The Film Daily (1931)

Tuesday, February 10, 1931 I INDIES PIN RELIEF HOPES ON ALLIED STATES CONFAB (Continued from Page 1) from the largest and most formidable group of indies ever assembled in national meeting. Chief among the problems to be taken up are the operations of the Copyright Protection Bureau, the music tax, score charges block booking and alleged tieing in of shorts and newsreels with features, zoning and protection, cutting of admission prices by affiliated circuits, cost of sound equipment and accessories, voluntary arbitration, guarantees and percentages, checking percentage plaving; quality, length and availability of features, price and quality of trailers, circuit expansion, legislation, and the stabilization of the industry and coordination of all its branches. Particular attention will be given to a report that the music tax is to be raised to 20 cents a scat. Headquarters of the convention open this morning at the Congress. Delegates started pouring in yesterday, Abram F. Myers being among the first. Minnesota is expected to send the largest delegation, numbering about 100, followed by Michigan with about 75. Program of the convention follows: Today 9 a.m. — Registration. 12 noon — Luncheon. Welcome address by Mayor William Hale Thompson. 1 p.m. — Business meeting. 2 p.m. — Ladie's tour — seeing Chicago. Evening — Theater parties. Tomorrow 10 a.m. — Tour for ladies to Union Stockyards. 10 a.m. — Business meeting. 1 p.m. — Men's buffet lunch. 1 p.m. — Ladies' luncheon. 2 p.m. — Business meeting. 2 p.m. — Ladies' tour to Adler Planetarium, Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium. 6:30 p.m. — Banquet. 11 p.m. — Dance and reception, courtesy of Illinois unit. $12,000,000 Being Invested In Sponsored Films This Year {Continued from Page 1) Wildman in Indianapolis Indianapolis — Truly B. Wildman, connected with Warner Bros, for a number of years, has been appointed manager of the company's local exchange. Break for 'Props' Because suggestions for laughs which he made while working as a property man on Jack Oakie's "The Gang Bus ter" became high spots in that picture, Sam Bricker has been given an assignment by Paramount as a comedy constructionist. His first work will be in supplying laugh situations for "Dude Ranch," featuring Jack Oakie, Stuart Erwin, Skeets Gallagher, Eugene Pallette and Mitzi Green. activity in sponsored, industrial, commercial and other direct or indirect advertising pictures, the chances are that this figure will be exceeded by a good margin. Last month two national advertisers alone -pent at least $2,000,000 for sponsored short subjects utilizing merely main titles and trailers for actual advertising matter. The entire burden of production and distribution expense will he borne by advertisers utilizing the screen as the only medium with assured and positive reader attention. Radio, the screen's only rival in this form of advertising, lacks the greatest sales asset — an assured audience — and it is from the radio that the sponsored short has evolved. Cost of production charged the advertiser varies according to the producer selected, although the distribution charge has been practically standardized. The average short subject production cost has been established at $10,000 and at least one producer has set that figure as the amount to be charged all advertising clients regardless of the actual cost of production. Others collect the actual outlay, plus a small percentage charge. The distribution charge, wherein the actual profit is derived by the circuits, has also been standardized to a certain extent. Most sponsored short contracts are made at the rate of $5 per 1,000 seats actually occupied. More and less will be paid by the advertiser according to the circulation assured. Added to production and distribution charges, is the cost of prints. The total cost to an advertiser, utilizing a circuit of 800 theaters for the showing of a sponsored short for one week, with an audience of approximately 5,000,000 assured readers of the ad, is as follows: Cost of production $10,000 Cost of distribution at $5 per 1,000 seats actually occupied 25,000 Cost of prints 3,000 OHIO NEW FORM ASS'N Total cost $38,000 Established theater circuits are the only feasible distribution mediums at present. Independent exhibitors are not looked upon as an outlet and will not be considered until they themselves can, from a central bodv. offer guarantees of national circulation to the advertiser. With the profit on the cost of production charges of little consequence, circuits are splitting the onehalf cent per seat charge between the department handling the actual distribution of the sponsored short and the theater. The profit to the theater department is both on the "seat" charge and the rental saved which would ordinarily be paid for a non-sponsored short to fill out the program. _ Emulating the "radio hook-up" it is possible to make a tie-up of ma jor circuits, such as Publix, Warner, Fox, Loew and R-K-O. In producing and distributing a sponsored short over the combined theaters controlled by these circuits the advertiser is assured an audience of approximately 20,000,000. Satisfaction of the client is the first consideration of the producer or agent offering a short for sponsorship. Motion picture shorts that have an established value, universal appeal and well-known name are the best prospects for this form of advertising today. New shorts are being made, but in each case featured players of unquestioned ability are being utilized, thereby practically assuring the client of a "salable" product. Producers of sponsored shorts agree that the subject matter of the motion picture must be genuine entertainment, devoid of any advertising; that established pictures be made for the advertiser as carefully as when made for general distribution and that the advertising matter on main titles and trailers be "ethical" and not objectionable to either exhibitor or theatergoer. Certain producers of shorts are now convinced that within the next five years practically all standard shorts will be subsidized by advertising firms. Travel series pictures are available for sponsorship by worldcruise companies, tours agencies and steamship companies. Sports pictures lend themselves to carrying the ad of any national sporting goods house although it Is believed that should a close-up of a golf club or football bearing the trade-mark of the maker be shown in the picture matter itself, it will meet with considerable objection by the public who have so definitely voiced their dissatisfaction of sponsored radio programs, during which the announcer continually "cuts-in" with the advertising chatter. Animated cartoons, comedy sketches and novelty shorts, those not specializing on any particular subject, are available for sponsorship to practically any national advertiser regardless of the commodity or merchandise for sale. The greatest obstacle to be transcended by the distributors of sponsored shorts is the tradition that all screen advertising is an imposition on the patron who pays admission to be entertained. That the sponsored short is entirely divorced from what is generally known as the "advertising picture" is the paramount irgument of the distributors. In the case of circuits, it has been necessary to convince only two or three executive heads so that they may differentiate between the two systems. In turn, theater managers, with whom the producers and home office distributors cannot have actual verbal contact, will accept the pictures along with other productions allotted to them by the home office and, unon the screening of the subjects, de (Continued from Page 1) president; Charles Strayer, vicepresident and Mrs. W. C. Chesbrough, secretary-treasurer. These officers with H. T. Fox and George Rappold constitute the executive committee. A committee on collective purchases will be named at the next meeting to be held this week. termine the difference between the two methods of screen advertising. A definite line must necessarily be drawn because of the fact that there are several companies in the United States producing industrial advertising short subjects. These subjects, as a general rule, are made for the industry or commodity contracting for the advertising. Non-theatrical distribution is the greatest outlet for industrial subjects, although great efforts are being made to assure the advertiser of theater distribution. This is accomplished by giving the film to the exhibitor without charge, or paying the exhibitor at rates varying from one-quarter to one-half cent per seat occupied. The sponsored short of guaranteed entertainment has loomed up as a threatening competitor of the industrial picture. In one of two major circuits, sponsored film departments have already been established. Separate executives and office staffs have been engaged and substantial investments made. Several independent short subject producers are re-organizing their production units and adding man-power with the knowledge in mind that their standardized products will undergo the change from rented pictures to sponsored and income-assured short subjects. These producers will figure the charge to the advertiser as against the average net profit of their pictures while they were released as rented pictures. The price paid by the advertiser to the producer and distributor, assures the latter of a certain profit, so that net gains will not be dependent upon the success or failure of the selling season. STHE mi NiWM'Uih Of HIMDOJM Congratulates : W. S. VAN DYKE who has achieved in M-G-M's "Trader Horn" the most thrilling combination of melodramatic realism and fiction thus far seen in a jungle picture. No. 7 of 1931 "Good Deeds'1 Series