American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1926)

July, 1926 AMERICAN CINEM ATOGR APHER Five The EDITOR'S LENS focused by FOSTER GOSS important Plans /"^VFFICERS of the American Society of Cinematographers predict that their coming fiscal year will be the most successful in the history of the Society. * Daniel B. Clark, president of_the A. S. C. for 1926-27, has outlined a program that stands out as the most ambitious to be undertaken since the cinematographers' society was organized. " One of the major features in Clark's program, that of the A. S. C. standard cinematographic experimental library, is actively under way, with tests on numerous subjects already having been reduced to positive film. Other parts in the A. S. C. activities for 1926-27 are being perfected at the present time, and will be formally announced shortly. " As has been previously commented on, the idea of the standard cinematographic experimental library presents the possibility of saving producers thousands of dollars, by eliminating needless economic waste and by bringing all standard practices in the field of motion photography to the plane of certainty. II Results of the various experiments by the A. S. C. members are exhibited at the open meetings of the Society where all members may digest the details of the finished film. Such exhibitions invariably bring forth an exchange of ideas among the members that is conducive to accentuating the possibilities of further cinematographic investigations. * Prints which record the experiments are kept in the newly installed library at the headquarters of the American Society of Cinematographers in the Guaranty Building, Hollywood, where the organization owns its own offices and assembly rooms which contain complete facilities for projection and previewing. Editors and Exhibitors [j^XHIBITORS and executives who attended the -•—-'theatre owners convention in Los Angeles in June carried away with them, in the aggregate, a better idea of the magnitude of the strictly cinematographic phases in the art of making moving pictures. " They had, in their visits to the various studios, the opportunity to view the cinematographer in his rightful role as a real artist, and, practically, the hub about which all "shooting'' revolves. ": This month there come to Southern California the representatives of the national editorial association. May the visiting editors likewise acquire a better understanding of the calling that is the cinematographer's. Being men of perception and penetration, the scribes will soon judge for themselves the relative values in film production, and store such information for further use. 1f The exhibitor and the editor, especially in small towns and rural communities, usually find much that is common in interest; and with both better acquainted with cinematography and cinematographers, the art of motion photography may well be entering a new era that will date from these two conventions held in the summer of 1926. TUatters of Qeoqraphij "VT7HAT'-S all these references, in the trade papers, to Eli Whitney Collins, newly elected president of the exhibitors, as a "man from the Middle West" or as a "Westerner"? If We had the idea that Collins hailed from Arkansas. As much as "Eli Whitney" relates to cotton ; as much as cotton suggests the south, that's how much we suspect that a man from Arkansas, if he must be classified sectionally, is a Southerner. ' We wonder what they would say about it down in Arkansas?