Harrison's Reports (1945)

12 HARRISON'S REPORTS January 20, 1945 markets. As most of you undoubtedly know, the British motion picture industry, as well as the French, Russian, and Mexican industries, are gearing themselves to give the American distributors a battle for control of the world's different film markets. It is indeed desirable that the American distributors gain control of the foreign markets, for, to retain this control, they will have to produce good pictures. And when better pictures are made, the American exhibitors stand to benefit. In normal times, the important world markets had available facilities and sufficient raw stock to make prints locally from the lavender prints delivered by the American distributors. Today, however, particularly in liberated countries, where such facilities are probably extinct, the American distributors, in order to secure a firm foothold in a particular market, may have to deliver their own release prints. Since no separate raw stock allocation is made to the distributors for use in foreign markets, they would naturally have to draw footage from their regular quarterly supply. This, of course, would serve only to make more burdensome the conditions under which American exhibition is functioning. Harrison's Reports, as already said, is highly in favor of the American distributors' domination of the world's film markets, but it does not feel that this domination should be attained at the expense of the American exhibitor. The situation calls for action on the part of the distributors. One way by which they may solve this problem is for them to convince the Government of the important role that American films play in the extension of American ideals in foreign countries. They should point out to the Government that, more so than any other medium, American pictures create for the people of foreign countries a better understanding of what we in the United States are like. And they might add that American films have been and still are a great influence for the expansion of American commerce. With the Government thus convinced, the distributors may be able to work out an arrangement whereby they could carry on their work in foreign fields without dislocating the American market. It can readily be seen from what has been said here that the method by which the WPB allocates raw stock to the industry is in need of revision. The distributors, with no regulations to control their disposition of the rationed stock, are in a position to continue using the stock in a manner that betters their own interests at the expense of the exhibitors. Unless the independent exhibitor organizations take steps to apprise the War Production Board of exhibition's equity in raw stock, and unless they seek regulations to control the disposition of the stock by the distributors, the hold the distributors now have on an exhibitor's operations may become much more severe. The problem is a complicated one, and its solution will require close study. The Industry Advisory Committee on Raw Stock would seem to be the logical body to conduct such a study, but thus far the Committee is composed solely of distributor representatives. This Committee should be expanded to include representation for both the independent producers and the exhibitors, so that the WPB, in allocating raw stock to the industry, would be made aware of their equity in the stock. Perhaps, then, rules and regulations will be formulated to protect that equity. AGAIN ABOUT PRODUCTION WASTE Terry Ramsaye, edition of Motion Picture Herald, made the following remarks in the December 30 issue of that paper regarding this paper's three articles on production waste, which articles were published in the issues of September 9, 16 and 2 J : "Something to get militant about is an essential of the operation of Mr. Pete Harrison's publishing policy, and these days he has to do a bit of looking about to find it. So it comes that he has recently had a spell of indignation over what he considers 'studio waste.' It seems to boil down to discussion of footage which is left on the cutting room floor. One suspects that arrangements to closely limit or eliminate that would prove decidedly expensive to the product. Production of pictures has not yet, and never will, reach the precision of pouring a casting. The pouring of the picture into scenes on film is quite as creative a process as the making of the alloys in the melting pot. No great work of words on paper was ever achieved without revisions after it had been made visual. "A set of figures comes back to memory. They pertain to Mr. Charles Chaplin's famous Lone Star two-reel comedies, a line of product which may in fact represent the highest final gross per negative foot in the annals of the art. Typical was 'Easy Street.' About 1 15,000 feet of negative was made, to get a final 1,650, less titles. It was about five weeks on the stage, at a cost of about $100,000 of which about $60,000 was Mr. Chaplin's salary. He left about 114,000 feet of negative on the cutting room floor. It was part of his process of production — and that was not waste. Competitors were making two-reelers out of ten to twenty thousand feet of negative, and you cannot remember who they were. . . ." In citing Mr. Chaplin's comedies, particularly "Easy Street," my friend Terry Ramsaye has made one mistake — he has attributed the drawing powers of those comedies to the liberal use of negative raw stock. Would "Easy Street" have grossed what it did gross without Mr. Chaplin, even if the negative used were 250,000 feet instead of 115,000? In those articles on production waste, this writer condemned, not the use of negative stock to make a scene perfect, but the wanton waste that a little careful preparation might have avoided. His facts about this waste were obtained from reliable executives — men who were writhing with agony watching negative stock wasted. Can Mr. Ramsaye justify the use of 600,000 feet of negative stock on a picture the length of which will not, I am sure, exceed when it is finally edited two hours of running time? The picture in question has not yet been finished even though nearly six months have been spent in cutting it, and the Saints themselves don't know whether anything would come out of it no matter how many film editors work on it to make it presentable. In bringing the matter of film waste into the open, this writer feels, as he stated once before, that he has contributed a great share in the elimination of waste. Those who are responsible for such waste know that the eyes of the industry are upon them. They will have to reform, not at some time in the future, but now, for unless the war in Europe should end quickly, a hope that seems unlikely to be fulfilled soon, there will be less film for the production needs: the Government will continue to reduce the industry's allotment, and every foot of film will be needed to carry on production. A readjustment is necessary now also for another reason : as this paper has stated in these columns before, the lush times that are prevailing now will not prevail long after hostilities end, and at the present cost rate, either the pic tures will fail to bring back the investment, or the quality will suffer. In either case, the industry will suffer. I was told recently by the president of one of the biggest companies in the business that, on pictures that cost more than one million dollars, at least $300,000 can be saved on each picture with proper economy. These are not my figures — they are the figures of some one who foots the bill.