The international photographer (Jan-Dec 1935)

Four The INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER February, 1935 MITCHELL CAMERA GOES AROUND THE WORLD Charles H. Christie Introduces Hollyivood's Own Camera to the Rising Producers of the Orient FTER a visit to fourteen countries in the Orient and Europe, Charles H. Christie has arrived home, in Hollywood, to report a successful trip to the Mitchell Camera Corporation he represented as special salesman on the journey. Mr. Christie needs no introduction, as both he and his brother Al were practically the motion picture founders of Hollywood, with a background of great success in the comedy field. Mr. Christie arrived in Japan in May, 1934, and spent several weeks in Yokohama, Kyoto, Tokyo, Kobe and Osaka, the five motion picture production centers of Nippon. At Tokyo he found five studios operating and, at Kyoto, he visited six studios, among them being a production company at the head of whose photographic department is Harry Mimura, a graduate of Hollywood studios and a member of International Photographers. At Kyoto, also, Mr. Christie met our old friend, the celebrated Sessue Hayakawa and his wife, who are both starring in Japanese pictures with sound. Mr. Christie states that the report to the effect that Japanese pictures absorb more raw film than any other country is erroneous. According to his information the United States ranks first, Great Britain second and Japan third. At Tokyo there is a great photo-chemical laboratory called the P. C. L., the biggest in the Far East and here, also, is located D. Nagase & Co., the Brulatour of Japan, agents for raw stock in the Orient. Mr. Nagase is a graduate of Harvard and the head of a house of exporters and importers more than one hundred years old. Mr. Christie finds the acting good in the Japanese feature pictures, but the length will often reach nineteen reels, which decidedly militates against the box office in that the present arrangement gives the fans two shows for the price of one. The Japanese producers make no pictures for American audiences just now, but they hold the belief that the time is here when the proposition to produce pictures for the United States should be seriously studied. Competent judges hold that the only real obstacle is the Japanese story, but that American screen writers can in time remedy that. The P. C. L. Studio, at Tokyo, has been successful in producing travelogues and this class of picture is becoming more and more popular throughout the Orient. Mr. Christie found Mitchell cameras in all leading studios, but little manufacturing of camera, laboratory and printing equipment ; he also found intense interest in 16 mm. photography and color, the latter, of course, only in the dream state at this time. After several weeks in Japan, during which he was beautifully entertained and placed orders for a large volume of business, the ambassador of Mitchelldom set sail for China where he disembarked at Shanghai, the cockpit of the Orient. Here he had to deal with the two centers of motion picture production in China — Shanghai and Canton and here he made a friend of Newsreel Wong, the Fox Movietone genius, and of Ariel Varges and Bruno Lessing of Hearst Metrotone. He reports one studio in Canton ; three in Hong Kong and four in Shanghai and a decided spirit of cinema mindedness among the Chinese producers. The country needs only long continued peace to build up a real motion picture industry and to bring into being thousands of modern theatres. Business was also good there. Mr. Christie's next jump was Hong Kong to Singapore, leaving Australia, Java and Manila for another visit. This stronghold of the British was picture struck, with theatres showing features in Hindu, Chinese, Tamil, American and English, but production in that part of the world is practically nil. In Rangoon, Burma, there are four small studios and prospects for others as time goes on and the producers were bound to be enthusiastically responsive to the up-todate equipment. Calcutta was the next stop of Mr. Christie and there he found eight busy studios, three of them headed by the well known Madan Brothers, pioneer producers and exhibitors of the great and rich province of Bengal. Here Mr. Christie sold six fully equipped Mitchell cameras and then proceeded to Madras where a new studio equipped for heavy duty production had been opened but recently. In Madras, also, the ambassador found business waiting for his advent and he believes that Madras is due to become an important producing center in India. Then on to Bombay, the biggest production center in India. The Bombay district includes Poona and Kohlapur, the most active in the Eastern world outside of Japan, even approximating Hollywood in the number of features. Mr. Christie spent three weeks in Bombay and during that time he was honored with an invitation to address the Motion Picture Society of India on the subject of the cinema in general and Hollywood in particular, a subject which his long and varied experience enabled him to treat in a manner to delight his large and enthusiastic audience. In regard to production conditions in India, Mr. Christie said in part: "The film industry in England, France, Germany and Japan has been going through the same process of centralization at one place. In India, on account of vastness and the language problem the industry may have two or more centers, the number being as small as possible. "From what I have seen in Japan and India the position of the industry in both the countries is analogous. On account of the languages the market of the talkies being limited, it will be advisable for Indian film producers to penetrate far and wide in the country and produce pictures for the home market, the question of producing pictures for the international markets being left for only rare attempts. Barring a few British pictures of extraordinary merit no other English pictures have found a market in America. India could not be said to have progressed far in this country. Indian pictures are very, very long and the tempo of the picture Please mention The International Photographer when corresponding with advertisers.