Business screen magazine (1938)

CONTENTS \'OLUME ONE -)< NUMBER FIVE The Film Forum 6 A Challenge to Industry 9 Public & Industrial Relations 11 Baseball's Goodwill Ambassadors 14 New Films, A Page of Pictures 15 How Motion Pictures Move and Talk Hi General Electric, A Visual Pioneer 17 Casting the Characters 18 Hardly Hollywood but Highly Profitable '27 Add Entertainment to Your Film Program iS Technical News and a Digest of Equipment 31 Organizing the Film Department 35 Where Are They Now? 37 Script Teasers 40 Cover Subject: by Kurt Schelliug, Courtesy of The Bridgeport Brasn Company, Bridgeport, Connecticut. \i\i rliiiiiiiiiiiriiiiil ♦ Business Screen Magazine, Issued by Business Screen Magazines. Inc., Twenty North \Vacker Drive. Chicago, IIHnois on January iO, 1939. Editorial Director, O. H. CoeUn, Jr.; Managing Editor. R. C. Danielson. Subscription price: Domestic. $5.00 a year; 50c the copy; foreign, $6.00 a year. Issued twelve times a year, including four Visual Education numbers. Publishers are not responsible for the return of unsolicited m.s. unless accompanied by stampetl, self-addressed envelope. Entire contents Copyright 1939 by Business Screen Magazines. Inc. Trademark Reg. U. S. Patent Office, All Rights Reserved. T H E M A G A Z I N E 0 F C 0 M M E R C I A E D r C A T I O X A I. 1 I L M S afnef^a ( ^lAGm NOTES FOR AN EDITORIAL ON PRODUCTION STANDARDS ■f In the countless hundreds of interviews which are the privilege of an editor, we have acquired the barest outline of a code of standards which someday should merit the consideration of those few who truly qualify to the title of commercial sound motion picture and sound slide film producers. Not so much because the standards arc needed by them because they long ago accepted these as a way of doing business but there is a need for a few straightforward truths among the vast numbers of uninitiated and little experienced users and potential users of this all-powerful sales and advertising medium. That they are. incidentally, a defence against the wasteful destructiveness of the "freelance^^ and experimenting amateur is a point worth consideration. The distinct cleavage between truly professional production according to theatrical standards and substandard experimentation is so definite it hardly needs mention. Yet it should be told again that the majority of films for business are produced with professional studio equipment in SSmm. and sound is most dependably recorded on one or another of the accepted 35mm. sound systems. These are not *''Hollywood" standards although they are confirmed by every film there made. Films are made that way simply because it is the only way in which the vitally necessary cfualities of excellence may be dependably captured for the screen and because the cost of such equipment is not the deciding factor in determining the cost of the film production for it is what is put before the camera — the sets — the cast — and the other visible elements of the successful film sales story — which determine the price of the picture. Some good fiJms have been made in 16mm., in limited fields and there largely among smaller concerns who might otherwise be deprived of a useful medium. Here the value of the medium may outweigh the importance of theatrical standards but the rule of the majority is safe, dependable and basically important to the success of the medium. Personnel and experience would play leading roles in our presentation of a First Code. Research, writing and direction are the elements of personnel which the reliable producer must afford in liberal measure. Without these — fine equipment is useless — for the most experienced '*free-lance" cameranjan is quickly lost when he attempts to interpret the smallest part of this world of business. Experience would take into consideration the producer''s past record of achievement and the years his organization has served its clients. Without it. the highly technical art of the film soon snares the otherwise ingenious copywriter; the talented advertising executive is washed overboard in an unabating flood of costly production budgets. Experience is really the most expensive ingredient of all and one in which too few men are willing to invest. ^Tiich again explains, finally, why there are few who truly qualify to the title of commercial sound motion picture and sound slide producers. — O, H. C.