World Film and Television Progress (1937-1938)

RITISH TALENT denly to change over to another studio in the same city.) The alien is concerned with getting immediately good results, not in building slowly to achieve a permanent improvement. For, firstly, he is not likely to have his contract and permit renewed if he fails to deliver the goods pretty quickly. And he always has the anxiety of wondering how long he will be allowed to stay, and how long it will be wise to stay, bearing in mind the fact that as he was not much sought after when he left his own country, it may not be long before he is completely forgotten there and his prospects of home employment have entirely evaporated. For these reasons the alien expert tends to watch his own interests in relation to those of his employer rather than to train the staff under him who should be his immediate concern, and whose subsequent competence should be the measure of the value of the expert's present services. If, however, the alien looks forward to settling permanently in the country of his adoption, there is all the more temptation for him not to develop qualities in his subordinates that might bring them on to qualify for the position which he himself holds. One finds cases of alien editors asking their assistants in the presence of their employers : "What have you been cutting this with? A blow-pipe?" One never hears the employer retort: "It is high time the assistants were taught better." And if the assistant answers back in these circumstances he knows there will be trouble for him when he gets back into the cutting-room. Or take the case of the expert foreign cameraman who orders his assistants to shoot exteriors in bad weather conditions, and then shows the work privately to the producers in the projection room with the comment : "How the hell can I get good results when the staff you give me goes out and shoots a bunch of crap like that?" There are numbers of technicians in this country who are condemned to believe that they can never become first-rate in their profession because they never get that chance which is the legitimate adventure due to all promising talent. True, some of them do not deserve ever to get that chance for the simple reason that they should never have been brought into the industry at all. Nearly every production venture recently inaugurated in this country has been guilty of nepotism, both in bringing into the industry new blood that is unsuited for the work, either by temperament, upbringing, or sheer dumbness ; and in promoting to positions of authority incompetent assistants ; the only qualification in every case being blood relationship with the powers that be. However, in spite of the fact that entry into the British film industry is entirely unregu lated and no comprehensive scheme of training has yet been introduced, a considerable proportion of the technicians at present working or unemployed are potentially of the first class, and a sympathetic combing of the industry would soon surprise them into the light of recognition. As it is, promotion in our industry is largely a haphazard, negative affair, based on sudden necessities which leave no other course open. And the surprise of the employer and technician concerned, when it turns out that the promotion was justified, is inevitably followed by a canny feeling on the technician's part that if the employer had had more faith and guts, promotion, and the promotion of others still subordinate, could have taken place long before. In a recent case, a camera operator of long standing, who was obviously ripe for promotion to control of lighting, was ignored and put off by his employers for many months. He has now gone and proved his qualifications to a rival firm, who are successfully employing him in a position which none but aliens hold in his original studio. In another case it took six conversations to induce a certain producer even to examine the work of a new British director. Next day the producer offered the Britisher a film for immediate preparation and direction. And so one could go on quoting instances of the neglect to build within our country, and of the easy, weak policy of looking abroad for established talent. The slump proves that too many producers were incompetent even when supported by the cream of alien talent. Too many of them liked to make expensive films so that they could pay themselves expensive fees. When their films flopped they floated other companies, and up they bobbed again. Now that the slump has taken the market value even out of their charm, let us take confidence and learn from our experiences. Let us believe in ourselves, welcoming the foreigner more judiciously, building our own industry for the exploitation of our own markets, before we begin beating our heads against the wall of opposition with which the Americans have surrounded their market. Then, as we begin to record small but definite results, and begin to make films strangely British and strangely likeable to our own people, we may again attract the honest sympathy of financial interests — those financial interests which have lately retired hurt, drained of resources, and sore at being proved suckers by promoters who were no more film-minded than parasites ever are. NO! 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