Reel and Slide (Jan-Sep 1919)

EDITORIALS America's Commercial Crusade Depends on the Motion Picture Screen THE biggest business organizations in the United States today are looking to other countries — other continents — to buy their wares. Home consumption in the past has absorbed a sufficiently large part of our industrial products to make the American business man somewhat indifferent to the rich fields that lie beyond the seas. The World War and our part in it has largely changed this attitude. In all lines, the progressive elements are determined to approach, sell to and collect from the Hindu, the Peruvian, the African and even the Chinaman. Some of these progressives have had sufficient vision to see that the motion picture is the one medium by which the necessary preliminary "educational campaign" can be carried on successfully. In the first place, the well-made moving picture will assure the attention of these people, to many of whom the film itself is a novelty. In the second place, the less literate a people are, the more easily they are convinced by seeing. In the third place, the moving picture is best suited to the work of gaining the confidence of the people with whom our business men would trade, since a graphic idea of the processes and places of production can be conveyed in a "language" that even the Hottentot well understands. No one familiar with the export business denies that a long and costly "educational campaign" is necessary in order to sell goods to people foreign in tongue, habits and customs to us. Heretofore, until the moving picture came into practical use, this process of education was carried on by word of mouth or by printed matter, the latter especially ineffective because of the illiteracy of the people it was aimed to convince. Whatever else the motion picture may be, it is certainly the greatest demonstrator available for the washing machines, automobiles, farm implements and sewing machines of America. It can, by the use of "portable projectors, do the educational work necessary in South America, for instance, in one-tenth part of the time required by scores of traveling salesmen, looked upon with suspicion and dependent upon translated oratory and unread pamphlets and catalogues. It can carry the work into the wilds of the Andes, into the rich but undeveloped interior of Mongolia, educating the native into being a good customer, raising his scale of living and adding to his own comfort and happiness. This is largely because he will look at a picture and he will understand it; and he believes that what. he sees must be true, that the eye cannot falsify. There are agencies at work now which undertake to get widespread distribution of industrial-educational pictures in a dozen foreign lands. With a single reel on constant exhibition in any one of these countries, the advertiser has the equivalent of a hundred "oratorical salesmen" at work. Two of these film firms, specializing in the production of industrial pictures of a high grade, can now go so far as to supply the information necessary concerning market conditions in these lands and giving a direct tie-up with the advertiser's method of selling and distributing his product. Thus, the film" as a commercial trail blazer is rapidly coming into its own. It is heralding the great American Merchant Marine fleet and opening the way, through its educational powers, to a greater and greater expansion of the export business of this country. No firm that is seriously considering export business today can afford to overlook the motion picture. It is the first step — the "educational" step. New Use for Films THE moving picture has suddenly become a power for coaching in baseball, golf, football and other sports, by the analysis of motion to the minutest detail. Through a device invented by a Frenchman the new Pathe camera can produce on the screen a man or a horse in full action at top speed and then reduce it a minute later to a slow walk — so slow that any mistake, any lost motion, is vividly disclosed. It is striking to see a pitcher deliver a ball to the catcher as if on the diamond and then see every motion reduced eight times less than normal, with the follow through of the arm, every twist of the body and legs, and the ball floating up to the catcher with the effective shoot, out or in, in all the time necessary to fully appreciate every little detail. It is amazing to see a close decision on a hook slide into second base which looked as if the runner was out, slowed down to show that he not only was safe, but "safe a mile," as the fans say. It may yet prove a perfect alibi for many an umpire. The technical explanation given by a Pathe official follows : "In one second with the ordinary camera sixteen pictures are taken, and they are projected at the rate of sixteen pictures a second, thus showing the normal speed. "With the new Pathe camera the analysis of motion, as it is termed, takes 128 pictures in one second and they are then projected at the normal rate of sixteen pictures per second. At this rate it takes eight seconds to project 128 pictures that are taken by the analysis of motion camera. Consequently the action is slowed eight times less than normal." Anyway, the pictures must be seen to be thoroughly appreciated and if present plans are carried out the films will be released some time irj February. Followers of all sports can anticipate much pleasure in seeing them. It can be said, however, that the possibilities not only in baseball but even more in football, golf, lawn tennis,