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Production <^<^^><^<^o^,<^ 91
pictures which the company would announce and release during the ensuing year. It was at this meeting that the ideas of the production and distribution department were correlated. The distribution executives G analyzed each picture on the basis of its popularity, appeal, and salability. The president required from the conference a program of pictures that would be so balanced as to derive the greatest income for the company. He participated actively in all phases of program planning, often selecting and purchasing stories and stage plays. His decisions were final in matters pertaining to selection of product. The program as decided upon at this conference, while subject to change, usually remained substantially the same as planned. It formed the basis of the company's announcements to the trade and of the finance department's budgets. Finally, the pictures were given production dates and assigned to directors for production.
Some of the members of the Program Planning Committee were convinced that, in the procedure followed, decisions were dependent too much upon opinion. They believed that the company should consider, therefore, the adoption of a more systematic method. It was not until several of the 1929-1930 season's pictures had been released, however, that sufficient evidence was forthcoming to prove the inadequacy of the procedure which had been used.
Among the pictures released early in the 1929-1930 season, a number proved to have low drawing power. In most cases this lack of success could be attributed directly to inefficient program planning. One of these apparent failures was a very costly musical picture. While the film in itself was satisfactory, its type had been overworked, and therefore was not favored by the public in 1930. The use of color sequences was also found to be ineffective, in part perhaps because of the unnatural shade of the pigment.
6 The distribution department usually determined, on the basis of its estimated selling capacity, the number of pictures to be produced each year.