Motion Picture News (Jul-Aug 1916)

MOTION PICTURE NEWS Vol. 14. Xo. 8 1198 I HAS THE gUALlTY CIRCULATION OF THE TRADE MOTION PICTURE NEWS EXHIBITORS' TIMES Published on Tuesday Every Week by 729 SEVENTH AVENUE, COR. 49TH STREET, NEW YORK. WILLIAM A. JOHNSTON President and Editor HENRY F. SEWALL Vice-President E. KENDALL GILLETT Secretary H. ASHTON WYCKOFF Treasurer and Business Manager WENTWORTH TUCKER Asst. Treasurer R. M. VANDIVERT Advertising Manager THEODORE S. MEAD Chicago Manager J. C. J ESSEN Los Angeles Manager LESLEY MASON Managing Editor WILLIAM RESSMAN ANDREWS News Editor The office of the company is the address of the officers. Entered as Second-Class matter at the New York Post-Office. Subscription .f2 per year, postpaid, in the United States, Mexico, Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands. Canada, $3 ; Foreign, $4 per year. N. B. — No agent is authorized to take subscriptions for Motion PiCTubb Nbws at less than these rates. Have the agent taking your subscription show his credentials and coupon book. VOL. XIV August 26, 1916 No. 8 The Real Purpose of Wednesday's Meeting {Continued from page 1197) TT HERE'S big work ahead. A large sized budget and a large measure of ability are needed to cope with it. Political expediency is too small a factor to even be considered. We have a good directorate — one that can and will run the Association along a strict line of impartiality. Let's have good leaders now and let no other consideration count in their selection. It is an excellent occasion for the exercise of seriousness and magnanimity. ^ ^ ^ "VVT" ITH such a start— ^but only with such a start — will " the organization fulfill its purposes and ends. William A. Johnston. A Suggestion for the New Association A S an indication of how the new National Association of the Motion Picture Industry can work and its internal problems, we submit here the folowing excellent idea, which is the contribution of E. Lanning Masters, advertising and publicity director of V-L-S-E. ' He gives the method of operation of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, a most efficient and prominent organization : "LJ ERE we have an organization made up of various branches, all of which have certain interests in common. The Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, which holds a convention once each year, is the federation of all of these branches. " The opening session of this convention is given over to meetings of all the branches together which are inspirational in nature. Then each of the branches, or de partments, as they are called, are allotted certain meeting places, and the next two or three days are given over to departmental sessions. * * * <* A T these departmental sessions, which are organized with a chairman, secretary, etc., matters which are of particular interest to that department and to its relation to the advertising field as a whole, are discussed. Often the addresses are made solely by the members of the department, while in other instances, speakers from other branches of the advertising field who come in contact with the activities of the members of the particular department in question, make addresses. " At the conclusion of these departmental sessions, the ciiairman of each department appears before the federation as a whole, and makes the suggestions, recommendations and criticisms regarding all matters which have to do with the best interests of advertising as a whole. * * * **I AM wondering whether a national convention of all the motion picture interests represented in the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry could not be held next year along lines similar to those of the Associated Advertising Clubs. " It seems to me that this would be an ideal way for all the interests in the business to meet on a common ground, and get each other's view-points, and at the same time preserve their respective independencne. * * * "|T would not interfere in the least with the exhibitors convention, but would simply provide a channel for the exhibitors to get some concrete action immediately upon their recommendations by presenting a report of their deliberations and suggestions to the national association. At the same time, this would provide for the exhibitors, the opportunity to discuss matters a little more openly and freely, than at present at the open meetings with all the other interests sitting on the side lines, because their sessions, in common with the sessions of all the other factors of the industr}% would be closed, except by invitation. " Then all of the subjects in which there was a common interest could be thrashed out on the floor of the convention of the entire federation." Great Britain Plans Board of Trade A LETTER from Great Britain informs us that the film industry there will soon have a Board of Trade, to combine the present scattered forces of organization as they exist under the banners of the Exhibitors, the Renters and the Manufacturers' Associations. * *■ * ""THESE various Associations have got in touch with each other and decided that the dangers threatening the whole industry — such as censorship, import duties on film. etc. — cannot be combatted successfully by any one branch organization. * * * 'X'HE consensus of opinion is that the Board of Trade will not cross-cut nor interfere in any way with the activities of any of the three branch organizations but that on the contrary — as is expected of our own National Association— a united organization will build up and increase the influence of each of the sectional organizations. * * * "X'HE trade situation in Great Britain and in the L^nited States— so far as trade organization is concerned — is evidently quite identical.