The Film Renter and Moving Picture News (Apr-Jun 1922)

6 THE FILM RENTER & MOVING PICTURE NEWS. April 29, 1922. HOW STILLS CAN LARGELY MAKE OR MAR A FILM. i) A Matter to which far greater attention should be paid both by Manufacturer and Renter. HE heading to this article may, on the face of it, T savour somewhat of extravagance. As a matter of fact, there is a great deal of truth in it, as any man who has had the handling of a film for selling. purposes will tell you. That a ood set of still photographs will largely make or mar a picture can easily be demonstrated, and any renter who has had the task of exploiting even a good subject without their aid will at once admit the truth of our contention. POINT NUMBER ONE. Good stills are far more essential to a successful exproitation of a film than they are to a stage play, importaunt as thev are in that case, and for certain reasons that must be perfectly obvious to anyone who has given the matter careful thought. In the first: place they render the task of the manufacturer comparatively simple when the time comes to sell the completed film. A good set of stills—carefully enlarged and printed in sepia for preference—will often go a long way towards inducing a quick sale. They are easily portable; they can be taken to the renter who is a prospective buyer, and provided they are good in the first instance, are artistically taken, and are representative of and so carefully taken that they give the best possible idea of all the good points in the picture, they will go a long way to interest a buyer. To arouse interest in a possible purchaser: is the first and most important step towards effecting a sale. An offer to screen the film will probably do the rest, provided it is ‘’ up to sample,”’ and the terms ure right. That is point number one in favour of more attention being paid to what is too often, we are afraid, regarded merely as an unimportant side-line in film production. POINT NUMBER TWO. Point number two is much more easy of demonstration, for it is so obvious that it hardly needs more than stating to be at once accepted. Every renter—and most manufacturers-—is fully alive to the value of Press publicity for his pictures. The more preliminary references to his films he can get into the Jay Press, and the greater the number of pictures illustrating scenes in them he can induce the art editors of Fleet Street to print, the better chance he has of getting away with them, and the bigger the price he is likely to get for thei, But it is no good offering inferior photographs of the greatest film ever made to a man who is handling high grade pictures all day long. He simply won't look at EET: He has no use for: anything but the best, and even the best must be of the right kind, or it will stand Google little chance of acceptance. Producers should bear this fact in mind when * Taking,’’ and always keep an eye open for bizarre subjects, Scenes that are out of the ordinary, particularly pictures of pretty girls. THE VALUE OF A PRETTY FACE. Ao pretty face is always ao safe card, and more poor pictures with pretty ‘stars ’’ have obtained publicity in the lav newspapers, thanks to the services of the ubiquitous Press agents, than all the great spectacular subjects put together. Your art editor is a very Hinman sort of individual. He is catering all the time for a public which prefers voung and pretty faces before thmost anything in its pictures. A producer who understands his business should be able to visualise the sort of stills that will be useful to the sales manager, the sort that will take the Janey of the art editor, and the sort that will help the exhibitor to get away with the film When it is his turn to exploit it in his theatre. cirls as POINT NUMBER THREE. Which opens up another, and if anything a bigger phase of the question altogether, = No film can be properly exploited to the public unless there is available a big and representative set oof still pictures which have been taken with an eve to showmanship and salesmanship. This may sound ridiculous. It is nothing of the kind. It is sound horse A still pieture of the right kind can be made as strong a link in the theatre campaign— the box offiee—as the most attractive poster, or the most brilliant and foreefully-written sales-tallk circular, But to do this a picture must help to tell the story, intrigue curiosity, capture the fancy, and arouse a desire in ene mind of the man-in-the-strect to see the film. This done, the rest is comparatively easy. sels, THE IDEAL STILL. The ideal still we have in mind is best represented by beautiful enlargements of a picture such as the Stoll Film Gompany prepared for the use of exhibitors in connection with their erent film, ‘ The Fruitful Vine,’’ and the Alliance Filia Corporation have more recently done to ustrate their super production of ‘The Boheman Girl.’’ Pictures such as these will pay the exhibitor to exploit to their utmost, and a carefully-arranged show in the vestibule of the theatre will have a marked effect upon box-oflice receipts during the showing of the film. Exhibitors who are in any doubt about the matter ean try the experiment for themselves. They will be surprised at the result. —L.W.