Business screen magazine (1938)

FILM FORU KKADERS AIIK l\\ ITEI) In \I)IHiKS • Editor's Note: To the luiudivds of newreaders of Business Screen who have acknowledged their interest and appreciation of our efforts, the editors extend this note of thank> Since this department is solemnly dedicated to letters of inquiry and to the service function, we can hardly say more and stay within the l)ounds of modesty. Eflitor, Biisinessi Screen: Thanks lor the copies of your publication '"Business Screen" uliich liave now been reviewed. Since our main media is the slide film we believe that we would be justified in relating lo you our experience «itli this type of training. Our slide films are not made for public relations, but are confined strictly to tlie training of salesmen, announcing programs to dealers and p^o^'iding service instruction. AVe have been using this medium for the past four or five years and have found no adetjuate substitute. Over 5,000 of our ilealers are equipped with slide film projectors and receive all releases as scheduled. In this way a very high percentage of our dealer organization receives exactly the same stor\ , \\e are assured that the presentation is identical in every case and the story, of course, is picturized. We believe that the most effective release in our history was a kit of sales training records released last winter. Each dealer who used the slide film service received a case in which were eight I'^" records. The ca.se was constructed so tliat the lid held the eight film cans. The eight records and films provided an adequate training in the fundamentals of selling automobiles. Each subject was covered on one side of a record, which made it possible for a dealer to conduct the 10 minute meeting in the morning, follow up the slide film with a lU minute discussion on the subject, and perhaps take another 10 minutes to cover general routine. In this way it was jiossible for him to have a snappy hall' iiour sales meeting in the morning and at the same time have it highly instructive. Four records c<^>vered tlie product and the other four covered selling procedure. In tJiis way, eight points on the construction of the car were pre.sented, and eight steps on selling ])rocedure were covered. Hundreds of letters from dealers seemed to indicate that this tyi>e of release was l>eing well received. Trusting this information will lie of some assistance to you, we are, Yours very truly, Ford Motor Company E. M. Chamberlin General Sales Department Ford's able sponsorship of all types of film subjects and their prouonnciMl success, suggests an interesting yarn on this subject. WANTS TRUCK SAFETY FILMS Editor, Business Screen: The National Safety Council, Chicago, has referred us to you regarding sound safety films dealing with long liaul trucks or commercial vehicles. We have been using for the past year a film entitled. "The Truck and the Driver" produced by Welsh Studios of riiiladelphia and have had good results from it, but we are in need of some new material. , We would appreciate your advising us whether or jiot you have a film 16mm. size available to answer our needs. Yours verv trulv, H. O. McShan" Motor Carrier Insurance Agency The first installment of a new safety film survey appears in this issue. It has been prepared in cooperation will) several safet\ orgauizati<)ns. DKI'AUTMENT STORES SURVEYED Editor Business Screen: In a recent relea.se by the Business Journalists we note that you have produced a special eight page section on "how to use films in business." Included in the excerpts is a commentary on how some department stores have already used these films lo advantage. We operate a chain of small depart nient stores and an A PAGE OF LETTERS FROM OUR READERS INQUIin TU THIS r.VCE wondering what might be available for our use. Kindly refer this inquiry to your associates in the industry, requesting that they send us all the data available. We will ai)preciate your cooperation in this matter. Norman W. Raies Sales Promotion Manager Ki)p[)ers Stores To the potential user of films in this field, the specialized retail store .service of Audivision; the sales-education films of Modern Talking Pictures and other special subjects are recommended. SALES TRAINING LIBRARY Mr. H. E. Daviston Bismarck, South Dakota We were very much interested in your letter which appeared in the "Fihn Forum" section of the current issue of Business Screen lamenting the fact that you were unable to find an organization distributing sales training films. When you concluded with, '"Can you tell me if such material is available and where it may be obtauied.^" we felt that you ought to know about Modern. Sales training picture distribution, on a nation-wide basis, has always l>een a vital part of Modern's business. Available now on a rental plan are the two talking motion pictures and three sound slide films produced by those eminent professors of sales training. Richard C. Borden and Alvin C. Bus.se. So great was the demand for their personal appearance to train salesmen of large organizations that Professors Borden and Busse have made their services available through motion pictures and sound slide films. In addition to the above. Modern Talking Picture Service, Inc. has just obtained exclusive distribution rights to "Word Magic", a picture demonstrating the "tested selling" points of Elmer Wheeler, the much talked about, much read about man wlio has won fame and success by creating sentences that sell. Another attraction is the MacVeagh foremen's training course — a group of six sound slide films which have special apjwal in industrial organizations because of the honest, down-to-earth fashion in which they are presented. All the.se pictures and sound slide films are available on a rentaM)asis through Modern. Modern will be glad to provide in addition to the films complete projection facilities— ^ operator, equipment, screen. In order to make it easier for you to visualize the purpose of each film, we suggest that you drop us a line at 9 Rockefeller Plaza. New York, New York, and we will forward you some descriptive literature on each picture. Sincerely yours, F. H. Arlinghaus President. Modern Talking Picture Service Reader Daviston is thus answered by Modern's able director. Since the letter was typical of a COMING EVENTS! of interest to our rettders Issue No. 4 Puhlis/u'cl on Noveuihcr Fifth! Special articles on the Medical Film Field; Department Stores-2; Color-2; Travel and the Film. Another special section of Film Review; Equipment News & Reviews Issue No, 5 Puhlished on December Fifth! Annual Survey Number with a complete directory of all national film concerns; annual library directory of all sponsored films now in circuhition; equipment directory and national classified section on laboratories and producing concerns. number received, the answer will suffice for the entire nnniln'r. Thank you. Mr. Arlinghaus. RELATES COLOR EXPERIENCES Editor of Business Screen: \ our Exhibit Edition just caine to me last night and it has a thought-.stimulating quality I like in the things I read. If my thoughts are of editorial value to you. you are free to use them in their original form or butchered to suit yourself. Two years ago, while visiting a Tulip Trial Grounds in a nearby city, with another seedsman friend, we both took a few pictures. My friend's were with 35mm Kodachrome and mine were in black and white of the same size. His shutter ceased to function and because he knew I had never tried Kodachrome, he asked me to finish my film and try a roll of Kodachrome he had beyond his needs of that day. W'ith the help of his Weston meter and my little Argus, with which I was not at all familiar because it was my first day with it. I obtained fifteen pictures good enough to use as slides and which, incidentally, have been shown on the screen to a good many hundreds of garden club members who have asked us to deliver garden lectures, Rigiit there I went ofT the deep end and in our own Tulip Trial Grounds in Cleveland, where we have in bloom more than four hundred different varieties of Tulips each spring, with a total planting of more than 10,000 bulbs, I started to shoot with 3;5nmi Kodachrome in earnest. The results were shown to friends engaged as I am in the seed and bulb business and as a result, I now have a little private group, three members of which are in California, two in Chicago, one in Detroit, one in Cleveland and one in Columbus who are using the.se little slides to further their business and pronouncing thent the best new tool for selling that the seed business has seen in a long, long time. You can imagine my surprise and pleasure, when in June a year ago. while presiding at the o7th annual convention of the American Seed Trade Association. I was presented with a complete Leica outfit. And since then, my work with .S.imm Kodachrome slides has improved and my library of slides has increased several hundred fold. The use of movie films, (on three trips to Europe, starting in l9-i5 I have taken a good many thousand feet for use in Garden Club lectures for the promotif)n of our business) . is quite expensive for a small firm. Then. too. distribution has serious limitations unless the film has been made and marketed by a firm capable of doing such work. But there are thousands upon thousands of small firms which can. without nnich of an outlay, use slides in this small size to carry directly to the view of buyers, the kind of a message every business man is able to conceive. He can arrange as we have for duplicate pictures of new things to be made and exchanged by non-conflicting competitors. He can show them in his store, in his office or have his salesmen show them w^hen calling on prospects and customers. Even without previous pliotographic experience, any man with patience and ability to understand printed instructions can do his own photographing. It is from these small businesses that the large businesses of the future will come. A tool like this 35mm outfit, may be the means of bringing about the change from small to large size. A year ago. the All-America Selections Committee of the American Seed Trade Association, who.se chief aim is to see that the new varieties of flowers and vegetables that are offered to the gardeners of America get something really new and different when they buy new kinds, gave the highest Gold Medal Award for a new Morning Glory by the name of Scarlett O'llara. This ha.s a shade of red unlike the red in any other flower that I have ever seen. The work of the Committee is kept confidential until after the award. The result is that when October comes around and the award is announced, it is pretty late to get good photographs. My Leica, and Kodachrome A film, plus Eastman's processing, gave me a remarkably fine register of Scarlett O'Hara's true color. My Garden Club Audiences were able almost simultaneously with the announcement of the award to see the flower in natural colors. If what I have said about my use of slides is as thoughtprovoking to you as your latest issue was to me. you have something here for a future issue. If not. pardon me, please. Floyd Bradley President. Templin-Bradley Co. Cleveland. Ohio The experiences of reader Bradley illustrate the numerous fields of use for visual media. The inexpen.sive glass slides of these Kodachrome subjects were his way of realizing the values of the medium^ a .step from this beginning stage here suggested is the utilizati(Ui of Kodaehnunc on strip film fen i-onvenient showing. 10