Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World (Apr-Jun 1930)

EDITORIALLY Quigley Publishing Company: Martin J. Quigley, President; Edwin S. Clifford Secretary Ofor™ tw,0 Better Theatres is a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations. All contents are copyrighted 1930 by toe S3riJ PuEn* T business correspondence should be addressed to the Chicago office. Other Publications: Exhibitors Herald-World in coniunr+inn 11 is published every fourth week: The Motion Picture Almanac. Pictures and Personalities, published a„^ Projection and the Public PROJECTIONISTS are rising up, a little angry, aroused at last by the public’s habit of blaming them every time reproduction becomes noticeably imperfect. We do not wish to create the impression of an organized horde about to avenge violently its good name. Indeed, we can discern nothing but a calm, determined effort to let the public know that usually the projectionists are doing the best that well trained, conscientious engineers can do with the material at hand. The public, of course, thinks of projectionists as a lot of rough and ready fellows who somehow get spools of film onto a contraption with light and lenses and then turn a crank until there isn’t any more film left on the spool. Then they put on a new spool and repeat the process. Well, it was not so long ago that the projectionists themselves— or at least a large group of them — thought of their work in much the same light. In the early days of motion pictures, perhaps they needed no more in mental equipment than their booths possessed in mechanical apparatus. (The word, “operator.” still clings to the title of the I. A.) Those primitive days were soon left behind, of course, and the requirements of the projectionist have grown until he can be truly called an engineer. Ordinarily, we should leave remarks on this subject to Mr. Richardson. But the other day we received information as to the work begun by the Projection Advisory Council in this matter and are thereby constrained to speak our piece upon it. Perhaps a quotation from Thornton Delehanty’s department, “Movie-Talk,” in the New York Evening Post, will indicate better than we can just what is being done, and what its effect may be expected to be : tion room and that it is only by constant vigilance and inte ■ gent supervision that a picture is kept to its proper val And conversely, I found that not every instance of defect:: sound is blamable on the projection room operators. . . Obviously, this is reading matter for consumption by t i general public. Its ultimate cause is the protest of proji i tionists against public ignorance concerning them, their wo and their culpability for faults in reproduction. Its ultirm : effect should be a more general recognition of the professior attainments of projection and the high ability demanded the men within it. The recent meeting of the Projection Advisory Council New York, at which the relations between projectionists ai public were discussed with a view to arriving at means f bettering those relations, is bearing fruit. Newspapers in number of cities have already given space to the type message’ noted in the quotation from the New York Evenii Post. It can scarcely be merely a selfish aim on the part t I organized projectionists. Elevation of any trade or profe j sion attracts people of the better type into that field, whkl makes for higher standards. From these efforts of the Pr jection Advisory Council, the public will gain far more thi a little knowledge about a process concerning which it astoundingly ignorant. * Plans for Modern Theatres TT takes an architect to design a modern motion picture the. * tre. That doubless seems obvious to many. Nevertheles i there is an idea extant that unless a theatre is of unusu complexity, it is only four walls and a roof like a cottage ( j small store, with perhaps a sloping floor to make its plannir “Through the courtesy of the Projection Advisory Council,” recently wrote Mr. Delehanty, “an organization devoted to the interests of those mechanical wizards who operate the projectors in picture houses, I was recently given a brief but intensive course of instruction in the intricacies of the projection room. “To the layman there is something revealing in the complicated and highly responsible office which devolves on those who control the sound and visual machinery of reproduction. The impression is widespread that the faults and virtues of sound reproduction lie almost wholly with the actual taking of the picture. ... I learned that the smoothest sound effects can be ruined by carelessness or inexpertness in the projec a little less simple. The fact is, the motion picture theatre fit for the publ today would seem to be the most highly specialized of all type of buildings. The list of factors fundamentally affecting i' construction is extremely long — and yearly grows longe Public safety, ease of egress and ingress, atmospheric coi ditions, visual and acoustic qualities, comfort, beauty — the ri quirements represented by these and many more factors mu; be seen in perspective, must be coordinated in the mind of on experienced in their manipulation. That one is the theati architect. It is he who must know all the conditions of si* and function surrounding the project, and he who must the fit the structure, inside and out, to those conditions. NEW ADVERTISERS Humphrey Davy & Associates 4324 Market Street Philadelphia, Pa. The above are consulting electrical engineers. E-Zee Screen Company 2285 Genesee Street Buffalo, New York A new sound screen is being introduced by this concern. [26]