Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1930)

A New Menace To Worry Producers And Players The motion picture difficulty is apparent from the expert remarks just made. If it takes an appreciable time to transmit — televisionally — one small picture, how much more time will be required to transmit twenty-four pictures? The problem is put that way because, in every second of time on the motion picture screen, twenty-four distinct and separate pictures are shown and removed. Each requires a distinct time to build. Still, a very small device might change all this, and make television a practical reality. And we are an ingenious nation. Whenever we need an invention, there is almost always someone to invent it. At any moment, someone may supply the missing link to complete television. Possibly to-day — now — it has been invented! Looking Far Ahead LET us take a long look J down the corridors of the future and imagine what may occur when it is possible to transmit both current events and motion pictures by television. To begin with, the first, or current events division, may affect the newsreels to some extent. If there is a football game on New Year's Day at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, it may be possible, ultimately, to transmit every detail as it occurs. At three in the afternoon in Pasadena, it will be six o'clock in the evening in New York and eleven at night in London, while in Tokio the hour will be six in the morning. Perhaps the time difference is not important, but the problem of assembling a number of interesting current events into one progressive program is another matter. So, possibly, we must fall back on the transmission of motion pictures, even for the newsreel. No one doubts that the distribution of any product is a grave and intricate problem. Getting a single motion picture production to the various theaters where it is to be shown costs almost a third of the total price the theater pays for it. And it is complicated. But what if it could be transmitted by radio-television from three or more central stations simultaneously, to appear on the screens of subscriber theaters at the same moment.^ Does not that eliminate many physical problems and much duplication of film? Obstacles in the Way A STUDIO makes a motion picture. The result is a /~\_ negative. From this, a hundred to a hundred and fifty positive prints are made at a cost that runs into thousands of dollars. Thirty-two exchanges or branch Radio came, and the studios still stood. Talkies came, and the studios remade themselves. And now television is almost here — a threat to even such potent studios as Metro-GoldwynMayer (above) and Famous Players-Lasky (below) offices — manned by managers, salesmen, iiispectfl clerks — handle the film, and the express comj)any ships here and there. That's where the thirty per cent, diij tribution cost goes. What is to become of all that labor and profit un piinil making if we transmit by radio-television? But radiJ transmission also costs money. A good radio statioij easily eats up a quarter of a million a year in operatinij costs. And all theaters in one time zone may not want t( run the same picture, so it may be necessary to transmii ten or twelve different pictures to satisfy them. Perhapi a hundred or even two hundred different pictures arfl shown in a single time zond now. But a dozen different pio tures will also require a dozen different stations operating on a dozen difFeren wave lengths. The Easten zone may be transmittinj eleven pictures at sevei o'clock to-night, while th| Chicago zone is delivering twelve. Unfortunately, radio impulses don't stop sharp at zone limits, so instead of those twelve channels you may need fifty or more, and then what becomes of the regular radio programs? Disturbing Thoughts SHORT waves, says someone. Perhaps, but from the row that has been going on in Washington over the allocation of these, any effort to grab as many as fifty for picture transmission will precipitate a riot. And another disturbing thought occurs. If we are to distribute by radio-television, is it necessary to go to the trouble of putting the picture — or all the pictures, rather — on celluloid film at all? Why not good stock companies at various strategic points, with their performance broadcast — televisionally? Then what happens to the motion picture studios and their enormous equipment What happens to the motion picture and investment? stars? It looks rather terrifying to the industry! But perhaps, after all, it ^ill be better to continue putting the picture on the film. The stage can never equal the breadth, scope and epic sweep of the motion picture, which is, after completion, merely the accumulation of many scenes made at many places at many times, but shown as one. However, don't let us lose sight of the possibility that the speaking stage may have an important part to play in the televisionally equipped motion picture theater. Television would then be a Frankenstein, destroying the very business which created it. {Continued on page loi) 26