Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

January, 1946 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE 51 are made to “build” an audience. But what about the utilization of such already accepted programs as the daytime serials as a means of raising, rather than catering to, the cultural level of the average listener? The sponsor feels he would thereby lose some of his audience, but the fact remains that no one has tried to improve them and there is as yet no proof that the sponsors aie right or wrong. Gail Kubik, who composed the musical score for the fine documentary film, Memphis Belle, discussing “T h e Composer’s Place in Radio,” says : How many schools offer courses in radio and film music? How many composition teachers can talk from experience (or, for that matter, from theory) about cross-fades, multiple mikes, scoring behind different types of voices, echo chambers, filters, treatment of sound effects with music, and a hundred other problems posed by radio? Almost none of them; and so their young hopefuls are denied a knowledge of the veiy skills which will make them professional composers— men who live by composing. No wonder that by the time they are twenty they have already subscribed to the old notion that teaching and playing in orchestras are practically their only economic hopes. * * * By the time our young composers are leady to try their wings, the very thought of radio music is accompanied by a feeling of nausea and a mad rush to turn off all sets within hearing. It is easy to see why this triumph of mediocrity over quality should be interpreted to mean that radio simply cannot use quality music — original, creative styles. * * * Radio, broadcasting hundreds of thousands of hours of music each year and spending millions and millions of dollars for performers, sound engineers, and all the rest, may have spent in the last fifteen years a hundred or two hundred thousand dollars for the commissioning of new serious music. ¥ ^ ^ The worst possible faux pas that an aspirant to the field of functional radio music can make is to admit his education at Eastman, Juilliard, or Curtis, or his career as a teacher at a university. Such is the reputation of the “long-hairs.” * * * Speaking directly to our composer friends, we should advise them that they have at least four tasks: 1. Buttonhole the radio producers, the advertising-agency heads, radio writers, sponsors, orchestra leaders; hang on for dear life, talk fast, convince one and all that you are going to plague them until a contract is signed. Eventually somebody will give in, and it need not be you. 2. Know that simple honesty lequires that if you are going to accept money for your work you must turn in a score that from the standpoint of techniques peculiar to radio is thoroughly professional. Remember: fiftythree, not fifty-two or fifty-four seconds, if fifty-three are called for. 3. Remember that your music will have very little rehearsal time. 4. More than anything else, remember: wiite your own style. Morris E. Cohn, counsel for the Screen Writers Guild, in “Author’s Moral Rights : Film and Radio,” says : A literary work sold for the screen or for broadcast may lie hacked and hewn like so many feet of lumber. The finished product may or may not have a discernible resemblance to the manuscript, and the author is as likely as not to be justified in disowning the picture or the broadcast. Is there any way in which a writer can prevent, or at any rate control, such treatment? An answer may be found in the European legal doctrine known as “author’s moral rights.” * * * Is there, then, any way by which American writers for the screen and radio can enforce moral rights ? That is to say, in selling a story for motion pictures or radio can the author import moral rights into the transaction? The academic answer is. Yes. All he needs to do is to get the producer’s or agency’s signature to a contract which enumerates all the privileges for the benefit of the writer. * * * The problem arises in part out of the submergence of the employed writer in an industry. * * * It is no answer to say that a motion picture or a radio broadcast is by nature the product of many artists. So is the production of a stage play. * * * If the occasional honest film, the occasional fine radio play become more frequent; and if motion pictures and radio seek to become the media for the sincere work of America’s great writei's, then the public will recognize that motion pictures and ladio broadcasts deserve the greatest protection. The way will then be paved for moral rights for creators. Lester Cole, scenarist of the Cagney film. Blood on the Sun, in “Unhappy Ending,” reveals that in the elimination of his ending and the substitution of another “the entire meaning of the film was destroyed.” The article is a case study which illuminates Mr. Cohn’s article. William G. Brockway, a n MGM sound technician, in “Television and Motion-Picture Processes,” says : The technical processes involved in motion-picture production and television production aie different, but the end result, a composite picture, is the same. * * * In the present state of television, simplicity of control is lacking. The reason for the complexity lies in the fact that electronic engineers have relied upon electronic controls to produce optical effects. Franklin Fearing, Professor of Psychology in the University of California, Los Angeles campus, who is at work on a book dealing with mass media of communication, in “Warriors Return: Normal or Neurotic?” says : The terrific readjustment demanded of the soldier when he was translated from a world committed to doctrines of ireace with its condemnation of force and destruction to a world in which destruction was a way of life now compels him to raise a basic question. Was it worth it? P. J. O’Rourke, in “Legion or Leaven,” attacking the many local Radio Councils now being organized, says : It may be argued that a civic group, choosing and recommending programs, saves the networks many a headache. But it is an inescapable conclusion that unless it is truly representative of the whole community, any organization that exists for the purpose of encouraging and discouraging radio programs leads into censorship. And from censorship it is only a step to another Legion of Decency.