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FILM AND TELEVISION COMMERCIALS 121
very important, but they will not help if listeners see a commercial coming. One of the fascinating things about television, viewers say, is the idea that it is happening right before your eyes. Film that is obviously film may spoil that illusion.
If more and more film is to be used for television commercials, the first thing to concentrate on is technical quality, and this means not just film that looks well on a motion picture screen, but film that will look well on the customer's set. There is a big co-operative job to be done here between the advertising agency, the film experts, and the television engineers.
Now that contact has been made with a customer, he must be sold. Interest him in what is to be sold, then show it to him. Right here, says the advertising man, is why television was born, and why he is looking to film for the best pictures possible. To the advertiser, those three minutes of commercial are three golden minutes. They are the reason for the whole show, and the entire investment. So the product has to look just right, and again that means films that televise right.
After the product is shown, probably it is to be demonstrated. That is where film has certain advantages. The demonstration CAN go wrong if the commercial is live. And has. On one show, for a horrible example, the high-pressure hose did not squirt and it was only the foresight of a production man who had provided a bottle of seltzer water that saved everyone an embarrassing moment. Things have always gone wrong in radio, and television is no exception. But with film, the mistakes go on the cutting-room floor. This dependability of film will help make it popular for television commercials.
Before television, advertisers kept saying that radio was great, but that one thing it could not do was show the product. With television, the skeptics are asking if television can show the product as clearly and as beautifully as printed advertising.
There is no color, but probably everyone will agree that at times the best television reproduction is nearly equal to good magazines for tones. Advertisers will turn to film only if it gives them a picture every bit as good and better than the live pickup.
The author was asked about what the advertiser and his agency consider important in film commercials. Probably product plus people is one thing, good pictures of the product in action in relation to people, and the other is showmanship plus salesmanship, good staging plus good selling.