Reel and Slide (Mar-Dec 1918)

SCENARIO — PRODUCTION — DISTRIBUTION IHE dER FEllOW'S M — • . >i A WELL-KNOWN author's name is but an assurance the story will be good. If it isn't good, the author's name means nothing. A picture star's reputation goes before him or her, but he or she must make good anew each new picture. All of this does not reallj' belong to what we have in mind, but we put it in for good measure. The thought right now is, what's wrong with the industrial film stories ? Exhibit A: Husband has perennial grouch. Forever complains of headache and pains in back. Wife can't figure out what ails him. Tries to cheer him up. Husband refuses to be gay. Doesn't want to go even for a little walk evenings. Pleads that tired feeling. Hurts him to walk. Wife thinks deeply. Happens to take up magazine. Sees double spread ad. Has idea, like a flash ! Puts on hat and coat. Goes to shoe closet and extracts husband's pet brogans. Takes them to cobbler and has them heeled. Cobbler is honest and uses the only kind. Wife delighted. Next morning husband puts on rejuvenated shoes. Comes home in evening. Changed man. Skips about like two-year-old. Husband embraces wife ardently. First time in twenty-two j-ears, five daj's, seven hours and eighteen minutes. This is put in gratis, free, for nothing by camera man with bump of humor. Husband begs, simply begs his wife to go walking this evening. Both go. Down the street they see big electric sign. Both stop and admire. Husband says : "And to think that our happiness from now on depends on it." Wife answers : "Oh, John, I am so glad." Iris-out husband and wife in clinch. Fade-in close view of electric sign. Guess no longer. O' Sullivan's Rubber Heels. Exhibit B : Indian barefooted walking and running. Close-up of bare heel, showing natural cushion protection. Various types of human race in diiTerent historical periods, each type with proper footwear as used. Emphasize pernicious effects of outlandish shoes whenever shown. Scientific drawing of diagram-skeleton showing lucidly and tersely the damage done by continuous jar as caused by hard leather heel. Flash of scene showing "bastonade" as applied in Turkey. (Explain that bastonade is a form of punishment, the culprit receiving any stated number of lashes delivered by a bamboo cane upon his bare heels.) Title indicating: "This is exactly what you are doing to yourself the year around, when you wear hard wooden or leather heels." Show O'Sullivan factory. Interesting items in manufacturing process. Quantity of output. Explain difference in live rubber. Why rubber heels are superior, why heels are beneficial to people in_ various businesses and professions. Finish with healthy old man, title indicating: "A long life, well heeled." TAKE your choice. Exhibit B may not be the beau ideal, but, it is a random suggestion of treating the subject in an interesting and dignified manner. Exhibit A, on the other hand, is an ex ample of the idiotic balderdash which has for so long discredited film advertising and made it so terribly difficult to get industrial films on the theater screen. Whereas, the national advertiser has usually gauged the general public's likes and dislikes as to his printed advertisements, he has failed lamentably to gauge that same public's taste for industrial films. As a general rule, ad films have been no more than a continuation of the dead poster, that is to say, the ad film was hardly ever more than the poster coming to life and moving in the same limited frame, phj'sically and psychologically. Also, the national advertiser has insisted too long on underestimating the intelligence of the great eighty per cent picture theater goers, and has given them a primer when they were crying for a text book. Look at any five-reel photoplay in a firstclass picture theater and you will see literature which compares favorably with any of the six best selling printed novels. All the more so since nowadays most best selling novels are hardly off the presses before they are being filmed. ON the other hand, look at the wonderful examples of educational film to be seen ; the last word of science in every department of knowledge, microscopic photography, telescopy, etc. When one may actually see a blade of grass grow on the screen, when one may see the interior of Vesuvius during an eruption, when one may see every step in the making of a sixteen-inch gun — then, why insult audience intelligence by foisting upon it a picture of a man snatched from the jaws of wasting disease within two weeks and the answer being "Grape Nuts"? WHICH brings us right to one of our salient points. Why does the advertiser always insist on camouflaging his industrial film with a so-called "story" ? Why does he insist in turn on calling this socalled "story" an injection of human interest? Are lolly pops and sweet spirits of nitre the only human interests in the calendar? How about showing an audience that a billiard ball is made of curdled milk? Would no human being be interested in that? Or would they be more interested in the subject of billiard balls if you showed how a girl, sweet sixteen and never kissed, after clandestinely practicing billiards for two days, beat her pomadoured fiance three games straight — the wager being a five-pound box of Huyler's surpassing chocolates? (Thereby linking up two products.) THERE are many indications that national advertisers are being influenced by the inroads of motion pictures in modern sales promotion. This is indicated most strikingly by the tendency of copywriters to tell often their sales arguments pictorially in the columns of magazines and newspapers. There are very few printed ads today that do not depend upon visualization to quickly "sell" the casual reader. Glance through the big weeklies or monthly publications and note this tendency. The reason is very easily seen. Moving pictures are in a large measure responsible. There can be no doubt of this fact. An eastern motor manufacturer of trucks has gone so far as to select certain scenes from his industrial reel to use in his trade paper announcements. The picture says so much more quickly and convincingly what he wants to convey that he has developed the idea of graphic portrayal in his publication space. SINCE war needs have revolutionized the economic status of the laboring man, the latter has become the pampered pet of capitalists and manufacturers. In controlling American labor supply and keeping the working man contented and informed, moving pictures are playing an important part to an extent not realized bj' the public. The writer was recently in conversation with Mrs. Jane S. Johnson, secretary of the Division of Films of the Committee on Public Information, concerning the widespread projection of government win-thewar films in large industrial plants in all parts of the United States. Scores of manufacturers engaged in war work, Mrs. Johnson pointed out, are installing machines for the benefit of their employes who have no good theater near by. Instructive pictures are found on each program. The films are calculated to instill an understanding of America's reasons for going to war, as well as to aid in showing the worker how he can help win it bj' working efficiently. Many of these concerns are also showing pictures explanatory of the processes of manufacture, technical and otherwise. THE United States Fuel Administration, not to be behind hand in adopting every modern method of thought transference, are effectively showing the men who stoke America's furnaces how to get the most heat and energy out of a ton of coal by moving pictures. These films are interesting even to the layman. There are three reels in all, produced by the Industrial Department of Universal. The present campaign is directed towards more efficient methods here and hereafter, as the economic waste will continue to be a drain and an abuse, if not corrected, even after normal conditions are restored by the coming of peace. The film is a comparative exposition of right and wrong methods of firing and shows with what little care and expense the average small plant can decrease its coal bills 25 per cent. The lesson is strikingly driven home by the device of the parallel narrative. Another United States fuel film shows in detail the standard practice at a large central station plant, whereby with complete modern equipment and scientific supervision almost double the fuel efficiency that is ordinarily yielded in the average small plants is obtained. It is interesting, in this connection, that fuel engineers working in co-operation with the administration scouted the idea of an effective film on so technical a subject as firing. It seemed to them not only hopeless photographically, but to promise nothing that would compel or hold interest. They have changed their opinion, however. — E. J. Clary. Make Your Dollars Fight