International projectionist (Nov-Dec 1933)

34 INTERNATIONAL PROJECTIONIST November 1933 International Photographer — is a finely printed and beautifully illustrated monthly magazine owned by the West Coast Cameramen's Union. In all matters concerning the professional motion picture photographers of the country it is the official organ. It is designed to appeal to amateur followers of 16mm. cameras as well as to the most advanced technicians. The columns of the magazine recognize the close relationship between the photographer and sound recorder. If your news or kodak dealer does not carry the magazine on its counters write for a sample copy to INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER SILAS E. SNYDER, Editor 1605 North Cahuenga Avenue, Hollywood, Calif. • 25 cents a copy $3 the year Eastern Representative: James J. Finn, 580 Fifth Ave., New York organizations themselves are to blame, because not a single step looking toward improvement in this important respect has originated with responsible projection groups. Competent and experienced projectionists decry the entrance into the field of men who are almost wholly unfitted for projection work, the result of which is to make available a supply of projectionists which far exceeds the demand. Still, the very same men who complain bitterly against these conditions do nothing to improve matters, and they are particularly complacent and docile in the matter of letting their own organizations continue to operate in an outmoded fashion. Although I am an organization man myself, I for one do not believe that the mere fact that an organization exists is sufficient reason for expecting that all work will naturally gravitate toward organization headquarters. A course of rigorous preliminary training should be an integral part of every union charter, and the international office of a given craft should insist upon strict observance of all such laws. Many unions include in their constitutions provision for at least one educational meeting each month — and then proceed to forget all about it. Present practice is for a man to be admitted to an organization (sometimes after an examination that is a joke), after which the new member is permitted to learn his trade at the expense of the theatre, the public and (very often with serious results), at the expense of the union itself. Inadequate Examinations It is useless to depend upon the abilities of those men who are delegated by local or state authorities to conduct exinations of projectionists, because if the requirements for such examinations are a bit too stiff (and they seldom are), the official in charge usually "can be reached". Furthermore, most of these examinations concern themselves altogether too much with electricity. Granted that electricity is an important feature of projection work; yet I hold that a comprehensive knowledge of electricity by no means qualifies a man for projection work. On the contrary, very often a man who makes no pretensions to an extensive knowledge of electricity makes a fine projectionist. Projectionists are not permitted to pull wires, change circuits, etc., because of the electrical licensing laws in force in most states, yet the common form of examination concerns itself almost wholly with electricity. Lighting, care and handling of film, lenses, projector mechanisms, correct tensions, lamphouses, mechanics — these are the subjects which should be the concern of a projectionist, rather than questions relating to the proper size wire necessary for a circuit run. Fear for the Future Neglect of proper first training and subsequent review work to keep a member posted may well in the long run mean the undoing of projectionist organizations. If a man may step in from a coal truck, or a trolley car, or a delivery wagon on the street and go through the motions of that projectionist who has had no adequate training and has taken advantage of lax licensing laws, then the reason for being of our present organizations is not quite clear to me. If it were an indisputable fact that the organization man was ever so much better ' as a projectionist than any man or group of men outside the organization, I believe that most of the unsettled conditions prevailing in the field today could be eliminated. This matter of proper first training, subsequent review work and a standard licensing law should have the early attention of those organizations which are interested in bettering conditions within the craft. Among these groups are the Projection Advisory Council, the S. M. P.E., the American Projection Society — and last, but by no means least, that organization which may be said to have the biggest stake in the matter, the International Alliance.