The Moving picture world (November 1925-December 1925)

e Theatre oP To- ffres&ntations '^3^roioqaes '^cMusic SdLtedL bij CoLbif Jfcurriman. What Is Your Idea of Balance? PROGRAM Balance is a study. Program Balance depends upon a producer's or manager's ability as a showman. Program Balance is the keynote by which one may secure an established clientele of satisfied patrons. One of the greatest obstacles we encounter in program analysis is Monotony. Monotony is due to one of two things — Repetition or Similarity. By Repetition we mean the same type of acts week in and week out. By Similarity we mean the lack of diversity in an individual program. The program that fits Broadway may not fit Chicago, and it may not be up to the standards in Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles program may not click on Broadway. These are the high spots, but the man in the smaller city — the managers and producers of the houses outside of these centers, who form the backbone of this presentation business — depend ofttimes too much on what Broadway, Chicago or Los Angeles are doing. Program Balance depends entirely on the manager's or producer's ability to catch the spirit of the community with which he is identified. It is more difficult to secure a program balance in the smaller towns than in the larger cities. This is due to the audience complex. One is 50 per cent, transient and the other is 95 per cent, regular. We would like to secure from various producers and managers an idea of what they consider an ideal program. This necessitates a generalization, but it will prove helpful to the man in the areas from which these ideas come. For instance, Eric Clarke, managing director of the Eastman Theatre, Rochester, sent us an idea which we published a few weeks ago, relative to his program makeup. We have received many favorable kick-backs, and we wish to enlarge the scope of activity. You who are in the South, in the Southwest, in the West, the Middle West, North, New England, what do you consider the ideal program balance for your territory? Back of all of this is the thought towards a standardization. We are on the threshold of something new and something big in this business. Your program balance and your ideas may be the very straws which will indicate which way the wind blows. Short Subject Month. Opportunities URING the past week we have been able to learn many of the details of the campaign to be conducted by the Short Features Association. The campaign will be one of nationwide exploitation and all short subject producers will be represented. Particular attention should be given this month by all producers as it is a golden opportunity and one in which the producer may find his "place in the sun." It was a happy thought when this suggestion was propounded, and is an evidence of progression on the part of the short subject producers that the idea was immediately set to work. There is no reason for a producer to complain that he cannot secure suitable subject matter; that he has the inability to secure novelties, as there are dozens of ideas pounding on his door and begging to be let in. One producer is going to use a series of miniature sets as backgrounds making his stage accompaniment a classic comparable with his film subject. Other producers are preparing to run the gamut of everything from standard sets to trick combinations. We cannot be too emphatic when we say that to be in step with the others and to be one step ahead is to devise a short subject presentation, prologue or epilogue and then tell the world about it. Seal Plush, a New Fabric ANEW fabric is offered on the market which may be readily adapted in costume, drapery and decorative work. It is known by the trade name of Seal Plush because it has the sheen eflfect of a wet seal. The material is very inexpensive and comes in all colors. It has a cotton back and is very soft and pliable. It also carries with it a guarantee of durability. Most of the plush on the market has an erect pile but the pile of the seal plush is flat, and it has a very brilliant and glistening sheen. Plastic Auditions and Wireless Movies SCIENCE again shows its hand. Two interesting reports have come to us from overseas which are of interest to production men in general. The first one comes from Berlin where a scientist and musician by the name of Heinrich J. Kuchenmeister has discovered that sound may be "felt" and reproduced in three dimensions. He has also' utilized the new acoustic principles he has discovered, in devising and constructing a number of instruments which will bring about drastic changes in reproducing instruments. His principal proofs that sound coming from a single source finds a double receptivity in the human ear; and from out of Russia comes the information that a professor in the Saratov University, Leningrad, by the name of Dr. V. Popov has invented a device which will transmit photographs of moving objects with a wireless transmission. Both scientific assertion's are being given serious consideration and value by experts. Personalities ART KAHN and his boys are the rage at the Senate Theatre, Chicago. Every other week this dynamic conductor and his band of 25 present a big specialty on the stage with attendant novelties. Their programs are jazz personified. IRVIN TALBOT, musical director of Fabian's Mosque Theatre, Newark, is at work on a series of original themes for various standard film arrangements. Recently he introduced an impressionistic theme which was one of the outstanding features of his picture score for "The Phantom of the Opera." CAPITOL THEATRE BALLET SCHOOL present six of its pupils in an elaborate "Ballet Espagnol" and the girls are one of the surprises of the bill. CLARK ROBINSON has designed the setting for the presentation prologue to be produced by Rothafel in the showing of the film version of Stella Dallas. .