Moving Picture World (Nov-Dec 1923)

Selling thePicruRE to the Public EDITED BY EPES WINTHROP SARGENT kfk JbIWH, Half Tone Cuts Are Not Good Unless the Newspaper Can Reproduce Clearly GETTING the wrong slant on a series of recent comments on the advertisements for The Isle of Dead Ships and The Huntress, Walter F. Eberhardt, of the First National publicity department, rises to take exception. He says in part : In the last issue of the Moving Picture World, pages 232 and 233, you take quite a slap at producers who give exhibitors press sheet advertisements using half tones. It just happened that the two illustrations cited are from a First National press sheet. While I admit the fundamental soundness of your arguments in the examples cited (although some allowance must be made for the fact that the cuts are more blurred in your reduced illustration than they were in the original newspaper ad) I do want to take exception to the implied charge that the press sheet is at fault. If you only knew the demands we get from exhibitors for half tones j'ou would realize more fully how we are trying to meet the needs of everyone. Some merely want line cuts and others want half tone illustrations. Our press sheets, if you will look them over, offer a large variety that should satisfy everyone. I know that Mr. Einfeld, who prepares a large percentage of our press sheets, has this constantly in mind and is trying to get up the advertising matter so that everyone will find his requirements met. The fault then, as I find it and as I think it ought to be pointed out in your section, lies with exhibitors who use half tones when the newsprint paper used by their newspaper is all too poor a grade to carry them. That, as I see it, is the crux of the whole matter, and I don't think that the man who gets up the press sheet should be held responsible. As a matter of fact, I don’t think he is even at fault, because there are many places in which a half tone is far more suitable than a line cut. It is simply a matter of letting the exhibitor choose, from a varied selection, the material that is best suited to his location and advertising mediums. Not Quite That Comment was made on the fact that the half tones on these two subjects did not seem to be up to the First National standard, but the big idea was that exhibitors persisted in using them merely because they were half tones. In other words, we were not shooting at First National, but at the numerous class of manager who seems to feel that a line cut is crude and vulgar and that the half tone represents the last word in elegance, no matter what the local printers may do to them. Mr. Eberhardt puts .his finger on one of the sore spots of the business when he writes of the exhibitor demand for half tone material in the prepared advertisements. Mostly Bad Medicine First National, or any other company, would be remiss did they present an entire series of advertising mat displays without half tones. There is a legitimate demand for these, and the press bureau naturally seeks to meet this demand. That is as it should be. The point is that hundreds of exhibitors arc using half tones who have no business having my traffic with screen cuts. Comparatively few newspapers get good results with half tones, even of the proper screen. Thje rising costs of print paper leads to the use of a cheaper quality. This, in its turn, gives increasingly poor results. There are newspapers which could not give decent results with a thirty screen cut. Between poor paper and worse ink, even the line cuts are poor and the half tones are mere blots — in a double sense. Lay Off, If You Must This being the case, managers of theatres in these towns have no business using half tones. They are trying to sell the idea of amusement, and to do this they must strive to create an air of elegance and refinement. This cannot be done with a smear of ink. The reverse of the effect aimed at is gained, and the result hurts instead of helps business. And yet, because they feel that line cuts are less elegant than half tones, they use the half tone mats where they have at their command a good line of finely executed line cuts. Sometimes they have only to cut apart a combination to get just what they want, and yet they pay extra space bills to spoil what might otherwise be a good display. Makes Good Line No company in the business contributes better line work than First National. This has been one of their strongest points ever since the inception of the idea, and it is discouraging to have Mr. Eberhardt dwell upon the fact that the managers cry for half tones like children for castoria. It is stupid in the extreme to pay perhaps half as much again as is needed just to SPOIL a display with a badly reproduced half tone, particularly where there is so much good line material available on the same subjects. Of course, we could have told Walter all this on the telephone and perhaps have brought a smile to his face again, but this message is less to him than it is to the managers in towns where press work is not good, and today that means most towns. If you live in one of those places, why not think this over — and save money? Added an Olio Because he is a regular First National franchise holder, Earl M. Fain, of Loew’s Vendome Theatre, Nashville, gave the orphans a chance to see Circus Days, enlisting the aid of the fashionables to transport the kiddies. That doesn’t get his name in the papers, but he added an olio of circus acts, and that is why he breaks into print. Made the kiddies twice as happy and let the reporters write a longer story. If you have no vaudeville connection, you can at least put in a clown to work the lobby. A New C. & D. Recent Crosset & Dunlap issues include The Eternal City in a photoplay version at popular price, which will materially aid the sale of the play through store hook-ups. Most of the stills are exteriors of Italian scenery and emphasis is given to the fact that the play was filmed in and about Rome. Don't waste good exploitation on an ordinary picture. Save it up. A Warner Brothers Release AND THE DOGS DIDN’T EVEN GET LITHOGRAPH TICKETS These three police dogs were used for a ballyhoo during the showing of Where the North Begins at Loew’s State Theatre, New York. They were a good general advertisement, but were particularly useful in drawing the attention of lovers of dogs.