The Moving Picture World (January 1908)

6 '..-■' THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD : MR. H.. H. BUCKWALTER ON THE FUTURE OF'MOV- 7 ING PICTURES. The organization of moving pictnre men, formed in. Chicago, promises, indirectly, to be of great benefit to Colorado during the coming year. This is the cpmion of H. H. Buckwalter; of Denver, who keeps in dose touch with events in this particular field. The organization embraces only dealers and renters- of films, but it is the- key to the entire projection business of the country, for within a few days it will be impossible for the own- ers of picture shows—and there are 8,000 in the country—to rent film except through this combine. «• "The picture show business has developed into a most aston- ishing industry throughout the country,'' said Mr. Budcwaiter recently. "Everywhere it is flourishing. New York City alone has nearly 1,000 shows, and Chicago about half as many. It is the poor man's grand opera, and this was recognized by Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, who put in_ a show to compete with a half dozen, or more located in the vicinity and which were not exactly in line with her ideas of propriety of subjects. The fact is, the country has been.flooded with French pictures that while not, immoral in France, do not exactly fit American ideas. And their exposition was forced in a most peculiar manner. Dealers and renters were compelled to place an order with the foreign firm for all its productions or none—were compelled to buy the objectionable subjects as well .as the good, and,' to* re- coup, were compelled to send them out to the little shows. This " is one of the abuses that.the recent organization will correct - "There will be no more immoral or" criminal pictures put out, and an effort will be made to push as vigorously as possible such ■pictures as are elevating and instructive as well as amusing. Geographical, classical, pnre comedy and similar lines will be followed with a touch of mystery and spectacular'as well 'It is a matter of record that the only failures of consequence in ■ the business are the result of such subjects as the Thaw trial and the French creations, and to protect business as well as gain popular approval, the new Organization was planned. "One of the most unexpected features of the picture, show de- veloped in the opposition of the saloon element Wherever a picture show opened the neighboring saloon's receipts promptly dropped. In some towns where saloons keep back doors open on Sunday and the picture shows were closed the liquor receipts were not affected on that day, but just as soon as tiie shows were opened, the back door hinges grew rusty. This was one ol the results of the investigation of-Miss Addams, although it was manifested all over the country*and. not alone in Chicago. 'The demand from churches for* religious pictures has grown yehjped into a regular profession, the pay of which is enormous compared with most others. "And with the growth of the business the ideas have come closer and closer to up-to-date subjects. Now the exhibitors demand motion pictures of all national or other events a dav^dr -two after they occur. And, best of all, they get them. This "serves to keep up and add. to theinterest, and no body can imag- ine that signs of decline are visible.on the ; -,horizon.""''On' the contrary, the film manufacturers of the country are r unahle:-to keep up with the demand, and to my knowledge there are thou- sands of persons looking for locations for opening nickel shows. The moment a storeroom is vacated a dozen applicants are ready to put down the Jcash for a yearns rental at an advance in price. And they are-ready to follow this up with the expendi- ture of thousands of dollars to make the place attractive. T know of one place in Buffalo where $23,000 was spent in putting in an onyx front that extended up two stories, and the interior was more gorgeously •fitted than any regular playhouse in the city. Chicago can show the same. And that certainly does not indicate a falling off in prospects. " ' ■ "That the demand for pictures is up-to-the-minute is shows by the receipt of a telegram from CoL W.- N. Sefig, of Chicago* the- day after ..Denver -was selected for- the Democratic conven- tion, asking me to prepare at once for a dozen or more new Colorado subjects. And that means: that jit least 400,000 feet-"of film must be exposed within the next six weeks. And the ex- pense for actors, 'props' and facilities will be enormous. : "A-year ago I made about tea pictures and within one month spent over $1,000 in Golden alone, and had practically the entire bunch of actors from-the. Brandon Theater working, in the scenes. And the amusing part of this was that the actors had not seen real money for six or seven weeks : before I began on the pictures. .A trick bicycle rider from the Orphwim got more for ten minutes' work than he got for a whole week on the cir- cuit But the enormous number of copies'sold fully justified the expense, and. Colorado profited vastly in the advertising secured and still to'come, for these pictures are going as well now as they did when first put out . "While it is not-policy to'tell too much in advance, I may say that the plans for picture work in this State during the next year are almost beyond belief. The convention, for instance, will mean at least one new picture a day. It strikes me that the idea of a big convention coming to Denver is so unexpected among Eastern people that it is looked upon almost as some sort of freak, and they wiH eagerly gobble, up anything that comes from here—as they-have done in the past. East of the river the prevailing idea is, "Well, what next will those Colorado people do!" and they don't have to wait very long to find out"- SLIDE MAKERS ORGANIZING. With the film rental concerns of the country already organ- ized into a national association and the film manufacturers start-, ing to organize similarly, the makers:, of colored lantern slides for illustrated songs have started a movement to hand themselves together for mutual protection against pirates. A. L. Simpson, in speaking -to -the editor, said: . "Organization of the slide makers for self-preservation has steadily during the last two years, and one firin alone spent over become a necessity. Pirates are rapidly takingour profits away $150,000 in the production of a religious spectacular picture in spite of alcne. "For geographical subjects the camera has been sent to. the innermost recesses of uncivilized countries; The heart of Africa -and the coldest portions /?f the North and South have been in- vaded, and one of the molt astonishing pictures "secured was that of. the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi River—falls that make Ni- agara seem like a leak from the lakes. For my part in the work, I have devoted my time to securing the best'gerns of Colorado and the Rockies, yet after several, years "of work I have only skimmed over the subject. The State has pictorial wonders that have scarcely been seen. In Colorado-it is not a lack of subjects but a case of selection. Still such subjects as the Royal Gorge, Ute/.Pass, Cripple Creek, Pike's Peak and the Loop never grow old. So many prints have been made from some of these subjects that the orginal negatives have actually been worn out and it will soon be necessary to make new ones. - The advance in the art has been most remarkable during the" past five years. At first any old picture that showed motion and had a reasonable amount of distinctness. was eagerly admired. And most of them flickered to beat the band.'; Now the pictures mast be as clear and steady and flickerless as a stereopticdn slide, and they must hot only show-the scene, but there must . be1 a little story" interwoven to fix the attention and burn the subjects on the minds of the" spectators. But the; thread of story interwoven must not be heavy enough to demand thought . People want to see pictures and understand' their meaning with- out thinking, and the devising and writing of such plot3 has de- our every effort to defeat them. Why, if we sold afi the colored slides of the songs we have illustrated, a plant four times the size of this would not suffice to turn out the work. "No .other business is so subjected to the abuse of theft as ours. We have copyrighted our slides,- but the copyright mark- ings are removed, and our orginal works reproduced and sold at a reduced'.price in wholesale lots. We-are considering a scheme of registering a trade-mark and making this an inefface- able, part of each slide. We anticipate some opposition from music publishers, who may consider the presence of the trade- mark, however small, a defect in the pictures, but if we, as an association, decide to take this course, this opposition will not amount to much, "To illustrate how serious our difficulties are, I might mention a rather recent incident: I was commissioned to illustrate an Indian song.. I secured the services of the Indians in the Hippo- drome, show, together with an interpreter; and took them out of town for a day, hiring a camp outfit and feeding all these peo- ple as well as paving railroad fares. The initial cost of those two dozen or so negatives amounted to $500 or more;' "The slides were scarcely ."on the market when a pirate re- produced ' them and undersold me. , My price was $5. His was $4 and less. You may easily, imagine where I came in. Not alone this, hut. his 'reproductions were so had that a number of consumers who saw them and supposed they were the prod- uct of thy factory Received a* false impression that might have done me serious injury.. . ,- "In New York, there are about half a dozen slide-makers who \ . , _- . • ■■•■".■ - . ' ". ' ■ ... : - •:.- '■■■.: