Motion Picture News (Mar-Apr 1923)

Motion Picture News State THE Arrow Film Corporation takes exception to some recent editorials of ours on distribution and percentage playing. " You condemn the entire system of motion picture distribution as in vogue at present," writes W. Ray Johnston, " and we agree with you that the charge is right under certain conditions: but we wish to call your attention to a fact you have overlooked — that this does not apply to the independent producer and distributor of motion pictures." Reciting that, in the State Rights field, the picture is sold individually to the independent exchangeman and, in turn, rented individually to the exhibitor the writer goes on: " He (the independent exchangeman) does not sell (pictures) in a group, he does not force an exhibitor to contract for a lot of inferior product in order to secure one or two superior pictures — which is one of the reasons why the bigger and better producers are turning to the independent market more rapidly every day and why independent productions are earning more money for their producers, distributors and exhibitors, than other pictures." * * * Theoretically, the independent exchange — independently owned and operated, independent of production and exhibition — is the ideal agent for marketing film. There's little argument about that. Not only does the independent exchangeman know his customers and their needs and resources better than New York knows them, but also he has full power to deal as he himself decides and there's no production pressure put upon him to sell in block, or in any other way unfair to the producer on the one hand and to the exhibitor on the other. * * * Today it would seem that the independent exchangeman has become practically as well as theoretically strong. Rights He has come into his own. And why? Because, at last, he is getting product — good product, product that will compare with the best. We all know what prestige means in any selling field. When a salesman with prestige — the prestige that consistently good product carries — approaches the customer, the latter meets him half way or more. Today the exhibitor knows that the independent exchangeman bears a place in his consideration of the market that the independent exchange has never before held. He can now look to this source for an assured number of highest grade pictures — and he is looking. * * * Product and advertising* are the two great forces in any merchandising field. In the picture field, because product varies so greatly, these two forces are joined more closely and sympathetically than in any other sales field. As J. D. Williams recently pointed out — the first executive to do so — the poor picture does not deserve advertising, cannot stand advertising in the interests of all who handle it, and of the business as a whole. But the good picture will stand all the good advertising it can get. And now that the state right field has received good product, it will need good advertising if its pictures are to have their place in the public sun. Its pictures will need advertising to the exhibitor, for the exhibitor and to the public through the exhibitor— plenty of it, judiciously and efficiently done. And this demands resources. It can't be poorly or partly done. Good product is part of the battle. The other part is advertising. And advertising is the problem today, the big and pressing problem that confronts the independent exchange field. Wm. A. Johnston. VOL. XXVII MARCH 17, 1923 NO 11