Reel and Slide (Jan-Sep 1919)

REEL and SLIDE 17 SCENARIO PRODUCTION DISTRIBUTION E OTHER FEUOWS IDEA A well known eastern firm, specializing in slide advertising and especially in slide distribution, notifies this department that it enjoys the patronage of the following concerns : American Tobacco Company ; Berry Brothers, varnishes ; Crex Carpet Company, Hartford Fire Insurance Company, International Silver Company, National Lead Company, Ostermoor & Co., Packer's Tar Soap, Royal Worcester Corset Company, J. B. Williams Company, Winchester Arms and Yale & Towne. Quite a distinctive list of national advertisers and very interesting! The endorsement of the lantern slide by concerns like this year after year indicates its selling value. Such buyers of advertising spend their money judiciously and expertly. The following appeal to national advertisers is made by the same slide house : "Circularize your trade, notify them that you are willing to give them slides gratis if they will have them exhibited. "Handling as we do the slide campaigns for concerns in every line of business we are able to tell you what percentage of your trade would be willing to show your slides and in what states the demand will be the greatest. It would be a pleasure to forward examples of our work and, on receipt of your advertising matter, will gladly make up samples for you. We invite correspondence on any subject pertaining to screen advertising, and a little investigation on your part will prove conclusively that slides are the most up-to-date selling aid since the electrotype was perfected. "The price of slides is governed by the amount of color work. They cost from $25.00 to $75.00 per hundred. This includes hand coloring and a different dealer's name and address on each slide and shipping direct to your customer. With each set of slides is enclosed a government postal addressed to you ; on the other side is blank receipt all ready for your dealer to sign and return to you. You are absolutely relieved of all detail of handling. In order to help your dealers secure full benefit of this style of advertising we will include dodgers without additional cost in each shipment." It is getting to be a fact that effective screen publicity must go further than mere manufacture of films or slides. The producer of pictures or the maker of slides in handling big campaigns cannot hope for help from an advertising agency. Yet the customer is used to service these days and expects it. "Heads Win," one of the first five-reel industrial dramas ever released, produced by the Universal industrial department for the International Correspondence Schools, was recently given its premier showing at the Strand Theater, Scranton, Pa., where the home offices of the big school are located. The recent release, "Heads Win," is the initial production of this character distributed among exhibitors as a standard attraction, sponsored by a large corporation. The production was filmed in various cities of the country under the supervision of Harry Levey, and features a number of film players well known to exhibitors and film followers. No industry has been quicker to realize the possibilities of the screen than that devoted to the manufacture of automobiles. More than that, the automobile men with considerable daring have gone in for what the studios term "footage." That is, they care little for brevity and believe their subjects are of sufficient interest to warrant detailed screen expositions. For instance, we find the following industrials listed: Wheel Building 3 reels Truck Assembly and Building.3 reels Twin Six Assembly 1 reel Body Building 2 reels Body Painting 1 reel Cushion Building 1 reel Top Building 3 reels Ford in Heavy Pulling \y-z reels One might think that the whole "story" of automobile construction could be visualized in one reel with a couple of hundred feet to spare; that is, that part of the various processes which would be of interest on the screen. But the automobile concerns do not think so. Either they have unlimited faith in the interest holding features of their industry or they are not aware of the deadliness of an industrial picture that runs over 1,000 feet. A well-known automobile advertising manager said not long ago in connection with his new film production : "Unless we can show detail we might as well show nothing. Everybody has a general idea of how cars are made. To show them what they already know would be tiresome. Therefore, we have to pick out the chief points of interest and give them the points that they do not know — the detail. Maybe it is tiresome to some, but we feel that the great majority will stick the thing out and remain interested. We accept a 50 per cent loss in attention, I suppose, or something like that. Nothing can be told of any value to our proposition under 1,000 feet, and we would rather show it in two or three thousand." Quite a number of the lengthy automobile films are made for selected audiences, usually for exhibition before the company's branch managers and salesmen, in which case the length of a film is really immaterial. Technical subjects before selected audiences can run any number of feet. But for the most part the automobile films are for public consumption, and the auto men have shown a great deal of courage in screening their two and three reel subjects, dealing with such subjects as "how an auto top is made." The Sperry Flour Company of San Francisco has a very interesting motion picture entitled "Bread Making in Different Parts of the World." It is in one reel and has seen considerable service on the Pacific Coast, especially through the channels of distribution opened up by the Visual Instruction Department of the University of California. This picture is intensely interesting and has high instructional value, being already in great favor among high school teachers and those with domestic science classes under their guidance. Likewise it is calculated to impress the audience with the quality of American bread, and therefore the product of the company releasing the film. Those of us who have seen the Ward Baking Company film, "Making of Bread," will realize the possibilities of showing how the world makes its daily bread, by means of moving pictures. Which instigates the thought that manufacturers in other lines could easily reach out and bring the "way the world does it" as a sugar-coat for their own motion picture subjects. Peculiar methods of production in almost any line of business in far-off climes always make interesting pictures, and such a theme serves to concentrate the interest of the public on the general idea, upon which the film is based. E. J. Clary. The Glens Falls, N. Y., Chamber of Commerce is making arrangements to circulate questionnaires among local manufacturers with a view to having them exhibit a series of educational moving pictures that the Department of Interior at Washington, D. C, is sending out. The government has a large number of picture reels that will be of a big service to the public, especially to the industrial section, it is believed.