Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

52 Volume XII, No. 4 BURROWS NOW A VICTOR EXECUTIVE L. V. Burrows, film industry expert, recently appointed Director of Distribution for Victor Animotogroph Lincoln V. Burrows, former chief of the Photographic Division of the War Production Board, has been appointed Director of Distribution of Victor Animatograph Corp., Davenport, Iowa, manufacturers of 16mm motion picture equipment, it is announced by S. G. Rose, Executive Vice-President. Mr. Burrows served with the WPB from April, 1942, to October, 1945, dealing with the control of production and allocation of all types of photographic equipment, film, and paper. From 1935 to 1942 he was associated with Eastman Kodak Company, and shortly before Pearl Harbor was sent by the firm to Washington to assist in handling government contracts for photographic items. Mr. Burrows is a graduate of the University of Rochester and of the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce of the University of Pennsylvania, where he took his master’s degree in 1935. FILM AND RADIO GUIDE Radio "Slanguage" (From CBS Listeners’ Guide) Jive chatter has a rival. Call it fluff stuff, mike talk, or studio jargon, and it still comes out radio’s own unique lip routine. Born in Producer’s Row in radio’s infancy, the new language eased into the studios gradually, as need arose; has since been slowly disseminated to the public through audience shows. But much of it still remains a dark mystery to laymen. The woman dean of mike talk is Nila Mack, who has inhabited Producer’s Row at CBS for the past thirteen yeaars at the helm of her Let’s Pretend program. To hear her in action in the control room is to catch, in accents crisp, a chatter pattern like this : “Less weaving, please. Get on the beam. Come out of the mud. Leave us face it.’’ To Nila’s cast of youthful actors, this isn’t double talk. It’s terse, valuable information. Time is always short in radio rehearsals. The faster a producer can make directional comments to actors, the better. “Weaving’’ is moving from the microphone, to indicate, for instance, ducking a punch in a fistic scene. “Get on the beam’’ means simply to step to the “live’’ side of the mike where sound is picked up most clearly. “In the mud’’ means insufficient tone volume. “Leave us face it,” a bit of New Yorkese currently enjoying a popular kicking about in airway comedy sequences, actually is an oldtimer to mike talk. In a director’s jargon it simply means to speak directly into the microphone. The radio word code includes special directions to sound men and technicians, too. A sound effects man slams a door harder when a producer indicates more volume is needed by saying, “Give it the old elbow.” “Dead air,” one of radio’s bugaboos, is easy to figure out. It simply means silence, due to failure of transmission or other error. “Segue” (pronounced “segway”) is a musical cue calling for a transition from one musical number to another. It is the blending of two dissimilar elements. “What a woodshed” means what a session, what a severe rehearsal. Reminiscent of the days when dad took junior to the woodshed to give him a licking. A bit of adept elbow nudging by one performer jockeying himself into better position at the mike, at the expense of a fellow actor, earns the chiseler the appellation “mike hog.” Serial stories geared to a high pitch of excitement through one tense sequence after the other are known as “cliff-hangers.” Yes, leave us face it, radio has a language all its own. The United Nations in Films Write to the United Nations Information Office, Films Division, 610 Fifth Avenue, New York 20, for a free copy of the 56-page brochure listing films on the United Nations. Included are descriptions of reels on Australia, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Iceland, France, Great Britain, Greece, India, Latin America, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Netherlands East Indies, Netherlands West Indies, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Union of South Africa, U. S. A., U. S. S. R., Yugoslavia, and UNRRA. Two study kits, with guides, charts, and handbooks on the plans of the United Nations are also described.