Motion Picture News (Oct-Dec 1929)

Motion P i c t » r e N e w s RCA 'Type G" Equipment Ready; NEWS Reporter Says R's Good First deliveries of "Type G" RCA Photophone sound equipment will begin this month and will gain in volume during January, it was stated by a company official this week. The equipment will sell at $2,095 and is designed for theatres with capacities up to 500. This is the reproducer manufactured as a result of the arrangement made between Photophone and officials of Thinks Tonal Quality Fine December 1929 Allied States Ass'n with the small house exclusively in mind. The demonstration was attended by a number of New York exhibitors while among those present were Abram F. Myers, president of the Allied; Charles O'Reilly, president of the T. 0. C. C. of New York, Joseph M. Seider, president of the T. 0. C. C. of New Jersey, and M. J. 0 'Toole, secretary of the M. P. T. 0. A. Abel Appoints Garvin D. C. District Chief For RCA George Garvin will handle RCA Photophone sales in the Washington territory. Appointment was made by Sydney E. Abel, general sales director. Johnson Joins RCA Staff Minneapolis. — Arthur Johnson, newly appointed special representative for RCA Photophone, will work out of Miuneapolis, under W. I. Brown, district manager. Rudolph With RCA Charles J. Ross, RCA Photophone vice president, announces appointment of Gerald K. Rudolph as publicity director. "Blues" Situation Looks Brighter Throughout Texas Dallas. — Considerable improvement in the strict Sunday closing situation in Texas is seen for 1930. More than 48 houses are operating on Sunday over the previous year, the present figure exceeding 175. Philadelphians Sponsor Film Research Course Philadelphia. — The Motion Picture Guild, sponsored by many prominent locals, has launched a series of lectures in the Guild's theatre, at which a thorough research will be made into the history, art and theory of motion pictures. Nicholaus Here John Nicholaus, M-G-M lab chief is in Xew York to lecture before several scientific bodies on laboratory and photography methods. Nicholaus is credited with invention of relative movement method of three dimensional photography, solving of the wagon-wheel problem of filming. Bancrofts Leave For Coast George Bancroft and his wife left New York on Thursday bound for Hollywood. They had been in town for three weeks since their return from abroad. Bancroft managed to see a play every night and two on matinee days during his stay east. A reporter for Motion Picture News sat through two demonstrations of RCA Photophone' s new "Type G" equipment this -week. His reactions, as a layman, follow. By E. G. Johnston RCA Photophone, in demonstrating its new reproducer for theatres seating 500 or less, took it upon itself to give the apparatus a severe test. "Type G" began the projection of a full length feature and, after running off a few hundred feet, "Type B," a system costing $12,82.5, was cut in without adjustment to the changed conditions. A slight change was noticeable. The tone apparently struck a higher pitch than that of the more expensive apparatus. At the same time it was natural and the quality was excellent. The following day this reporter witnessed another demonstration under less trying conditions — the showing of a subject complete in itself. Several others were also projected in their entirety, the two types of equipment again alternating. It would be difficult for the layman to differentiate between the two under the adjusted conditions. Sonora Has New Sound Projector Sonora Products Corp. will market a home sound projector which works in conjunction with a radio. The invention, developed by Sonora engineers, shunts the sound, as it is taken from the record, through the radio amplification system and Minis it to the loud speaker behind the screen bv means of a connecting cable. Pomeroy Signed By RKO As Director And Technician Hollywood. — RKO has signed Roy Pomeroy to a term contract as director and advisory technician. Pomeroy is recognized as an authority on sound and was with Paramount for several years as head of the technical effects department. Cooper, Formerly Of "News", Joins "U" Publicity Dept. Oscar Cooper, for a number of years managing editor of Motion Picture News, this week joined Universal as assistant director of publicity, succeeding Henry C. Bate, resigned. Listening in at the ISeic York Times to signals flashing netcs of Commander Byrd's air conquest of the South Pole. Paramount Sound Neivs recorded the dots and dashes South Pole Story Filmed In Sound Reception of the first radio message to be sent from the South Pole has been recorded in sound. How word that Commander Richard E. Byrd had flown successfully over the polar area was received and decoded in the offices of the ''New York Times" and thence flashed to the world by the newspaper is covered. It goes out to exhibitors in the Dec. 6 issue of Paramount Sound News. According to Emanuel Cohen, editor of Paramount Sound News, the pictures were obtained by placing cameras and sound recording equipment in the radio room of the "Times'' where direct communication is established daily, by low wave length, with the little band of explorers 11,000 miles awav in the frozen wastes of the South. With everything set for instant use, the Paramount Sound News men, consisting of two crews, Ray Ferustrom, Claude Norman, William Gerecke and Harold Tannenbaum, stood in readiness to return at the signal from Radio Chief Fred Meinholst of the "Times." The tip came at 10:20 o'clock in the evening and within a few minutes both camera and sound crews were at their posts. Throughout the night they remained, gathering only fragmentary reports from the cruising plane. Suddenly, at 8:30 o'clock Friday morning the flashes stopped altogether and through the day not one word was received because of adverse weather conditions. The camera and sound men were still on the job at 5:15 p. m. Friday afternoon when the news finally came. Sound switches were thrown open. Cameras started to grind. Near Meinholst a loud speaker thumped out the message in a series of dots and dashes which meant that Byrd had reached the goal. It was in triple code but when deciphered it also included the word from two other Paramount cameramen on the expedition, Willard Vandeveer and Joseph Rncker, that Harold June, flying with Byrd, had obtained more than 1,000 feet of film of the polar region. June had been trained to handle the motion picture camera by the Paramount man because when the great flight was made they necessarily were left at the base for lack of room in the plane.