American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1926)

January, 1926 AMERICAN CINEM ATOGR APHER Seven Ho id Cinematoqraphij b^ Herbert q*xi Jlids Big Industry Sisson National Cash Register Company Made Early Use of Motion Picture Film (The following interesting account, both from an historical and industrial viewpoint, indicates the use to which cinematography may be put with success by a large commercial organization. The article comes from the pen of Herbert Gay Sisson and is taken from the National Cash Register Company's bulletin, "Progress.") The progress of the motion picture, one of the outstanding developments of the first quarter of the present century, has affected not only the daily lives of millions through providing an inexpensive medium of entertainment, but it has also become a force in the industrial life of the nation. There are few important manufacturing establishments that do not have films showing their processes of manufacture and telling the story of the development of their product and its importance to the world. Films are also widely used by industry for purposes of instruction and training. The first large industrial concern in the country to adopt motion pictures in a program of ambitious scope was The National Cash Register Company, and it is doubtful whether any company today uses the motion picture as consistently and for so many objects as does the Dayton, Ohio, organization. This Company's use of the motion picture began in 1902, when special films were made and incorporated in an illustrated lecture on welfare work which was then being given to manufacturers' organizations throughout the country and to visitors to the N. C. R. factory at Dayton. Today the National Cash Register Company has in its film vault 773,877 feet of positive prints of motion pictures, and 244,702 feet of motion picture negative. In addition, the Company is a daily renter of film from the motion picture industry. Motion pictures are used in special lectures, in an educational film service provided by the Companv for the advancement of visual education, in daily noon-hour entertainments provided free for its employees, in weekly Saturday morning children's meetings given to an average of three or four thousand children of the city, and in educational work carried on bv the Company among its workers and members of its selling forces. Worthy Causes Aided The use of motion pictures by The National Cash Register Company is not confined to films that have to do with the commercial activities of the organization. Upon numerous occasions films have been prepared to aid worthy movements entirely separate from the cash register business. An instance of this occurred in 1924 when Frederick B. Patterson, president of the Company, was at the head of the National Aeronautic Association of the United States. Securing the collaboration of the Bray Motion Picture Studios, Mr. Patterson had a thrilling four-reel film prepared, entitled "Make America First In The Air.'1 This picture, after being approved by the heads of the government air services, was shown in most of the important cities of the country as the basis of an appeal for membership, with the result that the Association's ranks were more than tripled. Properly to describe the various ways in which motion pictures have been utilized to foster the development of The National Cash Register Company, and the spreading of its principles and idealism, it is necessary to go back in the Company's history to the year 1894. The late Mr. John H. Patterson, founder of the Company and at that time its president, always firmly believed that the best way to teach is through the eye. Consequently, when in that year it became evident, through the return of a number of defective registers, that the industry was suffering from faulty workmanship, one of the first steps taken was to teach the employees better ways of working through visual methods. This was only one of a number of new and advanced policies launched by Mr. Patterson at that time, which marked the inauguration of industrial welfare work in the United States, revolutionized working conditions in this country, and caused The National Cash Register plant to become known as "the world's model factory." Moving his desk out into the factory, Mr. Patterson conducted an investigation and found many things that were wrong. He had crude, hand-drawn stereopticon slides pre pared. Calling a meeting of all employees in I Com Intied on Page' i s>