Business screen magazine (1946)

HANDY continued to gab too freely. We had lo figure out the shortest standard way to liandle calls \<,hh (he least conversation. W'e brougiu in sound on the phonograph to let operattirs hear how their own voices sounded. For years the Georgia "Crackers" couldn't understand the "New Joisy" speech or broad Boston "A's" or vice versa. Likewise, there was much trouble between the Scandinavians in the Northwest and the German accents in Milwaukee, to say nothing of the Germans in Cincinnati and Missouri. There were all those dialects . . . making it necessary to standardize the phrases to get them to have some sort of common language. So, we brought sound into training, although not yet synchronized with pictures." At about the same time. Handy began to syndicate motion pictures ( sponsored by metropolitan newspapers) on news, travel and particularly on how appliances worked, into motion picture theatres. "Household appliances and new kitchen conveniences were just coming into popularity in the years before World War 1. They were elementary in those days, but people got into trouble even with can openers. They needed at least to know which end was the handle. Women, and men, too, were really interested in that stuff. The theatres had felt there was no entertainment value or audience interest in anything but love, murder, mystery and crime. Mut we sold the idea that, after all. the people who are coming to theatres are the same peojile who read newspapers and they are interested in the news. So we succeeded in putting facts in the theatres, along with the fiction. Hearst followed us inunedialely with the 1 learsil'athe .News. During this time, wc made a deal with one inventor of the ani mated cartoon who had the idea of using transparencies through which you could use the same background through an entire sequence and make the action changes over the basic background picture. We knew Windsor McKay, a cartoonist who was working for Hearst, needed 1 6. ()()() separate drawings for each reel of motion picture film. Wc made a deal utilizing the animated technical drawings. It was probably the first time technical animation was used on the screen. "We also tried to get schools to do an educational job with motion pictures, but ihcy would not. So. we went into the theatres with en lertaining worker education, all with the purpose of putting business on the screen in a useful way. We arrived at the point where we were using animated technical drawings to show how things work and how to work them, when World War I came along. At that time mechanized artillery was coming in. We had the French 75. We had the machine gun and we were putting internal combustion engines into the ship launches, hi the military they were suffering from lack of skilled manpower as were the manufacturers, and they needed mechanical education for drafted men. "We had to give them training in all things mechanical and we had an o|iportunity to make a national demonstration in World War I of what could be done with pictures. And we diil it. "During the war, and sliortl\ thereafter we began having a lot of difficulties with motion pictures. Motion pictures in training sessions didn't jiermit anyone to talk. I wanted learners to talk. The motion picture didn't allow the instructor to talk except in goose-step with the film. Mechanized, up front, he had to l(M)k back over his shoukier at the screen. Or. if he was at the le.ir of the room with the projector, he couldn'l see the trainees and their faces, which expressed whether the training messages were 'taking' or not. "So. after the war we were still l<H)king for ways to get people to talk and to question. Sound pictures hadn't yet been invented. So we had to invent "talking pictures. ' We called them that though they didn't do the talking. They permitted start-and-stop comment while the group looked. So that is when we originated the strip film. We got three inventors working on a startand-stop film control in a small package. Up to that time, we had only motion picture film in thousands of feet and projectors that only a weight-lifter could lift and move. "Today, everybody knows what a slidefilm or filmstrip is — a film of slides in a row. The pictures don't move, but they change and can present exhibits with or without text and impel nmving pictures in the mind. The first pictures we made with a filmstrip were based on one frame for each scene. Instead of a long ribbon of mo\ing picture films, a short strip with "springboards" was provided for activating minds, with the details left out for illustrative use, supporting talk and for stimulating discussion. ""! realized, long after, that I didn't originate the basic idea. It was suggested by exhibits I had seen as a boy in the "Palace of Mines" at the World's Columbian exposition. 1 had adapted the idea Irom the real mineral specimens — ni>t pictures, but brief printed text printed under each. 1 didn't realize at the time where I got the idea. But maybe 26 years later. 1 figured 1 was in\enting this simple way of showing things. It wasn't by intention that 1 found that in the slidefilm 1 had also a vest-pocket unbreakable substitute for glass slides, as well as the li>w-cost substitute for yards and yards of costly, lanulv film, 1 wasn't smart 7jii ■91 34 BUSINESS SCREEN