Motion Picture News (Nov-Dec 1919)

December 2 j , 1 S> 1 9 (Equipment Service) 27> Portable and Stationary M. P. Booths QUITE a complete study of booths for motion picture machines has been made by the Sharlow Bros. Company, with a view to having available some sort of enclosure for every need. In this they seem to have succeeded wonderfully well. The sheet metal booth combines efficiency, safety and convenience. They are made of sheet metal securely riveted to an angle iron frame and can be furnished in different sizes to conform to space that may be conveniently utilized in theatres. Each booth may be taken down or put up in a few minutes' time, since the floor and roof are made in panel sections. These panels are bolted together with thumb screws and wing nuts and are so perfectly fitted that th^y do not require the skill of a mechanic to manipulate. I Each booth is fitted with an entrance door I equipped with spring hinges and interchangeable ' side or end. The ventilators and openings are provided with slides and doors that close automatically. A similar booth to the above, except that it is constructed of asbestos, is furnished by the same firm for use in lecture halls or in churches, where it is necessary to take the booth apart and set it up without delay. The asbestos booth has the I advantage that it may be stored in a small space. Peerless Standard Projector EVERY laboratory which prides itself on the quality of its output knows what a lot of time and effort is required to properly inspect and edit every print before it is sent out to the exchange or purchaser. For this purpose, no other projector can compare with the Peerless for the following reasons : 1. Accessibility and ease of threading. 2. Very small current, with little heat in the lamp. 3. Good, slow projection for cutting and patching scenes. 4. Ease of going back to repeat projection of scenes. The Peerless Standard Projector is equipped with the eccentric star and cam intermittent movement, giving a 60 degree cam action, with less strain on the film than the ordinary 90 degree star and cam. With this movement, a balanced shutter of three equal 45 degree blades can be used, which completely eliminates all flicker at normal speed, and possesses the additional ability to project at slow speed with no more flicker than occurs in all other projectors at normal speed. This is of great importance where slow speed is desirable for purpose of careful examination of study of a motion picture. The film travels through the projector in a straight line and is in plain sight all the time. In fact it can be cut and patched right in the projector with almost as much facility as on the rewind table, thus enabling the editor to reproject it immediately and see that the cutting was properly jone. The Peerless Projector Company of 32 West 43rd Street, also furnish the projector with Enclosing Magazines, if desired. Note particularly that in this type the Magazine itself is hinged instead of the usual cover, thus permitting easy access to the entire circumference of the reel for threading or rewinding. A New Screen THE Minusa Cine' Screen Co., St. Louis, Mo., anounce a new departure in the way of projection screens built for exclusive use in connection with Mazda light equipment and known as the Minusa Max-da-lite Screen. While this surface has been on the market for several years, the Minusa Company have withheld announcement until this time pending expression from the trade who have installed this type of screen. The verdict is unanimous in favor of the Maz-da-lilc. This screen comes in sizes from 3' x 4' for the portable home projector to 12' x 16' for the modern theatre and is mounted on roll and batten, spring roller or the well known Minusa patent adjustable stretcher frame. Construction of the Maz-da-lite surface from a scientific standpoint is identical with that of the notable Minusa Gold Fibre screen with the exception of the final finish; which has a greater reflective power, necessary in overcoming the difference in light strength between the Mazda and Arc light. Experimental research during the current year in behalf of the original metallic screen universally known as the Minusa Gold Fibre has developed a 90 per cent, elimination of the fade-away from a side angle view. This revelation, according to experts is a timely advance in the direction of the eagerly sought for perfect projection. There Is a Need for System in the Management of Theatres By Edgar Bauman IN the early stages, every business operates by hand, or with crude implements and machinery. The most convincing proof that an industry has won recognition is the mechanical aid that has been developed for its up-to-date operation. Business, generally, has such every-day aides as the telegraph, telephone, the typewriter, and then each individual line of business has such special equipment, as, for example, with railroads, the safety air-brake; in navigation, the wireless; in banking, the adding machine, etc., etc. The motion picture industry has made such marvelous strides as an industry simply because of the rapid development of the mechanical aides necessary to perfecting picture making. Mechanical aides are, of course, only created in response to a real need and demand, and when perfect pictures solved the difficulty of attracting crowds, exhibitors turned to the problem of insuring themselves the maximum possible profit from the crowds they attracted, and it was in response to this very real demand that such devices as the ticket selling registers, ticket destroyers, and other mechanical aides for the business end of a theatre were devised. Insuring a business, and insuring the safety of the profits it should yield, is hardly second to making profits, and exhibitors have been quick to recognize this, and arc rapidly availing themselves of the mechanical aid that will help them to safeguard their capital as invested in tickets and their cash as it comes in to the cash desk. No business man who stops to think can neglect the important matter of effecting savings in his business, because every time a dollar is saved, it is rightly to be regarded as the equivalent of a 10 per cent, profit on $10 business done, and if a mechanical aid eliminates $500 of leaks and losses in a theatre in a year, and that theatre operates on a 10 per cent, net profit basis, that means that this $500 saved is the same as the profit that would have been earned if $5000 more business had been done during the year. When a busiii-c^s man comes to recognize such vital facts as these, he never hesitates to put money into any mechanical safeguard that will help him to operate his business more efficiently and that will eliminate some of the leaks and losses that are inevitable where there is no exact record of business transactions where money and ticket are haU' died by hand. The fact that so many splendid mechanical aides for the business department of a theatre have been perfected in the last decade is a tribute to the importance of the motion picture exhibiting field, and is also a high tribute to the progressiveness of the exhibitor. Old Gorgon Graham wisely said : " I employ an optimist to get results, and a pessimist to figure them up," so, too, a wise exhibitor is an optimist in employing every possible means of attracting business, and employs mechanical aides that, while they are not exactly pessimistic, register facts and tickets. The type of men that have forged to the front, as the leading exhibitors of the country, are in themselves a strong argument of the importance of the business side of a theatrical enterprise. These leaders in the motion picture exhibiting field are not flashy P. T. Barnums, but cool-headed shrewd business men, who recognized early in their careers that the test of a successful theatre is not the amount of business it does in a year, but the net profit it jields in that time. It is net profits from which the exhibitor has to take his income; it is net profits that enabled the single theatre to grow to a chain of theatres; and, just as one of our big business magnates said to a young man : "I do not care how much money you make, but how much you save," so the wise exhibitor does not concern himself simply with how much business he does, but how much actual net profit he gets from this business done. The fact that almost all progressive and successful theatres employ these mechanical aides is proof in itself that they contribute to the success of an enterprise, and a wise exhibitor employs every available aid trying to build his enterprise to the biggest success it is capable of. A Film Protector REALIZING the need existing in many theatres using first run film, for some means by which green film may be run through without trouble, a firm in St. Louis has perfected a device for this purpose called the Werner Film Protector. A sample has been received and given a thorough try out. The result was very satisfactory. The Protector will be found to give far more satisfactory results than the old method of hand waxing besides being speedier in operation. Fig. 1 shows the Protector's working position. It is placed on the rewind bench between the two reels in the relative position shown. Sticks of the waxing compound extend through the tubes and are