FilmIndia (Dec 1937 - Apr 1938)

VOL. 3 No. 9 FILMINDIA ma for some days. Your overheads thus accrued will not be greater than the ultimate loss you will suffer when the paying class of patrons will avoid going to your theatre, just because it is packed with the scum of the local population. Stunt pictures, as we find them in India to-day, are only seen by the lower classes with no intelligence. 2. Don't give a minimum guarantee, for, if you do it once you will have to go" on giving it always. Rather, let your competitor have the picture because ultimately your competitor will come to grief. If the town is big enough to maintain two theatres, it will, inspite of the evil of minimum guarantees. If it cannot, it will not, inspite of thousands spent in minimum guarantees. If a picture is good it need not be booked with a minimum guarantee. It will run well on its own merits. The very fact that the producer or the distributor asks for a minimum guarantee points to the picture being weak and needing a push. Don't encourage the distributor by giving him any minimum guarantee. 3. If you are a sole monopolist in a station, don't offer more than 50 per cent of the gross takings. Remember that no distributor or producer can afford to miss a station however small it be. He is as much in business as you are and his stake being greater his responsibilities become liabilities very soon unless pictures are quickly exploited. Don't be a sentimental fool and drop exploiting this aspect. 4. Don't pay for any posters or publicity materials. Being a small station showman, you ought to get it free. Remember that at all big stations like Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, etc., publicity material is supplied free. The producer is more anxious for publicity than you are. Let him pay for this anxiety. He spends large amounts in newspapers at the time of his first releases and he can afford to give you publicity materials free. He has no right to wring out money from small stations when he wastes thousands in newspapers in the cities. 5. Don't invite or entertain any representatives of any distributor as by doing so you invite a doubt on your own honesty. If you are honest, distributors must accept you as honest. If you are not, get out of this trade or for that matter out of any trade. It is no use dealing with a distributor who doesn't trust you. He is not only insulting you, but questioning your traditions by sending a representative with a film. 6. Don't pay board, lodging and travelling charges to any representative as all these charges are plainly overhead and unnecessary. If the distributor wants to send a representative for his own satisfaction, let him pay for it. Don't pay for his peace of mind. Remember that most of these representatives are no better than office peons and to entertain them is to compromise your own position. 7. Don't indulge in block and blind bookings if you want to be called a wise showman who caters for the taste of his patrons. Book the pictures as they are released in key cities after studying carefully the reports about them. 8. Don't take up an assortment of pictures. Follow a certain school. If you are showing good quality pictures, don't touch stunt type however cheap they may be offered at. Do business with some commonsense. NOVEMBER BRAIN TWISTER No correct reply was received from any of our readers. THE SOLUTION IS Clearly grandpa pays out, for each chocolate eaten, as many pennies as there are children, less one penny (not paid to the child who eats the chocolate), less three pence (deducted from the total sum which the eater of the chocolate receives). That is, if there are X children and C chocolates eaten, (X — 4)C equals 469. Now the only factors of 469 are 1, 7, 67, 469 So that X— 4 equals 1 or 7, and X (the number of children) is either 5 or 11. But the former is impossible, for six children are mentioned by name. Hence 11 children eat 67 chocolates and 67 can only be divided into eleven different members as follows: — 12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 Eleven children in all ate the chocolates; Coral ate 12. The solution of the December Brain Twister will appear in the next issue. 9