Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1949)

23 Aids for the ailing movie club How a jobs-for-all program will put new life in your movie group WALTER F. CHAPPELLE, JR., ACL WHY is there such a high turnover of movie club members and often of the clubs themselves? Many clubs have had long and successful careers. Others show signs of difficulty almost from the start. TOO FEW DO TOO MUCH I believe that one of the biggest reasons is a general failure to spread responsibility and activity throughout the membership. Too few do too much. The president and program chairman are busier than the Seven Dwarfs. They do all the work themselves. Finally, when they become too weary to worry further, the club falls apart at the seams. Without the cooperation of all, it is impossible to plan good meetings. Those who come to learn about movie making find little of aid or interest and drop out. Others who just wanted a theatre without a box office get bored and leave too. With poor programs, members learn little about movie making. Yet these very members may make up an audience jury for selecting contest winners. Mrs. Movie Clubber votes for the cat picture because she thinks cats are cute. The fact that some other picture had better titles or continuity is immaterial to her. Contestants who are good motion picture technicians quit in disgust. Thus, a group that could really teach the others is lost. The time for electing new officers comes around. Potential executives are busy with personal affairs. They wouldn't mind giving a moderate amount of time to their club, but they are not going to get into the same predicament as were the earlier officers. The nominating committee has a hopeless and thankless task. There are other symptoms, but these are some of the most obvious danger signals of a club in difficulty. LACK OF ORGANIZATION What is the cause of these and similar difficulties which beset so many movie clubs? Depending upon local circumstances, there may be many: poor program planning, inadequate meeting facilities, high costs, lack of technical talent and others. But generally the basic trouble is that the club is not a smoothly functioning organization. Bill Russ JOBS-FOR-ALL is good club production as well as program rule. Script clerk, light men, still camera and grips round out crew. Leo J. Hefferman, FACL ACTION-ON-TIME, says the author, can be important responsibility of club vicepresident, with details carried in committee. An organization is not one man holding the world on his shoulders like Atlas. It is rather a working group where each individual plays a part, but no one of them is overloaded. It means the division of responsibilities and the assignment of each of these to some person who will take care of it. It means, finally, that even if an emergency causes some one to fall down on his assignment, there will be others to carry out the work. We want to avoid having some parts of our organization overloaded while other parts do nothing. One club had a founder president who was a work horse. At the same time, other members felt they were being slighted. They had been on committees for a year and were never asked to do anything. They felt they were missing the fun — and they were! HOW TO ORGANIZE The road to success in any activity can be charted in four steps: (1) recognizing the inherent problems; (2) determining what should be done about them; (3) deciding who should do these things, and (4) seeing that they get done. Let us start with recognizing the problem. This is often done by a board of directors which can meet quickly when action is necessary. This reduces delays and eliminates tiresome business sessions at regular meetings. When general business meetings are held by the whole membership, they also should determine what problems exist. At the same time, the solutions to the problems — what should be done about them — should be considered. The problems and proposals for their solution are then passed on to the president, who administers the carrying out of the work. He does not do the work himself, but assigns it to the appropriate committee chairman. The chairman represents the highest level of organization at which any actual part in completing the work is taken. Even he will have most of the [Continued on page 36]