To prohibit and to prevent the trade practices known as "compulsory block-booking" and "blind selling" of motion-picture films in interstate and foreign commerce .. (1939)

TRADE PRACTICES IN MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY 15 treatment would look like in connection with any motion picture now currently being exhibited on the screens of theaters throughout the country. It is doubtful whether the draftsmen knew what it should contain. People engaged in production have given as their honest and bona fide opinion that nothing less than what is termed the "shooting* script" of a motion picture would be sufficient compliance with the synopsis prescribed, and even the shooting script might not be such compliance, for it is well known that two directors with the same shooting script would make translations of such shooting script into photographic action which would make the motion picture entirely different, dependent upon the director. Dialogs, too, in motionpicture production depend a lot upon how they are spoken and the pantomimic action of the actor with which such dialogs are spoken. What are dialogs suggestive of sexual passion or concerning vice, would be a question upon which there could be a great deal of difference of opinion ; whether scenes depicting vice or scenes suggestive of sexual passion are contained in any motion picture, are matters of opinion which might differ with different producers, different exhibitors, and different viewers of the motion picture, but it is impossible to even grasp the idea of how, if it could be possible to know and identify such scenes, they could be translated into a statement in writing describing their manner of treatment in pictures that move, that would not be disputed. According to the testimony nobody who has ever produced a motion picture or written a script for one, or had knowledge of hovf motion pictures are produced could have devised such a meaningless and impossible formula for a prescribed synopsis of a motion picture either to be produced or already produced. Studio officials have given it as their judgment, that six experienced film writers upon seeing a motion picture upon a screen, if they had to prepare the kind of synopsis which is formulated by tlhs provision, would each undoubtedly deliver a writing totally different from the other. It would be an impossible burden to furnish a "shooting script" and no shooting script, of course, describes the manner of treatment by the director of motion pictures. It is obvious that even a shooting script could not be furnished for pictures wliich are sought to be mutually contracted for before they reach the shooting-script or dialog stage, and after the shooting-script or dialog stage, changes must take place in the actual shooting of a film. Even plays after they have been produced, after weeks of rehearsal, are often given different "tvvists" in treatment, and changes in dialog and scenes are made after the production has commenced, in order to improve the performance and to achieve greater excellence. In the production of a motion picture which is so much largely a matter of direction and of cutting and editing of hundreds of feet of negative film for each foot which goes into the motion picture which is presented to the public, once the record is accepted as final, it is impossible of change. There is therefore necessity for changing from the shooting script as the actual shootingtakes place. The provisions of this section are unnecessary, since exhibitors contract in advance of production because they wish to do so, and the choice they make is based on other factors than what is prescribed in the proposed statutory formula for the required synopsis.