Audiovisual work

“ The term of protection of audiovisual works shall expire 70 years after the death of the last of the following persons to survive: the principal director, the author of the screenplay, the author of the dialogue, the composer of music specifically created for the audiovisual works and the cameraman. ”

“ And, therefore, if the financial investment in each film and in popular magazines were not so exorbitant as to require instant and widespread popularity, men of spirit and imagination would be able to use the screen and the periodical, as one might dream of their being used, to enlarge and to refine, to verify and criticize the repertory of images with which our imaginations work. ”

“ Also we must reject the theory that the artistic7 quality of a photoplay can be guaranteed by engaging so-called art directors who design backgrounds or select natural settings for the action of the film story. The picture which we see on the screen consists not of backgrounds alone; it is rather an ever-varying design of moving figures combined with a fixed or changing background. If an art director limits his work to the preparation of material environment of photoplay action, he is, by definition, responsible only for the place-element in the motion picture. ”

“ The camera’s eye may roam the world for subjects; its range equals that of the newspaper or magazine. The stage and literature, travel, science, news and advertising, all are open to the motion picture. The photoplay, presenting a visualized story, is the most popular form, for the public heeds quickest the call of entertainment. But serious students of the motion picture believe that, in time, its purely amusement features will be dwarfed by the development along lines that may be roughly grouped under the heading “educational.” ”

“ The novice may attach little or no importance to this initial move in the creation of a photoplay, but study and the experience that comes with practical analysis and the actual work of plot-building will lend emphasis to the statement that no single consideration demands more careful and thoughtful attention. Let us assume that when the drop-curtain rises in a motion picture theatre and the shadow action commences, the audience is looking, not at figures projected upon a screen, but through a window into the private lives of fictitious characters around whom the plot is woven. ”

“ To the amateur the ideal manner of staging a motion picture is, of course, to handle every detail of the production within the organization, merely going outside to rent a camera, purchase film stock, and finally for the factory work of developing and printing the film. The pleasure of “doing everything yourself” is almost too great to be resisted, but if a successful production is to be assured it is wise to call on professional help in other branches. ”

“ Many of you boys have probably seen them in special lectures on other subjects, for they can be used to show how people live and work in every part of the world and how the various commercial products that so largely govern our lives are made."
170 But the motion-picture man, he explained, is not at all dependent upon what really happens for his films, because if he cannot train the eye of his camera on some occurrence that he desires to transfer to a film, he reproduces it in a studio, spending thousands and thousands of dollars, if necessary for actors, scenery and stage fittings. ”

“ What information there was to be had on the subject was scattered between the pages of various business publications in occasional articles, which fact set me to work to write a concise handbook, embodying everything worth knowing about Motion Picture Advertising.
It will probably seem rather strange to you that an invention like the cinematograph, which has achieved widespread fame as a form of entertainment, can perform the functions of advertising, but it is none the less a fact. Wonders have not yet ceased in this every-day world, believe me. ”

“ But the ‘make-up’ of the motion-picture theater screen differs in that only one thing may be presented at a time. If an advertising film is unfolded, you have no other alternative in the darkened hall than to give it your attention. ”

“ The curse of the motion-picture industry is that in every audience there are from six to seven young women with adenoids who will insist on reading out the titles as they are flashed on the screen, filling the rest of the customers with harsh thoughts and dreams of murder. ”

“ When novels and magazine stories are to provide fare for the screen the producer entrusts the work of adaptation to one of his staff who has a more intimate idea of what is required, and will perform the task far more satisfactorily than the ordinary contributor. ”

“ Its advantage is that the members of the company, not knowing what is coming next, are kept acutely expectant in order to fall naturally into the spirit of the parts and plot; they work themselves to a high pitch of intensity; and this gives the play the vim and animation which are peculiarly requisite for a picture-play. ”

“ This all means that cinematography has become a gigantic industry, giving employment to hundreds of actors, photographers, and the army of men and women engaged in making and showing the films, to say nothing of the thousands of picture theatres that have sprung up in every city and town in the country. ”

“ Between recording the movement and viewing it, time is used for processing and duplication.
Television is structurally different, capturing movement and everything else belonging to what we call reality, in order to make it immediately available to the viewer. Electronic mediation is much more elaborate, has many more layers than cinematography, and as a result is much more efficient. Film mapped from the selected world of movement, in a studio, on the street, or in a laboratory, to a limited viewership: public in a movie theater. ”

“ At its present rate of progress, the cinema will soon become more powerful as an influence upon the minds of the masses than are the newspaper, the novel and the play taken together.
For the sun never sets upon the screen! Day and night, in all parts of the civilized, and an increasing portion of the uncivilized, globe the motion picture is making its imprint upon the minds and souls of countless millions of men, women and children. ”

“ Along with this new public demand for better pictorial qualities in the motion pictures have come higher ideals to those who make and distribute motion pictures. The producers are awakening to their opportunities. They are no longer content with resurrecting defunct stage plays and picturizing them hurriedly, with only enough additions to the bare plot to make the photoplay last five reels. It is not now so much a question of fixing over something old, as of constructing something new. ”

“ The logical follow-up medium for your film is the motion-picture publication field, for every fan takes regularly at least one publication devoted to photoplays, and the cover of national magazine or periodical you have in mind may only catch his eye at the news-stand. ”

“ Almost every motion picture theatre has its orchestra, pianist, or mechanical piano. The perfect photoplay gathering-place would have no sound but the hum of the conversing audience. If this is too ruthless a theory, let the music be played at the intervals between programmes, while the advertisements are being flung upon the screen, the lights are on, and the people coming in.
If there is something more to be done on the part of the producer to make the film a telling one, let it be a deeper study of the pictorial arrangement, with the tones more carefully balanced, the sculpture vitalized. ”

“ Mimic art calls for a sharp milieu, a pronounced environment. Since the descriptive power of the gesture does not extend beyond the hidden contents of the human soul, the figures of an unenvironed motion picture would float about in empty space.
The world of the spoken drama is limited to the cubic feet of space within the theater; the motion picture, on the contrary, has the world for its field; it moves in perfect freedom. The camera follows the actor wherever he may go. ”

“ Considering the position which the motion-picture has attained in our social and industrial life, the establishment of national cinematograph laboratories appears not only to be opportune, but necessary. ”

“ How does the director of a motion picture make sure that pleasing motion will appear upon the screen? Does he alter, or select, his subjects? Does he choose his point of view? Does he patiently wait for the right moment? Or must beauty come by accident, as music might come from a cat’s running over the keyboard of a piano? ”

“ Television maps from many cameras to the entire world, and all can simultaneously partake in its images. Television is distributed and introduces simultaneity in that several events from several locations can be broadcast on the TV screen. By comparison, cinematography is centralized. Filming is limited to the location where it is being carried on. Cinematography is intrinsically sequential in that it follows the narrative structure and constitutes a closed entity. Once edited for showing, the film cannot be interrupted to insert anything new. ”

“ The history of the cinematograph impresses upon us at every turn the necessity which experimenters were under of devising special facilities and improved apparatus in all of the numerous fields that impinged upon their work. They were obliged to break ground in every direction. For instance, besides securing the right kind of film, they had also to find the best means of developing it. ”

“ How can the art of cinematography be brought within the reach of the amateur? This is the absorbing question of the moment. Moving pictures having become so popular, the traveller wishes to secure animated records of the scenes which he has witnessed in foreign climes, to reveal them to his friends, exactly as he saw them, within the home circle. Unfortunately, such an achievement is impossible under existing conditions. The apparatus, both recording and projecting, is expensive; the film is costly; while the problem incidental to the illuminant is not easily solved in the average home. ”

“ The video camera and the video cassette recorder, especially in its digital version, make each of us own not only the receivers of the language of images and sounds, but also emitters, the sources, the private Hollywood studios. That is, they make us live the language of TV, and substitute it for literacy. ”

“ They have, in effect, contrived to breathe life into normally changeless records of the camera; and the process is now applied, with marked success, to animated scenes of the most diverse description. The busy traffic of city streets, the play of expression upon the human countenance, the movements of waves, waterfalls, fleeting clouds—these and many other effects have been depicted upon the screen with equal fidelity before audiences that have seldom failed to show their appreciation of the novel form of entertainment thus provided. ”

“ The old ways of doing were being revolutionized day by day with the introduction of the close-up, switchback,95 light effects, and screen acting that could be recognized as a portrayal of human conduct. Exhibitors soon began clamoring for A. B. pictures, not only for the U. S. A. but for foreign countries as well; and as Mr. Griffith had a commission on every foot of film sold, it was an easy matter for us to judge our ever-increasing popularity. ”

“ One way of gauging the precise lines you should pursue is by keeping track of what the ordinary motion-picture producing concerns are doing. This is why I advise frequent visits to the theaters, in which you can combine pleasure with business. If these producers have experienced the fact that enterprise pays, after long and diligent study of what the fickle public wants, it only goes to bear out my assertion that users of motion-picture advertising should emulate their example. ”

“ In approaching the conclusion of the first half of this series of articles which has given, inadequately and sketchily, a bird’s-eye view of the past and present of the movie as a purveyor of amusement, the writer finds himself turning to other fields of endeavor in which the screen is pushing forward as a pioneer with the hope in his heart, amounting to a certainty, that the screen drama in America is upon the threshold of a great and glorious future. Revolutionary changes in the photo-drama are being brought about by methods arousing intense scientific and technical interest. ”

“ The TV studio is very small, and the camera sees things differently than the audience sees when you're on stage. Things that are done in a circle look like an oval. And diagonal movement has to be done in a straight line. ”

“ Once the camera starts to “grind” you are using film, and if everything is not perfect you are either wasting money on scenes that will have to be retaken, or [Pg 118] else you are weakening the picture should the faults be overlooked. In rehearsing, the director must not only assure himself that the players are capably interpreting the emotions called for by the story, but he must also see that there is no danger of their stepping outside the lines of the camera’s vision in the excitement of the action after photography has started. ”

“ We may tolerate the photoplay because, by the inexpensive technical method which allows an unlimited multiplication of the performances, it brings at least a shadow of the theater to the masses who cannot afford to see real actors. But the cultivated mind might better enjoy plaster of Paris casts and chromo prints and graphophone music than the moving pictures with their complete failure to give us the essentials of the real stage. ”

“ As a medium for drama the screen is only just beginning to break away from the influences that controlled it when it first set out on its career as a pioneer in a new art, namely, the silent presentation of plays and stories. It is still necessary for us who enjoy a photoplay of real merit to exercise care at the entrance to a movie theatre lest we be confronted presently by a screen drama unworthy the attention of intelligent observers. ”