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178 HARVARD BUSINESS REPORTS
example, had conducted an exhaustive study of the nontheatrical market for motion pictures, and shortly thereafter introduced a portable Movietone machine for recording and projecting synchronized nontheatrical films. This machine was also used to gather Fox Movietone News. The Fox Case Corporation, a subsidiary of the Fox Film Corporation, produced a film for the Studebaker Corporation at an estimated cost of more than $20,000, and in July, 1929, was reported to be producing a similar type of film for the International Harvester Company. Both these companies had cooperated with the Y.M.C.A. Motion Picture Bureau for over five years.
The general director of the Bureau had reason to believe that other large motion picture companies planned to follow the Fox Film Corporation in this new field. He was aware, furthermore, of the activities of the University Film Foundation1 and other similar organizations that were anxious to gain a foothold in the educational market for talking pictures.
The Y.M.C.A. Motion Picture Bureau had not determined what effect the activities of such organizations might have on its operation. The director of the Bureau believed, however, that the large motion picture companies possessing national distributing systems and fully equipped newsreel trucks could produce, distribute, and exhibit educational films without increasing appreciably their general operating costs. It was his opinion, furthermore, that because of the advertising advantages offered by talking pictures, many large industries would not object to the extra cost of production, distribution, and exhibition charged by these companies.
In the director's opinion, the Bureau might adopt one of two plans: either appeal to the cooperating industries immediately to introduce synchronization into their productions, or wait for them to act of their own accord. If the former plan were adopted, little difficulty would be experienced from the standpoint of film supply, principally because the costs of producing synchronized sound track superimposed upon old negative, or of disc registering, were not excessive. Talking films of average quality, furthermore, had been produced for $5,000 per 1,000 feet. Exhibition, however, was the real problem. Few, if any, nontheatrical exhibitors were equipped with sound reproduction projection machines.
1 See University Film Foundation, page 159.