Exhibitors Herald (1927)

8 STUDIO SECTION August 13, 1927 O F CmRI>T Of 6C£H[S fflP0RT£D/lsflcmSrHEU5SRRY vSC£W£5 P£R ^CHtDULL PI|a|)U(ri«N No ^4^ Da(&6 Carntra DcijS so /f /€ Doil^ o ■0 t a d. V 5 /o 8 L 4Z T^7u/s ffc/uo/ 'T'otoh “Chart Your Picture and You’ll Cut Negative Costs’’ System Once Thought Ridiculous to Be Installed as Assured Economy Plan for Production; the Ini possible Accomplished By HORACE MILLER NEW IT would appear at the present writing that a few passing days will bring into effect the necessary adjustments of organization, the weeding out of incompetent encumbents with executive authority and then the rapid strides into the place in commerce which should be held by Motion Picture Production. Just a few weeks and men who know how business must be operated will not laugh at our Frankenstein of extravagant waste or the ridiculous attempts of our incompetents at explaining how different and uncontrollable are the art and temperament of our business. WE will see motion pictures made entirely for the entertainment of John Dowe and his family by people who can tell stories with sunlight and celluloid. -\nd who cares what becomes of those who have been making them because it’s a darn good graft and no questions asked. ^Meanwhile, there are a few who have found a little fun in conditions as they exist. Now and then methods have been discovered to get them to do things previously branded impossible, generally by administration of small doses of psychological stimulant disguised as a brainstorm from a critic who admittedly knows more about business than be does about camera angles. The chart reproduced here was originally designed to alarm those who couldn’t be relied upon when they prepared their schedules. One in question swore, ably backed by his staff, that he would shoot his current picture in twenty-eight shooting days so as to release IMona Belle in time for her contract to star in “Merry Mack, the Cracker Packer,’’ a super-special for the Mythical Film Corporation’s forthcoming season of Pennant Productions. It happens an “efficiency crank’’ on the lot figured that twenty-eight shooting days on a script or story with 500 scenes meant that about 18 scenes must be done every day. That is not difficult. Look over the records of pictures made by this particular staff and find how very rarely do they finish even fifteen scenes in a day. When the twinkling starlette, Mona Belle, reported for work on the special she was 12 days late. The waiting director was sure the fault could have no place in his Artistic Creative faculty. “Anyone should know,” said he, “that you can’t apply schedules and all that sort of rot to a business that depends so much upon a man’s soul and finesse, and that sort of thing you know, and, for instance, how can you put a stop watch on a man like Lou Beach, who handles the most delicate things with a certain and definite subtlety?” Right there we will leave this fellow talking. Picture Had 450 Scenes When the next story was assigned to this company, our friend, the business man, quite commonly called the efficiency nut, or “overhead,” learned that the script or working continuity for the picture had 450 indicated scenes; that the company claimed they would be finished in thirty working days. Recogniz ing this as an opportunity to help visualize, in graphic form, just exactly what this would mean as related to the day’s work, our friend drew the accompanying chart. It might be well here for you to understand just what it is intended to graph or visualize by this means . . . the vertical columns each represent a day of work in the making of this production . . . the troupe has advised us that they will be through in 30 days . . . we, therefore, provide spaces for recording the actual work done each day for 30 days. . . . Horizontal divisions represent scenes. The script we are to do is complete in 450 scenes ... it takes no special knowledge of camera angles or the damnableness of panchromatic stock to know that 30 days of 15 scenes each will do the trick as the doctor ordered . . . fine, let’s show that then, so we draw a line across the chart horizontally at a point which will indicate 15 scenes in each column . . . this line now represents the amount of work the troupe has set for itself each day of the following thirty. Make a note of that, 15 scenes is not a figure set for them by a half-witted business manager who thinks he can save a few of the boss’s dollars, but is actually the estimate of work set by the men who will do it. The worst of the first day is reported as 8 scenes — sometimes it takes a day to get started. The second day shows a little better, there are 11 scenes reported. But 11 and 8 won’t make 30. He puts the chart on the wall, hoping someone will ask what it is for . . . after he records the third day’s work— -6 scenes — ■ adds that to the 19 already recorded, he muses to himself that they are already a day behind and are only three days out. That evening the production manager expresses his curiosity as to the purpose of the funny lines and marks on the wall ... it takes him until the end of the fifth day to realize that the company has apparently lost two days out of their schedule without half trying. 38 Scenes Behind Refer to the chart and see how at the end of the seventh working day the company shows total of 67 scenes in the box, whereas they should have 105 if they meant what they said at the start ... a hurried conference between the production manager, the director and some more of the staff, a few whispers about being shown up and some other comments about showing how easy it is to catch up a few lost scenes from your schedule and the company steps into “Their stride.” From here on the record shows a steady grind, for twenty days — nearly three weeks — there could be no sign of a letup; see the record of the chart, there w_ere days when it was necessary to do 35 per cent more than the general average in order to catch up the loss due to indifference in the first week. On the twenty-fifth day the production manager does a little quick computing on his own hook and learns that he can now let down and finish ahead of schedule. He does, and records a completed script of 450 scenes in one day less than planned. High Hat the “Overhead” It would be useless to describe the superior attitude each member of that troupe held toward “overhead.” Several were rewarded, with pleasant little increases in salary for beating the schednle. The business man was requested to discontinue his silly custom of plastering the walls with trick charts and other misleading and not-understandable schedules. Somehow or other it does seem to me that there was a little bit of contentment in the smile that passed over his {Continued on page 12)