Year book of motion pictures (1936)

^ LOBBIES ^ The Lobby is your permanent show window and your greatest advertising asset — The best effects are produced with a few pieces of printed material. Over — crowding is fatal. The main object is to guickly and strikingly get over the Atmosphere and Entertainment Value of your feature. Summer Trellis • THE MOST grateful appeal for your lobby for the hot months is the trellis, particularly in the south. Best trellises are white, ' with green trim, and real or artificial vines. Whichever is used, the leaves should be kept clean end dusted at least once a day. Outline of the trellis should be such that it does not block off any exit, the trellis coming down the sides. It's worth the extra trouble to make an overhead trellis for the lobby ceiling and to run it down the side and back walls. Cool lighting should be installed instead of hot ambers, reds and gold. Green is good, but about three white bulbs should be used to each green, unless the green is very light. Saie-Crackers • GOOD for any theater catering to the action trade ond the youngsters, when playing a crime picture. Promote a safe from some store. Place it at lobby front facing the street. Place a sign on it offering cash prize to anyone who can open it. Nearly every kid in town will try it, and a lot of the elders. It will direct a lot of interest to the front of your house. Foreign Players • A NEAT stunt to sell the important foreign film star who is little known to your audience. It applies specially to the present flood of worthy British pictures with some good players featured. Take a news story out of the pressbook, or better still, a bona fide news story that the home office of the distributor can supply from a newspaper write-up. Make a blow-up of the story, and spot it on a lobby board near the box-office. Special Lobby Displays • WHERE you are averse to using lithos in your lobby display because it tends to cheapen, still there are exceptions. Parts of many one-sheets would look well ii cut out and mounted on card, with the lettering put in by hand. They might look even better if mounted on board, then cut out and the edge stained red or silvered. This will even go for three-sheets, if they are well done. Still more can be done in the way of cutouts with the better type pressbooks where the color printing is ahead of anything offered by the same company for accessory use. Sometimes the front and back covers of such pressbooks offer better art than the overage theater sign room can supply. And it doesn't cost anything except the trouble of using scissors and paste. A good sign man can often save his house money by using his imagination more and his paint brush less. Cast Boards • SOMETHING that will be appreciated by a majority of your patrons is the Cost Board. It is made to fit one of the lobby frames, and gives the cast of the current showing. Most patrons cannot remember the names, particularly when they are flashed only before the showings. They wiU stop and study out the who's who, and if there is mention of the underline, they'll get that idea too. This is not worth much unless it is used regularly, and patrons get the habit of stopping to glance over it on the way out. Summer Fireplace • SET UP a fireplace in the lobby during the hot spell, with an electrical coal effect. Set it in a darkened comer of the lobby with a one-sheet against the backing. Those who investigate this winter utility in the hot season are greeted with a breeze from the cooling plant The cool fire will be talked about in town. Every stranger is run up against the gag, and the word-of-mouth advertising is very effective. The only cost is the cold air. You can promote a coal dealer to pay for the installation in return for a reminder that now is the time to lay in the winter coal. Door of Curiosity • PICK UP a door and frame at the local housewrecking yard. Place at side wall of lobby. Back of the door place a board with sales copy. Scores of people will open the door, in accordance with a lettered invitation: "To see the title of next week's show, open the door." Door has a spring to hold it closed. Local Artist's Gallery • PERIODICAL displays can be made of the work of local painters. This is a big attraction with the art crowd, and youll be surprised how many people are interested in original art work. The display can be tied in with some local art schooL 846