The Educational screen (c1922-c1956])

Page 23 8 The Educational Screen drawbacks of the non-theatrical field are most pronounced. In other words, they indicate that the field needs or- ganization just now far more than it needs product. These are only intercalary remarks, for the survey is not yet complete. The list thus far has almost exclusively noticed the concerns whose non-theatrical pictures are industrials, and which stand as "custom" houses, ready to produce any type of subject demanded by a client. They are the business establishments to which new clients are likeliest to apply in the reasonable belief that there they will receive the utmost in non-theatrical attention. But, in addition to these all-type ser- vices, there are narrow specialists, who, while they may snap up any stray ac- count whatever for a bread-and-butter reason, try to confine themselves to the making of just those pictures for which they have professional knowledge and particular techniques. As a mat- ter of fact, the abilities of these specialists in medical films, church films, nature .study and so on, are so well recognized that, when the more general producers obtain contracts for pictures requiring such skill, they frequently sub- let the making to them. It is clear, how- ever, that these experts, with a few ex- ceptions, are far less dependent on geographical sitations than the others; and they are considered preferably, therefore, in those coming pages where- in non-theatrical enterprises are classi- fied by the broad subjects which prin- cipally engage their interest, rather than by physical regions. The "One-Timers" There are many interesting characters who appear, disappear and reappear as alleged producers of non-theatrical films. Take the common variety of self-ap- pointed commission merchant. A casual acquaintance of some sort with any phase of the entertainment world gives him a professional air, and brings into his range some green, prospective client who wants to know where one may have a motion picture made. Rather than permit a possible source of profit to slip through his fingers, the supposed guide, philosopher and friend seizes the account in his own name, and then secret- ly sets forth to find a qualified produc- er who will make the film on a sharing basis. I am sure that my experience in being approached by fellows of this type—who want all the work done with Hollywood finish and never less than half the profits —is not unique. Managers of small theatres, third-rate actors, humble makers of lantern slides, cabaret pro- prietors, orchestra musicians and black- guard politicians, all are represented in the number. The routine is simple. The .self-constituted agent poses to the inno- cent buyer as a master of the field, quotes a manifestly "rock-bottom" price on work about which he knows nothing in order to hold the account, and expects the ultimate producer not only to con- The Rev. John E. Holley, as he ap- peared when made up by his camera- man for test scenes produced in the Springfield Lincoln country. form with his miserable arrangements but to split the gross return. A profit- able experience or two for him, and one finds "producer of educational and in- dustrial films" lettered on his ofiice door and added to the list of varied other "services" named on his business sta- tionery. Also to be set apart are those to whom psychologists and police refer as "exhibitionists." They love to bask in the sun of achievement without being willing or able to serve the gruelling ap- prenticeship normally required. Most of them are harmless; in non-theatricals they merely confuse the statistics. I know one. He is nominally an attorney; but he long has had himself named in stand- ard lists of active non-theatrical producers and distributors, with the usual accom- panying symbols of kinds of picture and forms of release, when all he possesses are some 16-millimeter home movies, pro- duced by himself in amateur fashion, and, as far as I know, never yet sought by any responsible group for rental. In September "Mofion Pictures — Not For Theatres," serialized in these pages since and including the issue of September, 1938, will continue here in the autunnn, still the first detailed and connplete history of the non-theatrical field. In Septennber the chron- ological narrative will expand into the 1919 start of the visual education nnovement in Ameri- ca. Only subscribers may be sure of reading this previously untold story and the upwards of twenty more intallments to follow. When it comes to being a producer merely by wishing, there is a much more valid place to be held by the group of men and women who, while earning their livings in narrow depart- ments of motion picture production, spend their hard-earned savings in exper- iments to prove the practicableness of their dreams. There was Ferdinand A. A. Dahme, who, in the days of silent films, had established in the Chandler Building, in New York, a flourishing little business of hand-lettering and decorating title cards. He photographed the cards on an animation stand, which was common prac- tice of men in his line, because the cards were easier to keep flat in the horizontal plane; and this equipment, of course, invited a wider range of service. So Dahme, guided only by his own inclination and some old textbooks, un- dertook to produce several subjects which he believed would be useful in schools—demonstrated movements of the solar system, the formation of land sur- faces by glacial action and erosion, shown in compressed action, and more which I've forgotten. The individual scenes were striking and effective in their animation. Dahme was one of the cleverest air-brush workers I have ever known, and he was at particular pains with these examples. But he had printed legends and complicated arrange- ments of his material which the school- men found poorly adapted to their needs. I don't recall that he ever was able to dispose of them—not even when sound came in and wrecked every artist's busi- ness of supplying subtitles. What a pity that proper encouragement and guid- ance cannot be given to eager, able per- sons such as this man. Of course, it's too late now to help Dahme. Friendly, gifted. Dahme, with his gold-toothed smile, side-burns, tousled gray hair and Montmartre smock—April 20, 1935, he died. The artist is proverbially imprudent in business, and Dahme had that charac- teristic half-scornful, half-vexed attitude toward the commercial details. Perhaps without it he might have shaped his many opportunities to a more prosperous end. He might have learned the trick from certain men, opportunists whose technical knowledge of motion picture production was far, far less than his, but who seized opportunities as they were presented and re-sold them, instead of just creating them. I am thinking now of F'rancis Trevelyan Miller and his Lincoln films. Miller had been thinking Lincoln for a long time before he reached the films period. He had written and edited popular published works on the great martyr president, and he had been think- ing films, too, for he had had a consid- erable hand in producing "Deliverance," tlie theatrical feature presenting the ama/ing story of Helen Keller. Indeed, several years before that, in 1916. Miller had presided over "."Vrt-in-Motion Pic- tures Day" at the first National Motion Picture Exposition in New York City. (Concluded on pogc 2A2)