Harvard business reports (1930)

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4 HARVARD BUSINESS REPORTS amounts due. Exhibition, obviously, relates to the problem of securing films, and to the various other problems of theater management. The auxiliary services may be said to consist of those services essential to the industry but provided primarily by those not directly responsible for production, distribution, or exhibition. Thus the sale, installation, and servicing of sound or other theater equipment, the providing of needed funds for any purpose whatsoever, and the offering of independent advertising service and counsel may serve as examples. Various cases will be found in this volume dealing with these auxiliary services and no further consideration need be given to them here. The interrelation between the other three divisions of the industry is shown in some detail for one company in Chart I. A motion picture may be said to originate with the selection of a story. At times this story is chosen prior to the selection of the principal actors who subsequently participate, while at other times a producer having certain talent under contract seeks stories adapted to those particular actors. Practically every available story or book is scanned with a view to its possibilities for use as a motion picture, and of course there are many scenarios that are written specifically for the producer. The problem of obtaining an adequate number of satisfactory stories is an extremely difficult one and will be appreciated when it is borne in mind that between 700 and 800 feature pictures alone are produced in the United States every year. Following the approval of a story, the production manager estimates its cost of production and obtains approval for the expenditure of the requisite amount. The cast is selected and all the various departments in due time attend to their respective tasks until the completed negative is available and the requisite number of positive prints made. In perhaps a majority of cases only the rough working sheets are available to the distribution division of the company by the time the selling season opens. This means that by the time the salesmen actually go out to sell, some few pictures have been completed; others are in the process of production; while others have been merely planned in more or less detail. Exhibitors frequently object to this procedure and urge the right to view a picture before contracting for it. Other disputes arise also in consequence of this production policy, such as those arising over