Moving Picture Age (Jan-Dec 1922)

Canada's method of extolling its scenic and other advantages is of interest because this plan actually achieves the ends sought TELLING the WORLD Raymond S. Peck Director, Exhibits and Publicity Bureau, Department of Trade and Commerce, Canada FEW people in the United States are aware of the progressive manner in which the Federal Government of the Dominion of Canada is employing the motion-picture film as a medium of education and information concerning the broad dominion that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Not very many of the "Seeing Canada" series of films have yet been seen in the United States, as the distribution has been secured mainly in British possessions overseas and in the "Mother Land"— the United Kingdom. The Exhibits and Publicity Bureau, a live unit of the Canadian Department of Trade and Commerce, at Ottawa, Canada's capital city, has "made haste slowly" with the American distribution, simply because the Department of Trade and Commerce of the Canadian Government wanted to make sure that, when it did arrange for circulation through an American distributor, this distributor would measure up to certain ideals and standards. However, an arrangement has now been entered into whereby an American organization has also secured distribution rights for this series of Canadian pictures. The idea of making official Canadian government motion pictures was launched in a very humble way about three years ago. So successful was the initial undertaking that it was decided to instal a film laboratory in Ottawa, Canada, the seat of Federal government, where the films could be made in their entirety. Today the distribution of the "Seeing Canada" series of films has reached to every corner of the earth, and plans are now being made greatly to increase the laboratory facilities to meet the huge demands made for positive prints from the various international distributors of the series. Most of the pictures produced are one-reel subjects of the scenic, travelogue, industrial, and informative type. Extreme care is taken with the editing and titling of the subjects, and film critics have been kind enough to say that this one -reel Canadian film product takes rank with the best of its kind being produced and released today. In the United Kingdom Jury's Imperial Pictures Limited are the British distributors. Circulation figures show that the films are in wide demand with British exhibitors. Ten copies of each In the Art Department of the Exhibits and Publicity Bureau Are Prepared All Main Titles and Sub-titles for the Bureau's Productions England at the present time. Recently a contract was closed with Selznick Pictures, Australia, Limited, to take the exclusive rights for Australia and New Zealand. This organization takes four prints of each subject. Arrangements are now being made for a weekly release in that far-off field. Cinematographes Harry of Paris, France, are distributing the series in France, Belgium, and Switzerland, and are making use of eight prints of each subject for these three countries. This, too, is a contract that will mean an intensive circulation in the mentioned countries. Many other countries are seeing the films and big shipments have gone forward from time to time within the past two years to South Africa, India, China, Japan, Cuba, Jamaica, South America, and other countries. The majority of this vast circulation has but in Canada the films enjoy been secured in the theatrical field, a wide theatrical and also non-theatrical use. The Exhibits and Publicity film plant at Ottawa is manned by a crew of expert cameramen and laboratory workers — all Canadians. Recently a writer in the Kinematograph Weekly of London, England, in an article entitled "The State as a Film Producer," said in his opening paragraph : "I hold no brief for the Dominion of Canada, but I think I owe it to the few years I spent, at my own expense, in that delightful country to say that at least it knows how to handle its own publicity business, which is much more than can be said for some governments. I am thinking in particular of the Department of Trade and Commerce, and particularly again of the Exhibits and Publicity Bureau." So successful has been the film venture of the Department of Trade and Commerce that other Federal departments of the Canadian government in Ottawa have been thoroughly sold on the idea of educational and informative film work. This has resulted in a flood of film orders being turned over to the Exhibits and Publicity Bureau from other departments. The various ramifications of the Canadian Agricultural Department are now making splendid use of films, much in the same manner as the United States Department of Agriculture. The Air Board is also having aerial films made to instruct and educate both the Canadian airmen and subject are used And Here Is the Bureau's Photographic Staff. The Gentleman of the Protruding Kerchief Is Director Peck the general public in