Motion Picture News (Jan - Mar 1914)

THE MOTION PICTURE NEWS" 19 How an Exhibitor Made Good Individualizing an audi The Dramatic ence, taking each patron, man or woman, and analyzing his or SUCCeSS frOTTl a her appreciation or disapproval of a program, is a vital factor in successful exhibiting that is rarely appreciated. Every human being is a complex problem. Seldom are there two persons whose tastes, inclinations and desires run parallel. Often the characteristics may be so nearly similar as to be indistinguishable to any but a keen student of human nature. But the fine hairline of difference remains. It is one of the heaviest liabilities checked against the exhibitor. To be indifferent to it is to court disaster. No exhibitor has yet been capable of giving any practical definition of a method that can be converted into general use to solve this problem of character distinction. But one thing is certain. Every human being is heavily endowed by heredity with desire. It is this desire that has quickened progress to its lightning speed in the twentieth century. It is desire that has lifted many present day financial kings from the poverty and toil of their early lives. That desire is knowledge; a yearning to become superior to all others. In some it is a latent spark, ready, in an instant, to be fanned into a burning passion ; in others it has long since awakened to a stage of ambition, keen and unresisting. Rothapfel, the man who wanted to become an exhibitor and did, took all this into consideration as factors that would contribute to his success. They were not forced upon him in a day, nor a week. It took months of patient study, unceasing attention to the slightest detail in the management of the theatre that once had been a dance hall, and later a derelict space, to fathom the hidden secrets that later proved, by their solving, the. basis of a greater future than even he had dared to dream. He had^arted as an exhibitor, his only asset being a series of handicj^ of such great proportions as to discourage any but a mamgpif huge determination. Those quaint, foreign men and womeffc.who constitute the majority of the population just back of TkeRidge, deep in the mining center of Pennsylvania, were his patrons. To them the American tongue was a mystery. Any American was to be suspected and distrusted. Too often had they been jeered and ridiculed, many times had their odd costumes, their stolid, expressionless features and quiet, unassuming manner been hooted and laughed at. "TT required months," explains the man who now sits in -!• consultation with the kings of filmdom, "for me to sense out their desire to learn. They spoke no word of their appreciation. Sometimes they laughed. Exceptional comedies provoked them to such mirth that chairs were broken in their momentary hysteria. They swarmed to the theatre in crowds when the posters told them, in the only language they could understand — pictures — that blood and thunder would prevail at night. It was quite by accident that the exchange sent me a series of dramas containing strong moral lessons. They were quiet when these were shown, but their faces were serious and their eyes puzzled when they left the theatre. The screen characters, beginning, in the first hundred feet, in the guise of laborers, and ending, after the usual phenomenal triumphs of the hero and heroine, in a dazzle of riches and refinement, struck home more deeply than I imagined. The pictures were showing this crude, uneducated people a broader vista of possibilities. They were awakening a latent desire to progress, to improve their positions in life. Ambition was being aroused in these stolid forms, and some day it would become manifest. "I tried, always, to keep just a little in advance of the tastes and desires of my patrons for good pictures. The moral dramas, the scenics and industrials had found a market in this out-of-the-way community. A better class of people. St01"V of a BiQ meaning Americans in business there, c .. n , , came to the theatre, very few in Omall Hegmmng numbers at first, but later as often and as numerously as the foreigners. "At last I had stumbled upon a great secret. Not only did the foreign element seek knowledge and incentive to ambition, but business men, women of social standing, and boys and girls of education as well. Go to any one of them and suggest that they should obtain a greater education, and you would give an insult; hint even at the possibility of such a thing, and you become a bore and a nosey ignoramus. Ninetenths of them don't even dream of the existence of such a desire within them. But it is there. Feed it, cater to it in a thousand and one diplomatic and unseen ways, and they'll come back every time. They are like little boys stealing forbidden fruit. It always tastes better for the stealing. Encourage them to take it, and the desire is gone. "I refused to book many features, certain to attract crowded houses, for the sake of those that would teach and elevate the ideas of my patrons regarding pictures, and which would appeal to that hidden desire. Releases crowded with 'punch' and thrills invariably cause no after comment. The other kind of subjects do. Every individual possesses two natures, whether he be a laborer in a mining town, or the master of a retinue of servants in a metropolis. The one most prominent is the baser nature. It craves morbidness, the momentarily exciting, the suggestive. Satisfied, it hibernates, like a bear, until hunger again calls it forth. There is no remembrance of the feeding between hungers. "TpHE other is more complex in character. It is made up ' of ambition, ideals, a desire for triumph and achievement. It is the nature that has made soldiers, statesmen and leaders in every calling. Concentrate on this latter element of character, and an exhibitor has an ever-present demand. It is never satisfied. The more knowledge and incentive it gets, the more it wants. An added advantage is that the exhibitor has a constant advertising source for his theatre tracing its way through the thoughts of his patrons." This unusual type of exhibitor has strongly founded ideas on Originality in the management of a theatre. "I never watch a competitor," he argues. "It makes one a follower, not a leader. Studying an opponent's methods of operation, his new ideas, his systems of management, is certain to reflect in the work of the student. Glean the important things from the other fellow's business, but change them to meet your own needs. Adapt some of his ideas to your theatre. Don't try to adapt your theatre to his ideas. The best plan is to wait for no man to try a thing first. Courage is necessary in this regard, but what business ever has succeeded unless founded upon a bedrock of courage and chance?" There is an old. time-worn and moss-eaten adage reading : "The man who wants to be successful first must know his own business." Perhaps the wording is incorrect, but the sense is evident. How many exhibitors of to-day understand a projection machine as well as their operator? Some will argue that it isn't necessary, and that it is not essential to know every department of the theatre, from the box office to the orchestra pit. as well as those employed to superintend these adjuncts. In the first weeks of his experience as an exhibitor Rothapfel took issue with his operator over the poor light on the screen. He got the worst of it after a five-minute argument. He found that he didn't know enough about a projector to adjust the reels. Patiently he endured the same unsatisfactory condition for two weeks, but long after the operator had gone for the night, a figure climbed down from the booth, hands and face covered with grime, but always a satisfied grin upon his face. Sometimes dawn found him huddled over