alone ; even the screen drama and the screen magazine are open to what he has to offer. The producer of a screen magazine will gladly run subjects which have sufficient interest to the public regardless of the advertising. Space can be bought in these reels at so much per foot with a circulation that is guaranteed because of the regular bookings. The exhibitor quite naturally objects to bald advertising features, though if the quality is high and the subject worth while, he can have no legitimate objection to their presence. The advertising and publicity man of a large industrial organization to-day is called upon to make just as close a study of the moving picture as of the periodical or newspaper. Those who have done so are to-day enthusiastic concerning the results obtained. It might even be said truthfully that there is a "screen sense" quite as clearly defined as "news sense." The elements are naturally different, the application totally different. What is often news to a city editor is not. news to the picture editor. Some of the biggest news events of the day have no pictorial value whatever. There may be a personality or two mixed up in a big bank robbery, but unless the excitement of the robbery itself is filmed, there is little to make screen material in the event. ' On the other hand, pictures of a fire or wreck, even if made some hours after it has happened, offers excellent pictorial possibilities. What the public has read about in such a case they will want to see on the screen — if it isn't stale by the time the film arrives. Some Events Will Not Make Pictures This "screen sense" should not be confused with the dramatic instinct. Moving pictures to-day are rapidly becoming the subject for technical study, standards slowly but surely are being developed as part of the great science of publicity. Visualization, per force, must enter into the scheme of things with every instructor as well as every advertising specialist. Both have already gone very far in this direction, with lantern slides, with photographs and drawings, but the picture that moves not only broadens the possibilities of all visualization, but also brings to light rigid limitations. There are things which will not make moving pictures. Many of them are thrilling and interesting enough to write about, but they lack the "punch" when filmed. Summed up, the problem of the advertiser to-day, as it is of the instructor, is, what makes good, interesting, instructive and informative pictures? The time has passed when any still life scene may be projected on the screen and be expected to interest the general audience. There must be action. Two moving pictures of exceptional educational value were presented recently at the St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, South Bend, Ind. The first showed some of the best views ever taken of "The Grandeur of the Niagara Falls," while the second presented beautiful scenes of "The Yosemite Valley — the Land of Enchantment." Preceding the pictures Rev. James L. Gardiner, D.D., spoke on the subject, "The God We Worship." Extensive preparations for the swift education of blind soldiers so that they may go into the labor market on equal terms with workers who have their sight have been completed by the Red Cross Institute for the Blind, working in conjunction with the office of the surgeon-general of the United States. The methods of training have already been worked out by having the best workers in each industry do their tasks before a moving picture camera. The film is then "reviewed" by experts from the Society of Mechanical Engineers, who have donated their services to the government. These men eliminate all the waste motion in the processes and design instruments which will help the blind workman and increase his efficiency.