The Exhibitor (Nov 1938-May 1939)

THE NEW IN SOUND, PROJECTION IPI1I1 and MECHANICAL EQUIPMENT By W. A. WHITNEY IN THE 42 YEARS since the night at Roster and Bial’s Music Hall in New York, when Thomas Alva Edison first exhibited motion pictures to a public audience, many and wondrous have been the miracles of the screen — miracles not only in bringing the life and living of the four corners of the world to one’s own community, but in the very manner in which that portrayal is also reproduced for the delight of eyes and ears. Who but the dreamer could imagine that April 23, 1896, that the animated peep show would become transmogrified into the third greatest U. S. industry, when scattered bits of action would be joined together to tell a whole story, when a picture would run not five or ten minutes but even as much as three hours, when the world’s greatest actors would look upon the medium as the greatest outlet for their talents? Even the dreamer himself would question his sanity if, in the wilder flights of fancy, he envisioned motion pictures not only resplendent in natural color, but pictures as well whose shadowy characters were endowed with the gift of voice. Yet all that has transpired in less than a half a century — and, to be more accurate, in less than three decades. Further to illustrate the development, let it be stated that today 88,000,000 people attend U. S. theatres each week, paying during the course of a year $ 1,000,000,000, calling into play the while the resources of a $2,000,000,000 industry. That this far-flung industry has become, "within the lives of its own pioneers, the principal entertainment of all and the sole amusement of millions” is indeed, to quote Will H. Hayes, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, further, "the miracle of the movies.” Yet, like all miracles, its occurrence is firmly rooted in the realm of reality — scientific, imaginative, calculating, but reality none the less. So it is, perhaps, more to the untiring efforts of engineers, technicians, and craftsmen of all kinds, rather than the pictured performers (not, however, unmindful of their contributions) that the credit is really due for the creation of the industry in its present magnitude. AS 193 8 ROLLS TO AN END, Better Management presents to its readers "The New in Sound, Projection, and Mechanical Equipment” in the hope that the recital will bring home to the reader an appreciation of the tremendo us amount of work that has gone into the manufacture of that which he may so casually accept as matter-of-fact, a better understanding of the problems which have been solved for his benefit, and grateful thanks for the 188 MILLION PEOPLE^ H 2.000.000.000 industry] science to which he, ultimately, owes his very livelihood. The questions of sound, projection, and mechanical equipment are not easy ones to discuss in simple language, and it is, further, virtually impossible to discuss such matters from a general point of view. We must, accordingly, employ a certain number of technical terms (with which, however, the exhibitor is, or ought to be, familiar). During the year Better Management has devoted its attention on various subjects specifically to aspects of the "new,” but this month it digresses from this path to present what cinemadom’s "court of final appeal” — the Research Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — deems the specifications for the perfect reproduction and reception of theatre sound. In the following sections, we offer you the Research Council’s recommendations, practically as they came to us — with only some of the technical language translated into terms more comprehensible to the theatre operator. Dated April 2, 1938, this report — in whose preparation the Electrical Research Products, Inc., the RCA Manufacturing Company, the International Projector Corporation, the Ashcraft Lamp Company, the Fox West Coast Theatres, Hollywood’s Filmarte Theatre cooperated December 14, 19)8