Exhibitors Herald (Dec 1924-Mar 1925)

Published every Wednesday by Exhibitors Herald Co. Editorial and Executive Offices: 407 S. Dearborn St., Chicago, U. S. A. (Tel. Harrison 9248-9249) New York Office Los Angeles Office 1476 Broadway (Tel. Bryant 6111-1368) 5628 Santa Monica Blvd. (Hollywood 8620) James Bbecroft, Manager Harry Hammond Beall, Manager All Editorial and Business Correspondence Should Be Addressed to Chicago Office. Edwin S. Clifford, Managing Editor George Clifford, Business Manager William R. Weaver, Exhibitor Editor Jay M. Smreck, News Editor J. Ray Murray, New Pictures Editor John S. Spargo, New York Editor Other Publications : "The Box Office Record,” published semiannually, and "Better Theatres,” published monthly as a supplement to ExBffiiTOBS Hseaia. Subscription Pric^: United States and Its Possessions, $3.00 a year; Canada, $4.60 a year; other parts of world, $6.00 a year. Single copy, 25 eetit* Member, Audit Bureau of Circulations. Copyright, 1926, by Exhibitors Herald Co. Vol. XX. March 21, 1925 No. 13 HOLLYWOOD, March 10. — Production methods are undergoing a test here which is likely to have a vast influence on the (juality of motion pictures. The test may be described as a contest of two distinct schools of thought on the subject of how pictures should be made. We do not refer to superficial details of the mechanics of making pictures; nor to incidental practices and systems of various individual directors and producers. We mean, instead, a basic difference of procedure, from the selection of the story to the approval of the finished print in its final form. The situation referred to has never previously been presented to exhibitors in an understandable form and this we shaU now attempt to do in order that theatre men may be aware of lis inside development in the prc duction branch of the business. « * « The test to which we refer hinges on the question of whether the director or the production organization shall be in supreme authority with respect to a multitude of vitM decisions of judgment that must be arrived at in the course of the production of a motion picture. Commencing several years ago a system was built up under which the director, in the majority of cases, was considered the creative artist and he became the practical maker of the pictures. The producer or the production company was in effect the business organization of the director and the director was supreme in the actual making of the picture, including the selection of the story, the casting of the picture, the preparation of the scenario, the treatment of the story, the staging of the production and in the supervision of the final Many Heads Instead of One On Pictures assembling, editing and titling. This system appears to have been a natural development. About the studio the director had come to be known as the artistic specialist. He was credited, to the exclusion of practically every one else, with the knowledge of how a picture should be made. Out of this system the big, outstanding directors of motion pictures were developed and earned their reputations. It was under this arrangement that the director became recognized as the dominating creative artist of motion pictures who was entitled to full credit or full blame for the result. The test to which we refer is reversing to a very great extent the former position of the director. The lines of the test are sharply drawn; in certain quarters the old system is obtaining and in others the new and radically different system is being put into effect. This new system relieves the director of at least the major portion of responsibility and places it on the chief production executive, who is surrounded with a staff of specialists, in obtaining screen material, in the preparation of continuities, in the treatment of stories for production and in the final assembling, editing and titling of pictures. Under the new system the chief individual authority rests not with the director but instead with the person who is head of the production department. There is not as yet any uniform title used to distinguish this person. In effect the new system is a development of organization. It means the elimination of complete reliance on the individual director. Facilities for conference, discussion and advice are placed at the disposal of the director and it is intended that he will both be guarded against and prevented from making an error. It is not within our province either to approve or condemn one system or the other. We regard the situation as a vitally important one and we are therefore simply placing it before the exhibitor for his information and for his guidance in watching developments in the industry. * * * The advocates of the old system hold to it as being the best in that they claim that great pictures are the result of giving personality free rein. They claim that under any other system pictures will become mechanical and “factory-made.” The proponents of the new order assert that the vast detail involved in the making of a modem motion picture is beyond the grasp of any one individual; that the greatest director can only be helped in his work by the facilities for conference and advice which their plan places at his disposal. They point out that under the organization plan the pictures may be solidly and successfully built from day to day and that each new step can be determined to be right before taken. They claim that chances of failure can be greatly minimized. Their idea, in brief, is that many heads are better “than one, especially when each of these is a specialist in some phase or step in picture making.