Moving Picture Age (Nov-Dec 1919)

MOVING PICTURE AGE about 2.50 Chilian paper pesos, which at the high rate of exchange last year equaled 90 cents. It is now less than 60 cents. Despite high prices the Chilian cinemas are well attended, particularly at the evening performances. Advertising films, featuring the exploits and merits of certain makes of automobiles, have been successful in the larger cities of Chili, and the theater owners seem glad to run them as part of their regular performances, provided these films carry good stories. It goes without saying that advertising films to be successful anywhere must be primarily stories, and interesting stories, with the advertising message playing a hidden part. * * * Moving Picture Trade Jargon THE other day a friend of Moving Picture Age criticized the editor for using what he called "the technical terminology of the trade" in the columns of the magazine, saying that readers would not understand it. We called attention to some of the letters received from our readers, asking advice or making comment, and suggested that he define one or two of the terms used in them by men who had never seen the inside of a projector a year ago. He was compelled to resort to trade terms before half describing a condenser lens and laughingly gave up the argument. Truth is, a mechanical device of any kind can only be described in the words that name it, its functions and its effects, and anyone interested will pick those terms up as quickly as a Ford owner learns motor talk when he has bought a car. Fifteen years ago the inside of an automobile was a mystery to everybody, but now the office boy talks learnedly of ignition, transmission, spark plugs and such. With the advent of projection manuals and other technical trade literature no one need remain in the dark about moving pictures, their ways and works and the things that make them go. Background in Screen Scenes THAT the weather has more or less effect on human conduct, that human moods vary with cloudy skies and clear ones is a fact well known. Reasoning from this a director of Universal, Mr. Rollin Sturgeon, claims that as nature registers different moods with each passing hour, so must the moods of nature on the motion picture screen coincide with those of the players in the shadow drama. "The psychological effect of the scenic background on the motion picture screen is tremendous," says Mr. Sturgeon. "One cannot conceive of children playing happily in a somber cathedral of pines. It would be hard to visualize a brutal tragedy before a background of sunlight splendor. Nature is ready to support the human emotions. "The moods of nature are many and clearly defined. Through the medium of light and shadow, sky and trees, nature registers her moods unmistakably. Who has not seen sunlight filtering through verdant foliage, rollicking streams carousing over white pebbles, saplings reeling in the intoxication of a March wind or a leaf tumbling joyously? It is nature in her ecstasy of maternity over the growing things. "With this contrast nature in her somber hours of winter, the bitterness of a snowbound heart, trees divested of their foliage, stand as outlaws against the horizon. The sun sinks into its murky shroud, a saffron disc of feeble fire. It is nature in the hour of her grief." Mr. Sturgeon has created unusual interest by his theory and has carried it out in a recent photoplay, "The Breath of the Gods." He did not hesitate to change the contour of trees and to improvise on nature through the medium of artificial light when the mood of the open country at that particular place did not run with the mood of his story. This may be all right in theory, but in practice the change worked upon nature to produce a temporary and artificial effect smacks strongly of the "cubist" and "futurist" cults in art and will be more than likely, if carried out to any great extent, to produce quite as weird results. The Bible on the Screen HOW many people read the Bible nowadays? The answer of an English authority limits the number of intelligent readers in Great Britain to about two thousand in a population of forty-five million. The reverend gentleman means, of course, those who read the book with understanding, and with a clear conception of the relation of the values of the Old and New Testament teachings. If such a test were to be applied to our hundred million people here in the United States, how many of us would qualify as real Bible readers? The arguments from which "Canon X" makes his startling deduction are sound, but he does not give one important reason why the Bible is not read by more people with better understanding. And that one plain reason is that the child mind has never been able to visualize the parts it has read, heard read and seen illustrated as "stories" into a harmonious history of the ways of God to one of the peoples of the earth. Why? Because as the child mind developed it was able to understand the history of ancient Rome and appreciate the given causes for the empire's fall, but the Bible "stories" were too well known to need more study and the most wonderful history ever written remained a sealed book. A company lately formed, the Historical Film Corporation of Los Angeles, is now earnestly and seriously engaged in picturing the Bible story on films that it hopes will overcome this difficulty when they are completed and shown, and send young and old people who see them to reading of the Bible with new understanding and appreciation. It has begun, so Mr. J. A. McGill, the general manager, informs us, with the first chapter of Genesis and will include the New as well as the Old Testament. The interpretations of the shadowy beginning of things is not to be materialistic, but every scene filmed after the birth of man and every text used as a title is to be as nearly according to the King James version as study and care can make it. It is a stupendous undertaking. Mr. McGill says it is to be carried on with the utmost care not to illustrate or emphasize sectarian interpretations of text, but that where the text is obscure or doubtful the words themselves will be flashed upon the screen and the reader left' to his own conclusions. If it is carried to a successful conclusion we predict a sudden increase in the number of Bible readers that will refute the reasoning of "Canon X" and give to thousands who do not know it now a genuine love for the one best book. * * * The Wisconsin Bankers' Association has been considering a plan to show the value of thrift and its influence in molding the lives of young people in moving pictures. It would be a good thing. Thrift and production are two of the most needed things in this country today and maybe the screen can hammer the lesson home. Nothing else seems to have been able to do so.