The Moving picture world (January 1920-February 1920)

864 THE MOVI^JG PICTURE WORLD February 7, 1920 Famous Players -Lasky Executives and EXECUTIVES and sales representatives of Famous Players-Lasky Corporation from all the districts and branches . of the organization throughout the United States opened the first national convention of its character ever called in the history of the moving picture industry at the Hotel La Salle, Chicago, Monday morning, January 19, and closed Friday evening, January 23. Adolph Zukor, president of the organization; Jesse L. Lasky, vice president; Arthur S. Friend, treasurer, and H. D. H. Connick, chairman of the finance committee, did not arrive until the Friday morning session, making the closing day the most interesting and spectacular of the convention. Monday's Sessions. The convention was called for the purpose of discussing problems of sales, distribution and exploitation. The opening session was conducted by Al Lichtman, general manager of the department of distribution, at which he sounded the keynote of the convention. He reviewed the history and development of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation from the days of the Famous Players Film Company, the original organization, and the first feature release, "Queen Elizabeth," up to the present time, and he touched on the various problems that had been encountered and which resulted in the development of various plans of distribution. Mr. Lichtman reviewed the various sales and distribution methods which had been followed in the past and announced that the sales organization was going back to first principles, namely, that every picture would be ultimately distributed and exploited solely on the basis of its own merit, without reference to any other consideration. "All the methods of the past have been makeshift methods," said the speaker. "These were developed and employed to meet emergencies as they arose. None Company Will Institute Individual Exploitation and Feature Aids to Exhibitors were based on a consideration of all the elements of solid fundamentals. One picture is the hasis of the industry and each picture must be distributed to the exhibitor and to the public absolutely on its own merit. The time of the exhibitor must be measured against the quality of the picture. Era of Specialization. "This is the era of specialization and we must be specialists on every picture. We are organizing a special force of exploitation experts and salesmen combinging the dut'es of selling first to the exhibitor for the producer, and then selling to the public for the exhibitor. The plan calls for the recreation of our sales force. It calls for the organization of a corps of film experts, who will consider each production as a living thing and not as so many cans of film. This exploitation force will be increased by one man for each exchange, he to work urder direct control from the home office and in thorough harmony and co-optration with the branch executives." After the opening session the publicity and advertising department and the exploitation force met in separate session, with John C. Flinn, director of publicity and advertising, presiding, to discuss exploitation problems. The distribution department continued its departmental sessions, with Mr. Lichtman presiding. Tuesday's Sessions. Problems arising in the sales and exploitation departments of Famous Players-Lasky Corporation were considered in detail durinj; the second day of the convention of executives and representatives of the sales and exploitation department. Among the items of discussion were film service on a percentage basis and the element of skipped bookings. Methods to reduce the number of skipped bookings were also discussed. One of the interesting features of the session was the urgent instruction given to branch managers that reports be made to the home office, New York, on all salesmen who show promise of developing their ability, so as to justify placing them in positions of greater responsibility. In the course of the general discussion Mr. Lichtman said: "We are going to continue to be the leaders in this industry both in production and in distribution. We can distribute in any way that any other organization can distribute, and in any way that their product can be distributed. Won't Shut Out Exhibitors. "Exhibitors have taken in $750,000,000 through their box offices in the lasv year and we feel that we could invest our money in the exhibiting end of the business with chances of getting better returns on our investment than we now receive; but wc feel that if we were to do this we would shut out other exhibitors and thus cut of? our own production outlet." A tribute was paid to Cecil B. DeMille for the quality of his releases. John C. Flinn, director of advertising and publicity, outlined the general plan of publicity and exploitation which will be adopted, by which each production will be given individual exploitation by experts in the field. Claud Saunders manager of the department of exploitation, followed, giving further details of this plan of development. Terome Beatty, advertising manager, detailed the improvements that have been made in poster paper designs, and described the The Initial National Convention of Famous Players-Lasky Held in Chicago — a Mighty Gathering of the Idea Clan. Gathered here around the banquet and conclave board, stopping only momentarily for this pictorial record.