Moving Picture Age (Nov-Dec 1919)

MOVING PICTURE AGE 15 How Retail Dealers Are Using the Moving Picture Screen Short Film Stories Carrying the Advertising in a More Refined Form Are Proving More Attractive Than the Old Style Crude Announcements By Jonas Howard THE moving picture goers of the country have yawned at or looked at, as the case may be, the advertising films that grace the screens of many of our best theaters. These films admonish them to buy their sundaes at Bilkins or their flowers at Smith's, and for the most part they have been accepted as advertising and nothing more. But a new idea hos been worked out which takes into consideration the objectionable as well as the non-objectionable features of the retailer's screen advertisement and promises to bring this class of moving pictures well into the ranks of the thrilling serial and the fiver e e 1 love story. The result is a series of pictures now available for retail dealers in all parts of the world. They deal with every conceivable line of retail business including the undertaker, the butcher, the druggist and t h e chiropodist. They are produced with the same care and artistic attention given the finest photodramas. They are full of action and supposed to have extremely valuable selling ideas hidden therein. These little playlets carryvery little direct advertising, b u t they are based upon the idea that anything that is catchy, clever, novel or interesting will focus the attention of the movie audience on the screen ' even though Bilkin's sundaes may get a flash or two along with the "story." The new style short advertisement plays run about sixty to seventy-five seconds. The first part carries no advertising, as a rule. Some interestcompelling idea starts the picture off on the screen and the shade of a plot is developed, all of which leads up to (or down to) the retailer whose name trails along at the end. This form of exploiting retail merchandise of all kinds has been carefully studied by several of the leading producers of commercial moving piclures and gradually it has been placed on something near a firm and practical foundation. Films are of no use unless they are exhibited and methods of getting .these pictures exhibited have been developed until there is scarcely a small theater in the United States and Canada which does not book them at intervals. The chief value of the moving picture screen as a medium for the retail merchant lies in the fact that its appeal is peculiarly local. As a rule, the theater owner's dimes come from the same pockets as do the neighborhood grocer's. The theater man has his screen, which he values at so much per second. The retailer wants to talk in the most forceful manner to possible patrons and he finds that pictures that move with life and action best turn the trick. The general run of advertisement films has been very poor until within the last two years. Producers and advertisers now realize that the theater owner refuses to offend his patrons with out and out advertising, though he is willing to run Scenes selected from some of the advertisin earlier forms of screen advertising a in a comic advertisement — if it is good — between his feature picture and the news weekly. For this he gets a fee from the retailer. The short playlets are sold outright to the retailer for about twelve dollars — including his firm name or trade mark and address. He can either book his picture in the corner picture house or have it done through a booking company, which specializes in advertising films, there being two or three in each important city. He pays a fee to the theater owner or the booking company, varying according to locality, length of the film and the policy of the theater owner. He can "tie up" his show window with the film during its run and often make direct sales where the commodity happens to be a glass of soda water or a bunch of flowers. Many soft drink places are finding the screen a winning medium since so many people pause for refreshment after the show. Some of these little playlets are comic, some thrilling and others novel. Here are the scenarios for two of the more popular ones now circulating widely among the retailers of the country: For the retail jeweler — The action begins with a close-up of an extremely oretty girl sitting in a large, comfortable chair, gazing lovingly at a ring on her finger. Just what kind of a ring this is we do not know, but we have our suspicions when she kisses it lingeringly. Our suspicions are confirmed in t h e next scene when we see her thoughts portrayed on the screen. She is thinking of the day she received this symbol of love. How she and he walked into the garden and stopped beside the fountain. How she had playfully sprinkled water on him, never thinking what the next moments would bring forth. And how he clasped her hand in his and slipped on the beautiful diamond ring. Then how she was gathered in his arms for a long and loving kiss. Her thoughts have been portrayed so realistically by the scene in the garden that when we again see her as she is today — lonesome — we are sad. She has only the ring instead of the loved one. But, after all, isn't a ring better than nothing? The scene fades, as she smiles dreamily, visualizing the happy days to come. To get the utmost in advertising value from this picture the advertising copy should remain on the screen after the action is completed. This makes the audience think again of the sponsor of the picture — and last impressions are the strongest. For the cleaner and dyer — As grandmother sits quietly before us the picture expresses the utmost in peaceful solitude. But now there comes rushing into the scene a most dynamic little pugilist. Throwing his hat on the floor he proceeds to "cause his loving grandmother many an anxious moment. His eye is blackened shamefully. His trousers are torn and from the ragged (Continued on page 18) g playlets that are expected to supplant the nd to make it interesting and suggestive.