Business screen magazine (1938)

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"GET OVER into CLOVER" is G.E's advice to dealers told io new stage show and pictures • General Electric's spring show Get Over Into Clover now winning acclaim in its tour of 50 key cities, employs a unique combination of professional stage show and motion picture to carry its story to appliance dealers and distributors. The show is being presented in the east and west simultaneously by two complete units, each with its special pullman car, baggage car, professional actors, stage sets, stage crew, and projection equipment. "It has been several years since General Electric has conducted a spring show of any pretentious size," declares Carl M. Sn.vder, G-E appliance sales manager, "and never before have we attempted one of this type. We have a new story and intend to tell it in such dramatic fashion that it will staj' told for some time to come. We do not propose to leave the slightest doubt in anybody's mind that General Electric means business in 1939." The .show represents months of intensive work on the part of General Electric's appliance promotional staff, and was produced under the joint direction of A. L. Scaife and Roy Johnson, advertising and .sales promotion managers of the specialty and household appliance divisions respectively. The theme was built into a play by Carle Robbins, editor of the General Electric ''News Graphic." national dealer magazine. The plot was drawn from actual dealer experience. Principal characters are a typical dealer, his son, and the personalities who enter their private and business lives. Dealer problems and sales opportunities are dealt with as the play unfolds, yet not a single product chart mars the story. The audience joins the dealer's son as he attends the presentation of a 30-minute talking motion picture which tells the story of General Electric's research and maiuifacturing background. Actors in the film include G-E executives, scientists, and factory workers. Alois Havrilla, well known radio announcer, is narrator. The picture won a spot in the program because of excellent results achieved by previous G-E movies in the appliance field. Scenes were shot at company plants and buildings and in various research laboratories. While the movie is concerned primarily with G-E home appliances, it shows such activities as the manufacture and testing of giant turbines and generators, minute instruments, light sources, porcelain insulators, wire and cable, refrigerators, radios, and other products. The human beings whose lives and jobs are NO. THE DEALER isNT LOSING HIS PANTS in tlic appliancc stofe. Tlie figure in long underwear is an irate husband who calls after hours, receives unusual treatment from the G. E service man and bellows, "I've never been in a place like this before!" A scene from the G-E spring road show Get Over Into (.lover now being presented on national tour. wo\en into the picture emerge as more important than the mechanical processes themselves — a point which General Electric stresses. The entire picture finds its inspiration in the query of a little girl who presses her nose against a streaming window pane during a thunderstorm and asks of her grandfather, "Grandpa, what is electricity?" Dr. Wills R. Whitney, G-E laboratory pioneer and a galaxy of men and machines, through the medium of the motion picture, answers her question as well as modern science has been able to answer it. Get Over Into Clover carries magnificent sets for the stage presentation. The curtain goes up on the front of a white colonial home which is 43 feet wide, and 22 feet high. A stage depth of 22 feet is required. The home is suddenly transformed as if by magic into a professional stage where other sets, equally professional and realistic in appearance, appear and disappear with few seonds intervening as the rapid fire show packs comedy, romance and inspiration into each thrilling scene. Professional actors, used in both the eastern and western companies, are signed to contracts approved by the Actors Equity Association. Professional stagehands and management help to assure a competent performance. Each unit is preceded by its owii advance man. Each has a stage manager, union electrician, carpenter, property man, and motion picture operator in addition to the actors. Get Over Into Clover left Cleveland after a preview showing .January 27 before editors of national trade and consumer magazines, many of whom called it the most effective medium ever employed by a manufacturer to carry a sincere, inspirational story to appliance dealers and distributors. Dramatic critics, newspaper writers and veteran appliance merchandise men have concurred in that opinion at each showing. The western troupe will conclude its tour March 31, while the eastern company makes its final appearance at Buffalo April 5. GENERAL ELECTRIC ... THE STORY OF A VISUAL PIONEER The Coiictuditig Article from a licceiit Talk by John G. T. Gilmour • Realizing that a picture containing the results of this development and one compatible with the company's original function would offer the best presentation, we produced a fivereel synchronous picture featuring Dr. Irving Langmuir, Associate Director of our Research Laboratory, titled. Oil Films on Water; it portrayed some of the experiments on surface tension which later won for Dr. Langmuir the Nobel Award in Chemistry. Special portable sound projectors were built and crews were trained in their operation. This picture, believed to be the first industrial sound picture, was shown about the country to engineering and scientific groups, as well as in leading educational institutions. The acclaim given this picture by educators, business men and the press in addition to the company's own opinion of the uses to which sound pictures could be put in our regular operations convinced executives that sound films were in order. So district offices were outfitted with 35mm. portable projectors and the production of sound pictures was begun. The difficulties of production imposed by sound were many. An entirely new form of story-telling had to be worked out. Methods, satisfactory during development, proved impractical in regular production. Equipment was cumbersome and inadequate. The troubles were the same as those encountered by the industry itself and in proportion just as large and difficult. But, as in all things, when there are patience, a will-to-do, and encouragement, the problems were gradually eliminated and some form of production technique restored. (P/case ttirii to next Page) 28